Part 2

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?"

Lenk went back to his control room. And perversely, his thoughts insisted on accepting their explanation. It would be like man to think that important things could only happen on his own home planet, and prophecy an end for his own race, never dreaming it could happen to others.

It would be normal for him to sense somehow out of his own nature what his inevitable end must be--and then to be completely amazed when he found the same end for other races.

But....

Space travel--travel at faster than light speeds--had to make a difference. There were the other worlds on the other side of the sun, where men were already planning to colonize. Even if a world might normally blow up in a final wild holocaust, it would have its whole racial pattern changed when it began to spread out among the stars. It would have to have a revival of the old pioneering spirit. There had been the beginnings of that when they left. And with that, such a war could be prevented forever.

He heard Graves moving about in the galley, singing something about graves opening, and grimaced.

Besides, Jeremy had admitted that they didn't have all the answers. The mystery of the vanished skeletons remained--and until that was accounted for, nothing could be considered explained.

He forgot about the skeletons as he began planning how he'd wangle his way into one of the colonies. Then, even if catastrophe did strike Earth in another thousand years or so, the race could go on. Ten more years, and man would be safe....

He was feeling almost cheerful as they finally came out of hyperspace near Earth ... and landed....

The skeletons--lay scattered everywhere.