"I must go, Bari. I'm glad to go, after these weary ages of waiting. Even the Stone must die, Bari! And there is one mystery left. One veil that only death can pierce. I hope—I believe—that behind it we shall find what all our incarnations have strived for in vain."
I groped after her vanishing shadow.
"But, Dona!" I cried. "From where the mirror hurls us, there can be no returning. Malgarth said—"
"But Malgarth is dead!" the ghost of her voice came back. "He died before we were thrown outside the universe. Now his New Robots rule the mirror. And they are not evil, Bari, since his dominion is removed—things so beautiful could not be. They respect mankind, as the makers of the robots—and the destroyer of Malgarth! They promise now to be the friends of man, Bari—and the two races, striving in friendship together, can reach a greatness never dreamed of!
"They control the mirror, Bari. They can set its focus back in our universe."
"If they are friendly—" the question burned away my own concern—"what of the others? Verel and Kel? Is it too late—?"
"The science of the New Robots can save their lives," that receding voice told me. "They will be leaders among the survivors of mankind.—They are weeping, now, for you, Bari."
"The other two?" I asked anxiously.
"Even they survive," said that dying whisper in the pit. "That same power of the mirror that hurled them out of space, the New Robots used to bring them back, before they perished. They cannot speak of what they saw beyond. The engineman is silently chewing his weed; the cook, sobbing for a drink."