Master of Life and Death by Robert Silverberg (beautiful books to read .TXT) 📕

and a thousand more until a billion of Earth's multitudes were on the new world. There was a great deal of paperwork involved in transporting a billion people through space. Walton's desk groaned with a backlog of work.

He glanced up. No stars were visible, of course, in the midday sky, but he knew that New Earth was out there somewhere. And near it, Dirna.

Some day, he thought, we'll have learned to control our growth. And that will be the day the Dirnans give us back our immortality formula.

A warning siren sounded suddenly, and ship number one sprang up from Earth, hovered for a few instants on a red pillar of fire, and vanished. Director Walton looked blankly at the place where the ship had been, and, after a moment, turned away. Plenty of work waited for him back in New York.

End of Project Gutenberg's Master of Life and Death, by Robert Silverberg