nged; it could be neither warmed nor cooled; what was open could
not be shut, and what was shut could not be opened. All things were
immovable and unchangeable for all time.

"Go, and do not return."

* * * * *

The Outsiders left, going out across the void, and they have not
returned, though five Great Years have passed, being a period of
approximately one hundred and twenty-five thousand of the lesser
years--a measure no longer used, for it is very brief. And now I can say
that that statement I made to Roal and Trest so very long ago is true,
and what he said was true, for the Last Evolution has taken place, and
things of pure force and pure intelligence in their countless millions
are on those planets and in this System, and I, first of machines to use
the Ultimate Energy of annihilating matter, am also the last, and this
record being finished, it is to be given unto the forces of one of those
force-intelligences, and carried back through the past, and returned to
the Earth of long ago.

And so my task being done, I, F-2, like Roal and Trest, shall follow the
others of my kind into eternal oblivion, for my kind is now, and theirs
was, poor and inefficient. Time has worn me, and oxidation attacked me,
but they of Force are eternal, and omniscient.

This I have treated as fictitious. Better so--for man is an animal to
whom hope is as necessary as food and air. Yet this which is made of
excerpts from certain records on thin sheets of metal is no fiction, and
it seems I must so say.

It seems now, when I know this that is to be, that it must be so, for
machines are indeed better than man, whether being of Metal, or being of
Force.

So, you who have read, believe as you will. Then think--and maybe, you
will change your belief.

THE END

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Kilad--unit introduced by the machines. Based on the duodecimal
system, similarly introduced, as more logical, and more readily used.
Thus we would have said 1728 kilads, about 1/2 mile.

[2] One unit was equal to one earth-gravity.

Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from _Amazing Stories_ March 1961 and was
first published in _Amazing Stories_ August 1932. Extensive research
did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this
publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors
have been corrected without note.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Last Evolu