from the research.

A growing undertone of excitement from the specialists made him demand an explanation from Stone. The scientist explained, "We've found out that the history was written by the last of the ancients. Some of the early miracles passed down through the ages were evidently the last spasms of a dying civilization."

They were in the garden and he looked at the light flooding the house, shaking his head slowly. "One point that's not clear yet is whether or not they used the weapon finally developed for use against the robots. I'm personally inclined to think that it wasn't."

"Perhaps it won't work," Don said.

"I'm quite sure that it will; in fact, we're in full production right now. You see, Don, the formula was discovered weeks ago by someone else so there was no holding it back from the government."

"You mean that Earth has a weapon that will destroy all the roboes?" anxiously inquired Don.

"Completely."

"But, but—that means that it would also...."

The old man's head dropped, "I know, Donald. It means Shiela too unless they escape, which is unlikely with all the searcher rockets now in space." He held up a hand as the younger man opened his mouth. "No, there's nothing I can do to stop it; the others have sufficient knowledge to carry on the project without my help."

"Couldn't we warn the roboes? After all, they've not attempted to harm anyone, in fact no one has been killed yet."

Dr. Stone's head came up hopefully, then dropped. "No, Don, it wouldn't work. This way will be kinder since they'll never know what happened to them. There's no possible way they could escape even if they knew. The notes of this ancient scientist indicate that he, too, faced the moral problem of whether their robots deserved equal right to live. In fact, when the decision had to be made, he decided that total annihilation of the robots was foolish since the master race was already dead with the exception of himself."

"Is that the reason for all of the hurried construction that's been going on all over the country?"

"Yes; towers are being built within 500 miles of each other, ostensibly as a new radar network. Actually, however, the ancient weapon was 

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