He went on in a moment. "The sin and the Fall were something different from what the Engineers have said in their sermons. I don't know exactly what happened, except that even those wise ancients were not united, they were divided into--cities, I suppose--and the separate colonies here were owned by these various cities. A war broke out, not a war as we know war but something with doom in it, all the power of the machines turned loose to blast and burn. It must have destroyed civilization on Earth; at least there have been no visitors from there in a thousand years or more. Here on Luna the colonies also fought, but in a more limited way since they had not the greatest engines of destruction. But it was enough to wipe out many cities--you must have seen some of the ruins--and to destroy most of the equipment. Such wise men as survived had not the tools to work with to rebuild all they must have, and the turbulent new generations paid little heed to teachings which had no relation to their own experience. The remaining machines wore out, the wise men died, the cities fought with swords and spears for the necessities of life, and finally the long night of ignorance fell on us. And that is the true story of the Fall." "How do you know?" challenged Rikard. "Oh, I have read the remaining old books and fragments of books, and used my own head to piece together what little was known. Coper City has kept more knowledge than the others anyway. Those went back to naked barbarism, retaining barely enough tradition to survive; but we, living in what had been the most important of the old colonies, kept somewhat more than that. There have always been a few in Coper City who knew the truth, though they lacked means to do anything about it." Rikard leaned back in his chair and surveyed the prince with arrogant eyes. "All right," he said. "I'll accept it. What's the difference anyway? What do you have us here for and why are you telling us this?" "Oh--I wanted you to realize that our frank goal of conquering the world is not the unmitigated evil you insist. It will bring knowledge to the barbarians, give them back their heritage, and end their stupid squabbling in a unity of all mankind." "At the price of making them slaves and paupers!" "Well, I didn't say we were doing this for our health," said Rayth mildly. "The outlier raids have been more than a little costly and annoying to us, and of course we can always use more workers. However, please don't tell me you are some kind of martyr whose heart bleeds only for your poor oppressed people. You are angry because your wealth and power were stripped from you. If you could get those back threefold--" * * * * *