 Why did the beings come to Earth?
There should be an epitaph for every man, big or little, but a really grand and special one for Loner Charlie. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1954. Meanings and answers to his questions slithered out of his reach. New York lay quietly below him. Buildings were taller, men were healthier, most of the problems of humanity seemed licked, or nearly so. It was a time of free power, each small unit of population, each section of town operating on perpetual, ever-lasting, automatic atomic piles. The Southern states joyously reported that mosquito control was working to an unprecedented degree. The largest cotton crop ever was forecast and rumors from Mexico had it that no one had died from scorpion bite in several weeks. A month later the meat animals, the birds and the household pets began dropping as rapidly as the flies which had dropped earlier. Congress was called into special session, as were all of the national governments around the world. The U.N. met at emergency sessions to cope with the situation. Within a year it was obvious to everyone that man was the only animal left on earth. The panic which had begun with the death of the animals was quieted somewhat by the fact that humans seemed immune to the pandemic. But the lakes full of dead fish caused a great stink and residents along the coasts began to move inland. Then just one year ago, the first human became infected with the strange malady. Within six months, half of the world's population was gone. Less than a month ago no more than a few thousand people remained in New York. Before the plague the Bureau of Vital Statistics had been one of man's crowning achievements. Housed as it was in a huge metallic globe of a building, it contained computers which kept exact account of every human on earth. Compulsory registration and the classification of each individual by means of the discrete patterns of his brain waves had accomplished for man what no ordinary census could have. Once a year the Bureau issued The Index, an exact accounting of Earth's four billion inhabitants. Only once, before the plague, had he seen the interior of this room. All children had to have a brain-wave recording made by the Bureau during the first month of their life. And again at the age of 10 each child returned to the Bureau for a recheck. The impression of intense activity, of organized confusion, of mechanical wonder had remained with him the rest of his life.
 it was the next planet for them to destroy
 it was the next planet for them to destroy  they wanted all of Earth's resources  they wanted to take over Earth  they were curious about Earth's creatures