"Evan, those animals in the cages! We thought they looked like men didn't we? Here's something else: Maybe they are men, in a way! Men who went backward in evolution; lost their intelligence."
No one but Harwich could have heard the boy, for he spoke in a very low tone. But at once the patrol pilot understood; grasped a part of the Ionian riddle that he had missed before. Machines. No thinking or work to do. Indolence. And then?
At once Harwich saw a way, a slim possibility to avert cosmic catastrophe. He couldn't appeal to Bayley's reason, but maybe he could appeal to his fears. He had to try it, anyway.
Suddenly the patrol pilot's lips curled in derision and contempt. "Bayley," he said, "you're an utter damned fool! You think you'll extend your power all over the solar system. Well, maybe you will do that; but in the end you'll be destroyed! You give the orders—sure! But do you understand the thing in that pyramid? It was made to serve, as all machines are. The ancient Ionians had it pretty nice for themselves, yes. But did you ever wonder what happened to them? Where are they now? Do you know, Bayley?"
Harwich's final question was a dry whisper, like the voice of some ghost of ages past.
"Where are those ancient Ionians now, Bayley?" he repeated.
No man could have escaped awe there in that tremendous Tower room, where all the mysteries of the eons seemed to be congregated, many of them hidden and unknown and perhaps dangerous. George Bayley's eyes were suddenly very big. Quite evidently there were many things that he had not thought about. His gaze lingered momentarily on the great throbbing pyramid, inscrutable there in this huge dusky chamber.
"Stop trying to bluff me, you crazy idiot!" the fat printer stormed at last. "The Ionians are extinct, of course!"
Harwich managed to grin wolfishly. "If you believe that, Bayley, do you want to follow them into extinction?" he questioned. "Yes, they mastered science. They conquered even the problem of the thinning atmosphere and the loss of moisture and heat on their dying world. But after they turned their science over to the machines, something happened to them. Their numbers began to grow less, yes. They lost control of their empire, which must have included all the moons of—Jupiter. But they didn't completely die out, Bayley! Something happened to those Ionians that was far worse! Do you know what it was, Bayley? Do you want the same thing to happen to you?"