“At least you must rest,” said one of the men in a more kindly tone. “It will be interesting to hear your story.”

“I’ve told it to too many people in the last few millennia,” rasped Saunders. “Let’s hear yours for a change.”

Two of the strangers exchanged low-voiced words. Saunders could almost translate them himself: “Barbarians—childish emotional pattern—well, humor them for a while.”

“This is an archaeological expedition, excavating the pyramid,” said one of the men patiently. “We are from the Galactic Institute, Sarlan-sector branch. I am Lord Arsfel of Astracyr, and these are my subordinates. The nonhumans, as you may wish to know, are from the planet Quulhan, whose sun is not visible from Terra.”

Despite himself, Saunders’ awed gaze turned to the stupendous mass looming over them. “Who built it?” he breathed.

“The Ixchulhi made such structures on planets they conquered, no one knows why. But then, no one knows what they were, or where they came from, or where they ultimately went. It is hoped that some of the answers may be found in their pyramids.”

* * *

The atmosphere grew more relaxed. Deftly, the men of the expedition got Saunders’ and Belgotai’s stories and what information about their almost prehistoric periods they cared for. In exchange, something of history was offered them.

After the Ixchulhi’s ruinous wars the Galaxy had made a surprisingly rapid comeback. New techniques of mathematical psychology made it possible to unite the peoples of a billion worlds and rule them effectively. The Galactic Empire was egalitarian—it had to be, for one of its mainstays was the fantastically old and evolved race of the planet called Vro-Hi by men.

It was peaceful, prosperous, colorful with diversity of races and cultures, expanding in science and the arts. It had already endured for ten thousand years, and there seemed no doubt in Arsfel’s calm mind that it could endure forever. The barbarians along the Galactic periphery and out in the Magellanic Clouds? Nonsense! The Empire would get around to civilizing them in due course; meanwhile they were only a nuisance.

But Sol could almost be called one of the barbarian suns, though it lay within the Imperial boundaries. Civilization was concentrated near the center of the Galaxy, and Sol lay up in what was actually a remote and thinly starred region of space. A few primitive landsmen still lived on its planets and had infrequent intercourse with the nearer stars, but they hardly counted. The human race had almost forgotten its ancient home.

Somehow the picture was saddening to the American. He thought of old Earth spinning on her lonely way through the emptiness of space, he thought of the great arrogant Empire and of all the mighty dominions which had fallen to dust through the millennia. But when he ventured to suggest that this civilization, too, was not immortal, he was immediately snowed under with figures, facts, logic, the curious paramathematical symbolism of modern mass psychology. It could be shown rigorously that the present setup was inherently stable—and already ten thousand years of history had given no evidence to upset that science…