e
men, and he reasoned that, somehow or other they had by some marvelous
transformation made him over just as they were--to lead him through the
craft of which he now took notice for the first time. It was an
interplanetary flyer, or space ship, he firmly believed.

25X-987 now took him to the compartment which they had removed him to
from the strange container they had found wandering in the vicinity of
the nearby world. There they showed him the long cylinder.

"It's my rocket satellite!" exclaimed Professor Jameson to himself,
though in reality every one of the machine men received his thoughts
plainly. "What is it doing here?"

"We found your dead body within it," answered 25X-987. "Your brain was
removed to the machine after having been stimulated into activity once
more. Your carcass was thrown away."

Professor Jameson just stood dumfounded by the words of the machine man.

"So I did die!" exclaimed the professor. "And my body was placed within
the rocket to remain in everlasting preservation until the end of all
earthly time! Success! I have now attained unrivaled success!"

He then turned to the machine man.

"How long have I been that way?" he asked excitedly.

"How should we know?" replied the Zorome. "We picked up your rocket only
a short time ago, which, according to your computation, would be less
than a day. This is our first visit to your planetary system and we
chanced upon your rocket. So it is a satellite? We didn't watch it long
enough to discover whether or not it was a satellite. At first we
thought it to be another traveling space craft, but when it refused to
answer our signals we investigated."

"And so that was the earth at which I looked," mused the professor. "No
wonder I didn't recognize it. The topography has changed so much. How
different the sun appears--it must have been over a million years ago
when I died!"

"Many millions," corrected 25X-987. "Suns of such size as this one do
not cool in so short a time as you suggest."

Professor Jameson, in spite of all his amazing computations before his
death, was staggered by the reality.

"Who are you?" he suddenly asked.

"We are the Zoromes from Zor, a planet of a sun far across the
Universe."

25X-987 then went on to tell Professor Jameson something about how the
Zoromes had attained their high stage of development and had instantly
put a stop to all birth, evolution and death of their people, by
becoming machine men.