"But this layout, Paul!" Harwich growled. "This house and this mining
stuff! How come? You've got some kind of an answer in mind, I'm sure,
by the way you look! I give up. Spill the gag!"
"Okay, Evan," said the boy. "I really do think I've got that part
figured out! After Bayley shot you with the heat-pistol, you were
lying in that telepathy kiosk in the Tower room. Consciously or
unconsciously, you must have done some wishing there, before your brain
blacked out."
Harwich gasped. So that was it! He'd wanted to be alive, though he had
been mortally wounded. And so he was! His shirt was open. There was a
neat round scar on his chest, left by the heat-ray burn, and evidence
of careful supersurgery! The automatons of the Forbidden Moon had saved
his life. Probably Clara's and Paul's lives, too. All while they were
unconscious! The house, the garden, the mine!
"Our miracle hunt on the Forbidden Moon hasn't turned out so badly,"
Paul Arnold remarked. "But so far it's been a lot different from what
Dad or you or I could have anticipated. This place looks like a nice
family setup, Evan. Did you wish include anybody besides yourself?"
Harwich flushed, and looked sheepish. Clara, there, was definitely
blushing, but she was smiling, too.
The ex patrol pilot managed a nervous grin. "I guess you got me there,
Paul," he said. "Now, if it's all right with you, Clara, I don't know
whether I have to say it or not, since it's a dead giveaway. But will
you marry me?"
He got it out, feeling that it had been an awful job. But Clara smiled
happily.
"Try and stop me, Evan," she laughed. "There has to be someone around
to keep you from getting conceited. Just because you won out for us
here on Io, doesn't mean that you won't need bossing yourself, once in
a while!"
Paul Arnold winked, and left discreetly for other parts of the house.
Arm in arm Clara and Evan looked through a window that faced west.
Something was flying there, high up in the sky. It glinted in the late
afternoon sunlight. A lonely speck against the cold firmament, it
seemed to hurry, bent on a last mission.
A few minutes later, from the east, there came a terrific concussion.
The whole dark purple sky, above those sullen hills, was illuminated
with a bluish-white glare for a second. Flying fragments soared far
into space.
Clara clung tightly to Evan. "What was that?" she questioned fearfully.
Harwich grinned, but still there was a haunting shadow of sadness in
his face. "I'm sure I know," he said. "That was the end of the science
of the Forbidden Moon. The end of the force shield, apparatus, the
end of those poor Ionians, and the end of the pyramid! The end of the
whole thing. Suicide, you might call it. You see, back there in the
telepathy kiosk, I wished that too, and the machines were made only to
obey. I hope that when Earthmen, in the future, learn as much science
as existed here on Io, they'll know how to use it, too. We're much too
young a race yet, I guess."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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