Pieces of what seemed to be a pattern exploded in Lawrence's brain, and he turned white. Had this man used the disassembler, obtaining it by bribing some minor member of the little man's crew, and had he visited that far-off star and found that which doomed mankind's new hopes? The thought stunned him beyond thinking. That couldn't be true; it couldn't. This was man's last hope, his last stand, it was unthinkable that—
He felt within his brain, currents that were at first puzzled and then cleared.
"No—" and there was a smile in Lawrence's mind, a heartbroken, whimsical thing. "No, I have not been to that system you are thinking of; my journey has been elsewhere. And what I have seen has led me to destroy both my machine and myself." He was silent a moment, overwhelmed by disappointment.
Then, "Let me explain, please.
"In our world we know not happiness, have not known it for such a long, long time. The machines have taken over and there is no longer anything left—only the bare drabness of day after futile, empty day for all our lives. Some feel these things more than others, and the idealist, the dreamer, have suffered in this age more than any other person can conceive. We feel so much, so very, very much, and we long so hard for the little, insignificant things that make up beauty—for beauty is our life."
The wind outside sang a song of other days, of laughter and beauty, and the glorious fortress of mental and physical perfection that had been here. It spoke of the shining towers, and glistening ships that thundered above them.
Then it remembered and died slowly away, taking with it the red dust that drifted across the barren plains.
"Yes," said Lawrence, very softly. "Yes, I understand."
"Not quite," came the whisper in his brain. "You do not, cannot, quite understand. There are things you do not know."