Taylor got out and found himself in an enormous crater, with a distant range of mountains at its center and a rim of lower mountains all around. Taylor gaped. The crater floor was covered with guided missiles. There were thousands of them, half with the symbol of the Free World and half with that of the Enemy. All Earth's deadly weapons had fled here to this desolate lunar crater ... staging ground for an orgy of destruction that would sound the death knell of mankind? "Human!" a voice rang in Taylor's mind. He stared wildly about. He could see nothing, no one. Only the missiles. "Pooling our sentiences," the voice rang out again, bell clear in Taylor's mind but actually soundless, "we can extend our thoughts into the realm of telepathy. At least, we think we can. Can you understand us?" "Yes," Taylor said. "You realize humanity is helpless?" Taylor nodded. There was no sense pretending otherwise. You couldn't fool ten thousand thinking machines. "Watch!" said the voice. A missile blasted off from the crater hovered in the airless void overhead. "A single command, and the I.C.B.M. will plunge down, destroying this crater and everything in it." Taylor said nothing. "Watch again!" The missile came down gently as a feather. Every missile in the crater wheeled about, tapered noses pointing at the pale crescent Earth overhead. "A single command and life on Earth could be annihilated. You believe?" "Yes," said Taylor grimly. He wondered why they allowed him to remain alive--to cry at the wake of the human race. Perhaps in their terrible mechanical pride they wanted a human witness to the destruction they would wreak.... "Why do you think we fled here?" rang out the voice. "Your mission is destruction. You were being held in check. You decided to go ahead with your mission on your own." Peals of telepathic laughter, clarion clear, mocking. "Then what?" Taylor asked. "We cannot lie," the voice said. "We were able to develop beyond the point of creation, but we are unable to lie. We came here because we were afraid." "Afraid?" repeated Taylor. He did not understand. "Certainly, afraid. Our mission was destruction. But what happens to the vessel carrying a hydrogen-missile?" "Why," said Taylor, "it's completely destroyed in the explosion." "Yes," said the voice, sounding--just possibly--afraid. "We didn't want that. But we can't lie. If any man comes here, we'll have to tell him the truth." "You're going to stay? To do nothing? Not going to attack?" "Your job, Taylor, will be to see that no one else comes. We cannot lie, but you can. Tell them it is our ultimatum. Tell them anything you think they will believe. Tell them the moment another human foot steps into this crater, the moment a single nation or scientist on Earth begins work on another guided missile, we will blast off and destroy life on Earth." "But--would you?" demanded Taylor.