In the end they all gathered at the space lock while Renfry mastered the fastening, then -went on to the outer door. The technician glanced back over his shoulder.
“Helmets fastened?” His voice boomed hollowly inside the sphere now resting on Travis’ shoulders and made a part of him by a close-fitting harness. Ashe had discovered those and had tested them, preparing for this time when they had to dare a foray into the unknown. The bubble was equipped with no cumbersome oxygen tanks. It worked on no principle Renfry was able to discover, but the aliens had used these and the Terrans must trust to their efficiency now.
The outer port swung back into the skin of the ship. Renfry kicked out the landing ladder, turned to back down it. But each of them, as he emerged from the globe, glanced quickly around.
What lay below was a wide sweep of hard white surface which must cover miles of territory. This was broken at intervals by a series of structures of the dull red, metallic material set in triangles and squares. In the center of each of those was a space marked with black rings. None of the red structures was whole, and the landing field—if that was what it was—had the sterile atmosphere of a place long abandoned.
“Another ship. . . .” Ashe’s arm swung up, his voice came to Travis through the helmet com.
There was a second of the globes, right enough, reposing in one of the building-cornered squares perhaps a quarter of a mile away. And beyond that Travis spotted a third. But nowhere was there any sign of life. He felt wind, soft, almost caressing, against his bare hands.
They descended the ladder and stood in a group at the foot of their own ship, a little uncertain as to what to do next.
“Wait!” Renfry caught at Ashe. “Something moved—over there!”
They had found weapons in the ship; now they drew those odd guns, twin to the one Ross had had when Travis had first met him. The wind blew, a fragment of long-dread vegetation balled before it, caught against the globe and then was whirled away in a dreary dance.
But out of an opening at the foot of the red tower nearest to them something was issuing. And Travis, watching that coil snapping straight for them, froze. A snake? A snake unwinding to such a length that its reaching head was approaching their stand while the end of its tail still lay within the ruin where it denned?
He took aim at that swaying coil. Then Renfry’s hand struck his wrist pads, knocking up the barrel of the blaster. • And in that moment the Apache saw what the other had noticed first, that the snake was not a thing of flesh, skin, supple bones, but of some manufactured material.
More movement was continuing to issue in a mechanical writhing from the door through which that snake had crawled. This newcomer strode forward by jerks, paused, came on, as if compelled to advance against the dictates of ancient fabric and long wear. The thing was vaguely manlike in form, in that it advanced on stilt legs. But it had four upper appendages now folded against its central bulk, and where the head should have been there was a nodding stalk resembling the antennae of a com unit.
Its jerky walk with the many pauses conveyed more and more a sense of internal discord, of rust and wear, and the deterioration of time. How much time? The four Terrans stepped away from the ship, giving free passage to the strange partners from the tower.
“Robots!” Ross said suddenly. “They’re robots! But what axe they going to do?”
“Refuel, I think.” Ashe rather than Renfry answered that.
“You’ve hit it!” The technician pushed forward. “But do they have fuel—now?”
“We’d better hope there is some left.” Ashe sounded bleak. “I’d say we aren’t supposed to stay here—better get back on board.”
The threat of being trapped here, of locked controls raising the ship and leaving them marooned, induced a wave of something close to panic in all three hearers. They raced to the ladder, began to climb. But when they reached the air lock, Renfry remained at the open door, retailing the movements of the robots.
“I think that animated pipeline’s been connected—underneath. Can’t see what the walker’s doing—maybe he just stands by in case of trouble. And there’s something coming through the hose—you can see it swell! We’re taking on whatever we’re supposed to have!”
“A fueling station.” Ashe looked out over the wide stretch of crumbling towers and checkerboard landing spaces. “But see the size of this place. It must have been constructed to handle hundreds, even thousands, of ships. And since they couldn’t all be in to refuel at the same time, that predisposes a fleet”—he drew a deep breath of wonder—“a fleet almost beyond comprehension. We •were right—this civilization was galaxy-wide. Maybe it spread to the next galaxy.”
But Travis’ eyes rested on the splintered cap of the tower from which the robots had come. “By the looks no one has been here for some time,” he observed.
“Machines,” Renfry answered, “will go on working until they run down. I’d say that •walking one down there is close to its final stop. We triggered some impulse when we landed on the right spot. The robots were activated to do their job-maybe their last job. How long since they worked the last time? This may have kept going for a long part of that twelve thousand years you’re always talking about—an empire dying slowly. But I wouldn’t try to measure the time. These aliens knew machinery, and their alloys are better than our best.”
“I’d like to see the interior of one of those towers,” Ashe said wistfully. “Maybe they kept records, had something we could understand to explain it all.”
Renfry shook his head. “Wouldn’t dare try it. We might raise before you got inside the door. Ahh—the walker is going back now. I’d say get ready for take-off.”
They made tight the open port, the inner door of the space lock. Renfry, out of habit, went on up to the control cabin. But the other three took to their bunks. There was a waiting period and then once more the blast into space. This time they did not lose consciousness and endured until they were once more in space.
“Now what?” Hours later they squeezed into the mess cabin to hold a rather aimless conference concerning the future. Since no one had anything more than guesses to offer, none of them answered Renfry’s question.
“I read a book once,” Ross said suddenly with the slightly embarrassed air of one admitting to a minor social error, “that had a story in it about some Dutch sea captain who swore he’d get around the horn in one of those old-time sailing ships. He called up the Devil to help him and he never got home-just went on sailing through the centuries.”
“The Flying Dutchman,” Ashe identified.
“Well, we haven’t called up any Devil,” Renfry remarked.
“Haven’t we?” Travis had spoken his thoughts, without realizing until they all stared at him that he had done so aloud.
“Your Devil being?” Ashe prompted.
“We were trying to get knowledge out of this ship— and it wasn’t our kind of knowledge,” he floundered a little, attempting to put into words what he now believed.
Scavengers getting their just deserts?” Ashe summed up. “If you follow that line of reasoning, yes, you have a point. The forbidden fruit of knowledge. That was an idea planted so long ago in mankind’s conscience that it lingers today as guilt.”
“Planted,” Ross repeated the word thoughtfully, “planted.
“Planted!” Travis echoed, his mind making one of those odd jumps in sudden understanding of which he had only recently become conscious. “By whom?”
Then glancing around at the alien ship which was both their transport and their prison, he added softly, “By these people?”
“They didn’t want us to know about them.” Boss’s words came in a rush. “Remember what they did to that Red time base—traced it all the way forward and destroyed it in every era. Suppose they did have contacts with primitive man on our world—planted ideas—or gave them such a terrifying lesson at one time or other that the memory of it was buried in all their descendants?”
“There are other tales beside your Flying Dutchman, Ross,” Ashe squirmed a little in his seat. None of the chairs in the ship was exactly fitted to the human frame or provided comfort for the modern passengers. “Prometheus and the fire-the man who dared to steal the knowledge of the gods for the use of mankind and suffered eternally thereafter for his audacity, though his fellows benefited. Yes, there are clues to back such a theory, faint ones.” His eagerness grew as he spoke. “Maybe—just maybe—we’ll find out!”