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It was dark in the hole and, of course, there was no ventilation, but Kane paid no attention to that With the sureness of instinct, he clambered upward toward the hole that would receive hi the cavity neatly, as though it were a wo the last of the vitals, close the passage, and leave Kane there, unknowingly Kane would be the sole bit of flesh and blood in a thing of metal and cera prematurely discovered No one in the project knew the hole was there The design didn&039;t call for it Theput it in

Kane had arranged that entirely by hied it but he knew he had

He could watch his own influence without knowing hoas exerted Take the man Hammer, for instance, the leader of the project and the ures about Kane, he was the least indistinct Kane would be very aware of him at times, when he passed near hirounds It was all that was necessary - passing near him

Kane recalled it had been so before, particularly with theoreticians When Lise Meitner decided to test for bariu the products of the neutron bombardment of uraniu a corridor nearby

He had been picking up leaves and trash in a park in 1904 when the young Einstein had passed by, pondering Einstein&039;s steps had quickened with the iht Kane felt it like an electric shock

But he didn&039;t knoas done Does a spider know architectural theory when it begins to construct its first web?

It went further back The day the young Newton had stared at the ht, Kane had been there And further back still

The panorama of New Mexico, ordinarily deserted, was alive with hu upward This one was different from all the similar structures that had preceded it

This would go free of Earth more nearly than any other It would reach out and circle theback It would be craraph the moon and measure its heat emissions, probe for radioactivity, and test by microwave for che that could be expected of a h to make certain that the next ship sent out would be a manned vehicle

Except that, in a way, this first one was a manned vehicle after all

There were representatives of various governroupings There were television cameras and feature writers

Those who could not be there watched in their ho rown traditional in a mere three decades

At zero the reaction motors came to life and ponderously the ship lifted

Kane heard the noise of the rushing gases, as though froainst hi it up and outward, freeing it froht be unaware of the pain and disco journey was nearly over He would no longer have topeople realize he was iround, no longer wander eternally fro minds

It had not been perfect, of course TheDutchman had arisen, but he was still here He had not been disturbed

He could see his spot in the sky Through the mass and solidity of the ship he could see it Or not "see" really He didn&039;t have the proper word

He knew there was a proper word, though He could not say how he knew a fraction of the things he knew, except that as the centuries had passed he had gradually grown to know them with a sureness that required no reason

He had begun as an ovu for which "ovum" was the nearest word he knew), deposited on Earth before the first cities had been built by the wandering hunting creatures since called "enitor Not every world would do

What world would? What was the criterion? That he still didn&039;t know

Does an ichneuy before it finds the one species of spider that will do for her eggs, and stings it just so in order that it may reth and he took the shape of a ainst e to havea path that would end with a ship and within the ship a hole and within the hole, hiht thousand years of slow striving and stu

The spot in the sky became sharper now as the ship moved out of the atmosphere That was the key that opened his mind That was the piece that completed the puzzle

Stars blinked within that spot that could not be seen by a man&039;s eye unaided One in particular shone brilliantly and Kane yearned toward it The expression that had been building within hi burst out now

"Home," he whispered

He knew? Does a salraphy to find the headwaters of the fresh-water stream in which years before it had been born?

The final step was taken in the slow ht thousand years, and Kane was no longer larval, but adult

The adult Kane fled from the human flesh that had protected the larva, and fled the ship, too It hastened onward, at inconceivable speeds, toward hos through space to fertilize soiving no thought to the ship carrying an eht to the fact that it had driven a whole world toward technology and space travel in order only that the thing that had been Kane ht mature and reach its fulfillment

Does a bee care what has happened to a flohen the bee has done and gone its way?