Adventures in the Far Future & Tales of Outer Space — page 227: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“I came because—because in this ship of yours, here, in this radio set, in your control-room, in the parts of your ship where your books and records are—they’re all part of a great well of abundant life, of energy, of warmth and strength that soon will be gone for us, Mr. Latham—” Her voice broke, and she kept her lips tightly together. | didn’t understand, and | kept my big mouth shut. | wanted to do something. | wanted to do anything to take the agony out of her eyes. All | could do was sit there. Teacher, yes— Learned One, of a truly great race—yes, all that—and at the Same time a young girl, scared. Awfully scared of something, and scared helpless... . “Mr. Latham, it’s—it’s so odd that you came when you did, here, to Mars. If it had been a hundred, or even fifty, ten years ago—or one or a hundred years from now— “Just—coincidence, that’s all it can be called. Or irony, perhaps ... that now, out of all the hundreds of years of development and progress of both our civilizations—now, of all times, it’s so—” she hesitated a long moment. And then, “We're dying, Mr. Latham. Dying before your eyes—” her face was a small, tight thing—“and in three to six more months—perhaps less, but certainly no more—we shall all be dead on this planet... . “You weren't supposed to know. It is an inhospitable thing to inflict one’s own hardships on a guest” Hardships, she called it. | just stayed sitting, trying to let it sink in. Trying to make it something | could understand, could comprehend. Yes, they were an ancient race, had been forced to great lengths’ for _ self-preservation—had, nonetheless, been reduced through the years to hardly a hundredth of their former number, which had at its height been small by Earth standards. Yes, all that made sense. But dying, in a matter of months... . CORniclooo SS CO