own lives. They had sent six such arrows of life into the
void, their only desire being that at least one of the search-
ers might find a goal their records said existed. Then
they were overrun by their enemies.
Relay after relay clicked into life without a quiver of
fault as the arrow sped toward earth. It represented the
fruits of a thousand years of experimentation,'the highest
triumph of a race which had once traveled the starlanes
with the ease of men walking familiar paths on brown
earth. Made for one duty alone, it was now about to go
into the action for which it was programmed.
It smoothly shifted into orbit about the planet and
prepared to descend in answer to the beacon call. As it
flashed across the sky men below watched its passage with
primitive awe. The knowledge which had once been theirs
was long since buried in myth.
Some cringed in skin tents as their shamans beat drums
and howled strange guttural chants. Others stared wide-
eyed and spoke of shooting stars which could be omens of
good or evil. It neared the mountain where the cave of
the beacon was hidden, then it broke apart.
The husk which had carried the so-precious cargo
through space opened and from it issued other objects.
They did not plunge instantly into the sea which was now
fast coming under the arrow; they spun away rather, as if
with volition of their own, winging for a mountainside.
They hovered for an instant or two in the air before
drifting easily to the ground. And if anyone in those
heights witnessed this, he did not speak of it again. These
particles were protected by a distortion of the fields of vis-
ibility. The makers had taken all precautions they could
foresee to protect their project.
Once on earth the jumble of objects produced append-
ages of their own and crawled steadily, with a mindless
need to unite with the failing power of the beacon. They
made their way into the cave.
In some places it was necessary to enlarge the passage-
way and that, too, had been foreplanned. But at length
they were all sheltered in the depths about the beacon,
MERLIN'S MIRROR 7
where they proceeded to go to work. Some of them cut
