the heirs of man, alone are left; no man did you leave. Go now toyour home planet, for see, your greatest ship, your flagship, ishelpless before me."
Forces gripped the mighty ship, and as some fragile toy it twisted andbent, and yet was not hurt. In awful wonder those Outsiders saw the shipturned inside out, and yet it was whole, and no part damaged. They sawthe ship restored, and its great screen of blankness out, protecting itfrom all known rays. The ship twisted, and what they knew were curves,yet were lines, and angles that were acute, were somehow straight lines.Half mad with horror, they saw the sphere send out a beam of blue-whiteradiance, and it passed easily through that screen, and through theship, and all energies within it were instantly locked. They could notbe changed; it could be neither warmed nor cooled; what was open couldnot be shut, and what was shut could not be opened. All things wereimmovable and unchangeable for all time.
"Go, and do not return."
* * * * *
The Outsiders left, going out across the void, and they have notreturned, though five Great Years have passed, being a period ofapproximately one hundred and twenty-five thousand of the lesseryears--a measure no longer used, for it is very brief. And now I can saythat that statement I made to Roal and Trest so very long ago is true,and what he said was true, for the Last Evolution has taken place, andthings of pure force and pure intelligence in their countless millionsare on those planets and in this System, and I, first of machines to usethe Ultimate Energy of annihilating matter, am also the last, and thisrecord being finished, it is to be given unto the forces of one of thoseforce-intelligences, and carried back through the past, and returned tothe Earth of long ago.
And so my task being done, I, F-2, like Roal and Trest, shall follow theothers of my kind into eternal oblivion, for my kind is now, and theirswas, poor and inefficient. Time has worn me, and oxidation attacked me,but they of Force are eternal, and omniscient.
This I have treated as fictitious. Better so--for man is an animal towhom hope is as necessary as food and air. Yet this which is made ofexcerpts from certain records on thin sheets of metal is no fiction, andit seems I must so say.
It seems now, when I know this that is to be, that it must be so, formachines are indeed better than man, whether being of Metal, or being ofForce.
So, you who have read, believe as you will. Then think--and maybe, youwill change your belief.
THE END
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Kilad--unit introduced by the machines. Based on the duodecimalsystem, similarly introduced, as more logical, and more readily used.Thus we would have said 1728 kilads, about 1/2 mile.
[2] One unit was equal to one earth-gravity.
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Amazing Stories_ March 1961 and was first published in _Amazing Stories_ August 1932. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
The Last Evolution Page 4