"Exploring, I climbed into this little metal coop, here at the foot of
the pyramid," Bayley went on. "By then I was pretty flabbergasted with
all I'd seen. I began to think I needed a drink of something strong.
Yep, it must have been telepathy! Because presto--one of those flat
flying machines with the tentacles, whizzed up to me from a tunnel
exit. It was carrying a kind of crystal carafe.
"Boy, I didn't know what to think! I didn't know whether I ought to
taste the stuff in that carafe, at first. But finally I did. It was
damned good. Not alcoholic, but something a whole lot better."
Harwich and Arnold looked at each other, as Bayley paused, as if to get
his breath. They looked up at the pyramid, throbbing above them, like
some great, cryptic, servant personality. The feeling that Bayley was
telling the truth, was growing on them.
"Naturally you tried other things, after the carafe was brought to you,
Bayley," Paul Arnold prompted. "You wanted to see how much further this
expression of desires by telepathy might be carried. You wanted to see
how much more you could use the ancient Ionian science."
Bayley, still standing in that little metal-pillared structure, nodded
slowly. "You catch on quick, Arnold," he said. "First I wished for
gold, since it was the first thing I thought of. The sounds inside the
pyramid changed a little, as though an order was going out somehow,
maybe by radio. Five minutes later a whole bunch of those flying
machines came into the Tower here, carrying bars of gold in their
tentacles. There it is."
The printer was pointing toward a dully gleaming heap of yellow ingots
near the farther wall of the chamber.
"But this, I soon found out, was just kid stuff!" Bayley continued. "I
suppose if I'd thought of radium here in this wishing coop, I would
have got a couple of tons of that, too! But I wished for a space
ship--something special, beyond anything an Earthman ever saw before!
Well, the pyramid buzzed a little longer and stranger this time, as
though it was sort of thinking and planning, and as though the wheels
inside it were maybe inventing, too. Then, somewhere far off, there was
a lot of pounding for about an hour. I guess you know the answer, boys.
There she is--the sweetest little super-futuristic space flier you ever
saw!"
Harwich and Arnold stared at the torpedo-like ship that rested in a
cradle-like support nearby. It was completely without rocket-tubes,
or other visible means of propulsion. But its rakish lines and wicked
lavender glitter made it look as though it might well reach the distant
stars themselves.
* * * * *
Evan Harwich bit his lip tensely. Suddenly a thought struck him. "Did
you see any Ionians since you've been here, Bayley?" he asked. "Any
living, intelligent beings who might question your right to be prowling
around?"
Bayley laughed. "Not one!" he returned. "They're extinct, I'm sure of
it! And that's lucky for me."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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