But his point had been made, and Lenk turned it over. Then, with a shout, he headed toward the headquarters of the two remaining scientists. He found them sitting quietly, watching a reel of some kind being projected through an alien device.
"I hear it's Armageddon we're facing," he said.
He expected grins of amusement from them—or at least from Jeremy. But none came. Aimes nodded.
"First progress in all directions. Then a period when religion seems to be in the decline. Then a revival, and a return to faith in the prophecies. All religions agree on those prophecies, Lenk. Revelations refer to the end of Armageddon, when the whole world will wipe itself out before the creation of a better world, in one planet-wide war. The old Norse legends spoke of a Fimbulvetr, when the giants and their gods would destroy the earth in war. And these green-skinned peoples had the same religious prophecies. They came true, too. Armageddon. Contagious Armageddon."
Lenk stared from one to the other, suspecting a joke. "But that still leaves coincidence—the way things move from planet to planet...."
"Not at all," Jeremy said. "These people didn't have space travel, but they had some pretty highly developed science. They found what we thought we'd disproved—an ether drift. It would carry spores from planet to planet—and in the exact direction needed to account for what we've seen. Races were more advanced back that way, less so the way we first went, simply because of the time it took the spores to drift."
"And what about the destruction?" Lenk asked woodenly. Their faces were getting him—they looked as if they believed it. "Is there another disease spore to drive races mad?"
"Nothing like that. Just the natural course of cultures when they pass a certain level," Jeremy answered. "I should have seen that myself. Every race follows the same basic pattern. The only question is how much time we've got left—a week or a thousand years?"
They turned back to their projection device, but Lenk caught the xenologist by the shoulder and swung him back. "But they didn't have space travel! That doesn't fit their pattern. Even if you're right...."
Jeremy nodded. "We don't have the secret of immortality, either. And this race did. But, damn it, I'd still like to know what happened to all those skeletons?"