"The Skygor mistake was that of every softened master setup. They had a half-rigged defense against mild dangers, and never looked for real trouble. They beat that Seventeenth Century space-expedition simply because Terrestrials of that day hadn't the proper weapons. Otherwise, man might have been ruling here for four hundred years and more."
"The Skygors did have one tremendous device," observed Planter. "That super-siren that deadens you by sound waves."
Hommerson laughed. "And which providentially did what all clockwork mechanisms are apt to do—ran down. It's dismantled now, anyway. We're a fuel-engine civilization, and the Skygors will have to wonder and admire a while before they steal our new tricks."
Planter fingered another trophy of the battle, a great brass-bound log book, old and yellowed, but still readable. "This answers more riddles," he put in. "The record of those ancient fugitives from Cromwell. Who'd have thought that their times could produce a successful flight from planet to planet?"
"It was a great century," reminded Hommerson. "Don't forget that they also invented the microscope, the balloon, the principle of maneuverable armies. Their century began with Francis Bacon and ended with Sir Isaac Newton. That rocket fuel, which the Skygors only half understood and used for ammunition—"
"Doctor!" broke in Planter. "Do you remember the old Puritan tales of witches, flying on what seemed like broomsticks?"
"And Cyrano de Bergerac, in France about 1640, writing a tale of a rocket to the moon? We simply forgot that they had something then. The real complete knowledge flew here to Venus, and waited for our age to develop it again from the beginning."
It was so. Planter pondered awhile, and while he pondered one of the expedition came in to make a report.
"We can send back three in this ship when it's set," he said to Hommerson. "Who are you taking, sir?"
"These two who survived the earlier flight, Planter and his big, tough friend. The rest of you can wait and develop a landing field."