Both men sat silently, each lost in his thoughts. "You loved her very much, didn't you?" asked Don of the older man.
"As much or more than if she had actually been my own daughter."
"I know how you feel," Don said softly. "And I can understand now why she's been so evasive with me during the past few weeks. Before that I—we had sort of planned...."
"I know, Don," the scientist broke in. "She told me." They arose slowly, the thought of Shiela tying them closer together than ever before, and started for the house.
4
Sporadic raids by the roboes still continued and it was obvious, by the list of supplies they had stolen, that their attempt to escape into space would shortly be made. The military forces had shot hundreds of searcher rockets into an orbit around Earth whose sole purpose would be to seek and destroy any ship attempting to slip through to outer space. They had been so designed that, once having reached their pre-determined orbit, their rocket thrust was broken off and would be reactivated only when directed by radar from the ground or when the metallic bodies of the fugitive ships passed nearby.
Evidence of a super weapon possessed by the ancients now became concrete enough that General Adams proclaimed it a military secret; a team of scientists, headed by Dr. Stone, was put on it. Don neither noted nor cared that the general had seen to it that he was barred from the research.
A growing undertone of excitement from the specialists made him demand an explanation from Stone. The scientist explained, "We've found out that the history was written by the last of the ancients. Some of the early miracles passed down through the ages were evidently the last spasms of a dying civilization."
They were in the garden and he looked at the light flooding the house, shaking his head slowly. "One point that's not clear yet is whether or not they used the weapon finally developed for use against the robots. I'm personally inclined to think that it wasn't."