Once Upon A Planet

"Good-bye, then, Bly Stanton," Hays said. "And good luck."

Bly Stanton did not turn as he clambered over the rock ramparts. And after a while the night hid him in its sable fold.

The man climbed the last ridge of the giant sand dune and looked down at a setting moon sending a long slanting fan of silver over an immense lake. He had seen the lake many years before, had almost forgotten its existence so long ago had it been.

He turned and looked at the ruins, rising pyramid-like from the tree line to the north. Chicago had been the name of a vast city which had existed here. There had been other cities as large, and some larger. From the deepest recesses of his mind, Stanton remembered an almost forgotten fact. There had been more than