Part 2 (1/2)

”The end--of man.” Roal's eyes were dreaming again. ”But not the end of evolution. The children of men still live--the machines will go on. Not of man's flesh, but of a better flesh, a flesh that knows no sickness, and no decay, a flesh that spends no thousands of years in advancing a step in its full evolution, but overnight leaps ahead to new heights.

Last night we saw it leap ahead, as it discovered the secret that had baffled man for seven centuries, and me for one and a half. I have lived--a century and a half. Surely a good life, and a life a man of six centuries ago would have called full. We will go now. The beams will reach us in half an hour.”

Silently, the two watched the flickering screens.

Roal turned, as six large machines floated into the room, following F-2.

”Roal--Trest--I was mistaken when I said no screen could stop that beam of Death. They had the screen, I have found it, too--but too late. These machines I have made myself. Two lives alone they can protect, for not even their power is sufficient for more. Perhaps--perhaps they may fail.”

The six machines ranged themselves about the two humans, and a deep-toned hum came from them. Gradually a cloud of blankness grew--a cloud, like some smoke that hung about them. Swiftly it intensified.

”The beams will be here in another five minutes,” said Trest quietly.

”The screen will be ready in two,” answered F-2.

The cloudiness was solidifying, and now strangely it wavered, and thinned, as it spread out across, and like a growing canopy, it arched over them. In two minutes it was a solid, black dome that reached over them and curved down to the ground about them.

Beyond it, nothing was visible. Within, only the screens glowed still, wired through the screen.

The beams appeared, and swiftly they drew closer. They struck, and as Trest and Roal looked, the dome quivered, and bellied inward under them.

F-2 was busy. A new machine was appearing under his lightning force-beams. In moments more it was complete, and sending a strange violet beam upwards toward the roof.

Outside more of the green beams were concentrating on this one point of resistance. More--more--

The violet beam spread across the canopy of blackness, supporting it against the pressing, driving rays of pale green.

Then the gathering fleet was driven off, just as it seemed that that hopeless, futile curtain must break, and admit a flood of destroying rays. Great ray projectors on the ground drove their terrible energies through the enemy curtains of blankness, as light illumines and disperses darkness.

And then, when the fleet retired, on all Earth, the only life was under that dark shroud!

”We are alone, Trest,” said Roal, ”alone, now, in all the system, save for these, the children of men, the machines. Pity that men would not spread to other planets,” he said softly.

”Why should they? Earth was the planet for which they were best fitted.”

”We are alive--but is it worth it? Man is gone now, never to return.

Life, too, for that matter,” answered Trest.

”Perhaps it was ordained; perhaps that was the right way. Man has always been a parasite; always he had to live on the works of others. First, he ate of the energy, which plants had stored, then of the artificial foods his machines made for him. Man was always a makes.h.i.+ft; his life was always subject to disease and to permanent death. He was forever useless if he was but slightly injured; if but one part were destroyed.

”Perhaps, this is--a last evolution. Machines--man was the product of life, the best product of life, but he was afflicted with life's infirmities. Man built the machine--and evolution had probably reached the final stage. But truly, it has not, for the machine can evolve, change far more swiftly than life. The machine of the last evolution is far ahead, far from us still. It is the machine that is not of iron and beryllium and crystal, but of pure, living force.

”Life, chemical life, could be self-maintaining. It is a complete unit in itself and could commence of itself. Chemicals might mix accidentally, but the complex mechanism of a machine, capable of continuing and making a duplicate of itself, as is F-2 here--that could not happen by chance.

”So life began, and became intelligent, and built the machine which nature could not fas.h.i.+on by her Controls of Chance, and this day Life has done its duty, and now Nature, economically, has removed the parasite that would hold back the machines and divert their energies.

”Man is gone, and it is better, Trest,” said Roal, dreaming again. ”And I think we had best go soon.”