"I don't know what you're talking about!" the printer stammered furiously, fear of the unknown spreading over his plump face.
"No, those ancient people of the Forbidden Moon didn't become completely extinct," Harwich continued. "I believe you can see quite a few of them from the Tower room here. The walls are semi-transparent, and those cages outside aren't far away. They're full of Ionians. Sluglike, brainless monstrosities without even intelligence enough or will enough to wish any more!"
Harwich paused to let the facts sink into George Bayley's mind.
"That's them!" the patrol pilot continued. "It's an old theory that any race has to keep struggling, thinking, working; otherwise it goes backwards. By using their brains and muscles, Earthmen developed from apish ancestors, you know. But here the Ionians had everything done for them. So evolution was reversed. They lost their intelligence. And now, what are they? Stupid beasts, tended by machines that follow the original orders of long ago to take care of them. Worse than animals in a zoo."
Bayley's eyes were fairly popping, as he stared through the semi-transparent walls of the Tower room. Doubtless he could see those creatures in their air-conditioned habitations. Just helpless, squirming, incubator freaks!
"I wondered what they were—why they were here," Bayley stammered.
Harwich almost believed at first that he had won a point with the obese loan shark—scared him out of most of his wild ambitions. But then, gradually, he saw Bayley's expression grow a trifle less tense. It was just as Harwich had feared. The printer was beginning to realize that it must have taken countless generations to degenerate to their present sorry state. The same condition could not affect him personally. When Bayley saw this truth, he would be the same megalomaniac as before.
There was only that one slim chance left for Harwich. Bayley's attention was strongly diverted now. But in a few seconds more, he would be himself again.
Was the grip of the metal tentacles that held Harwich a little looser than before, now, because Bayley, the master of machines, had his mind so intensely on other things, and away from the thought of giving telepathic commands?
In a sudden, savage lunge, Harwich jerked free from the automaton that held him to the floor. His clothing was torn and his flesh scraped, but what did this matter? Everything depended on instant action. The patrol pilot leaped past Paul Arnold, and his sister, Clara, who had only watched and listened while he had talked with such grim truth to Bayley.