"Wouldn't take a chance if your life depended on it, huh?" sneered Vinson. Narina looked at him, startled. His voice had taken on power; he appeared to have more confidence. She squeezed his hand encouragingly. "Why should I?" replied the machine. "Because you had better," stated Harry Vinson. "Man is a gambler from the date of his birth; man _will_ take a chance. Furthermore, you mechanical monster, man doesn't know when he is licked! Unless you kill us all, root and branch, some one of us will come up with that which will defeat you!" "Without machines to help?" came the reply with a sneering tone. "With something," said Harry Vinson. "Just what?" "I don't know," said the man. "But I know this: Man's capability is as yet unlimited. To do, to think, to act, not one of us has ever tapped but the surface of our ability. You, on the other hand, are working at your near-maximum capacity. That which will defeat you is naturally unknown to both man and you. "It will be a new day, a bitter day for man, living in a dynasty of the lost; you have conquered us, but so long as any of us last, we won't accept our lot and stay conquered. And I know this; that when it is done, it will be something entirely new and within the limitless bounds of man's mind and therefore completely beyond you." "But must there always be strife?" demanded the machine. * * * * * Vinson exhaled slowly. "Life itself is strife; the willingness to fight against odds in order to bring about a better life is strife, and only upon that day when there is nothing left to fight against will the business of life cease. In your own manner, in your own way, machine, you strive when you apply force against a load to move it." "Agreed. But consider the quantity and quality of striving--and intolerance that is so intense that it blinds you to the better things. It is this that I object to; this and the anger at being built and improved for no other reason than to kill, both my kind and yours." "And do you think that once you've eliminated us that your pleasant, co-operative life will advance?" "It need not advance," replied the machine in a complacent tone. "That," sneered Harry Vinson, "is stagnation!" "And that," replied the machine, "is the missing factor I need! Ambition!" Harry Vinson smiled. "And have you the will and the ambition to build a better machine to take your place? And if you have, have you the desire to step aside?" "I can join it--" "But machine or human, there comes a time when the corporeal being is worn out. No matter how excellent the replacement parts, nor how well executed is the repair, there comes a time when machine or body is worn out and must be replaced. So you will go on building machines of no better capability; you will, you say, spread out across the universe. But for what? Just for the useless end of occupation?" "But what is ambition? What drives it into being?"