“What a day,” Doric said grumpily. “I said how glad I’d be to walk on firm ground again, but –”
“Come on,” Nasha said. “Up beside me. I want to say something to you. Will you excuse us, Tance?”
Tance nodded gloomily. Doric caught up with Nasha. They walked together, their metal shoes crunching the ground underfoot. Nasha glanced at him.
“Listen. The Captain is dying. No one knows except the two of us. By the end of the day-period of this planet he’ll be dead. The shock did something to his heart. He was almost sixty, you know.”
Doric nodded. “That’s bad. I have a great deal of respect for him. You will be captain in his place, of course. Since you’re vice-captain now –”
“No. I prefer to see someone else lead, perhaps you or Fomar. I’ve been thinking over the situation and it seems to me that I should declare myself mated to one of you, whichever of you wants to be captain. Then I could devolve the responsibility.”
“Well, I don’t want to be captain. Let Fomar do it.”
Nasha studied him, tall and blond, striding along beside her in his pressure suit. “I’m rather partial to you,” she said. “We might try it for a time, at least. But do as you like. Look, we’re coming to something.”
They stopped walking, letting Tance catch up. In front of them was some sort of a ruined building. Doric stared around thoughtfully.
“Do you see? This whole place is a natural bowl, a huge valley. See how the rock formations rise up on all sides, protecting the floor. Maybe some of the great blast was deflected here.”
They wandered around the ruins, picking up rocks and fragments. “I think this was a farm,” Tance said, examining a piece of wood. “This was part of a tower windmill.”
“Really?” Nasha took the stick and turned it over. “Interesting. But let’s go; we don’t have much time.”
“Look,” Doric said suddenly. “Off there, a long way off. Isn’t that something?” He pointed.
Nasha sucked in her breath. “The white stones.”
“What?”
Nasha looked up at Doric. “The white stones, the great broken teeth. We saw them, the Captain and I, from the control room.” She touched Doric’s arm gently. “That’s where they fired from. I didn’t think we had landed so close.”
“What is it?” Tance said, coming up to them. “I’m almost blind without my glasses. What do you see?”
“The city. Where they fired from.”
“Oh.” All three of them stood together. “Well, let’s go,” Tance said. “There’s no telling what we’ll find there.” Doric frowned at him.
“Wait. We don’t know what we would be getting into. They must have patrols. They probably have seen us already, for that matter.”
“They probably have seen the ship itself,” Tance said. “They probably know right now where they can find it, where they can blow it up. So what difference does it make whether we go closer or not?”
“That’s true,” Nasha said. “If they really want to get us we haven’t a chance. We have no armaments at all; you know that.”
“I have a hand weapon,” Doric nodded. “Well, let’s go on, then. I suppose you’re right, Tance.”
“But let’s stay together,” Tance said nervously. “Nasha, you’re going too fast.”
Nasha looked back. She laughed. “If we expect to get there by nightfall we must go fast.”
They reached the outskirts of the city at about the middle of the afternoon. The sun, cold and yellow, hung above them in the colorless sky. Doric stopped at the top of a ridge overlooking the city.
“Well, there it is. What’s left of it.”
There was not much left. The huge concrete piers which they had noticed were not piers at all, but the ruined foundations of buildings. They had been baked by the searing heat, baked and charred almost to the ground. Nothing else remained, only this irregular circle of white squares, perhaps four miles in diameter.
Doric spat in disgust. “More wasted time. A dead skeleton of a city, that’s all.”
“But it was from here that the firing came,” Tance murmured. “Don’t forget that.”
“And by someone with a good eye and a great deal of experience,” Nasha added. “Let’s go.”
They walked into the city between the ruined buildings. No one spoke. They walked in silence, listening to the echo of their footsteps.
“It’s macabre,” Doric muttered. “I’ve seen ruined cities before but they died of old age, old age and fatigue. This was killed, seared to death. This city didn’t die — it was murdered.”
“I wonder what the city was called,” Nasha said. She turned aside, going up the remains of a stairway from one of the foundations. “Do you think we might find a signpost? Some kind of plaque?”
She peered into the ruins.
“There’s nothing there,” Doric said impatiently. “Come on.”
“Wait.” Nasha bent down, touching a concrete stone. “There’s something inscribed on this.”
“What is it?” Tance hurried up. He squatted in the dust, running his gloved fingers over the surface of the stone. “Letters, all right.” He took a writing stick from the pocket of his pressure suit and copied the inscription on a bit of paper. Dorle glanced over his shoulder. The inscription was:
FRANKLIN APARTMENTS
“That’s this city,” Nasha said softly. “That was its name.”
Tance put the paper in his pocket and they went on. After a time Dorle said, “Nasha, you know, I think we’re being watched. But don’t look around.”
The woman stiffened. “Oh? Why do you say that? Did you see something?”
“No. I can feel it, though. Don’t you?”
Nasha smiled a little. “I feel nothing, but perhaps I’m more used to being stared at.” She turned her head slightly. “Oh!”
Dorle reached for his hand weapon. “What is it? What do you see?” Tance had stopped dead in his tracks, his mouth half open.
“The gun,” Nasha said. “It’s the gun.”
“Look at the size of it. The size of the thing.” Dorle unfastened his hand weapon slowly. “That’s it, all right.”
The gun was huge. Stark and immense it pointed up at the sky, a mass of steel and glass, set in a huge slab of concrete. Even as they watched the gun moved on its swivel base, whirring underneath. A slim vane turned with the wind, a network of rods atop a high pole.
“It’s alive,” Nasha whispered. “It’s listening to us, watching us.”
The gun moved again, this time clockwise. It was mounted so that it could make a full circle. The barrel lowered a trifle, then resumed its original position.
“But who fires it?” Tance said.
Dorle laughed. “No one. No one fires it.”
They stared at him. “What do you mean?”
“It fires itself.”
They couldn’t believe him. Nasha came close to him, frowning, looking up at him. “I don’t understand. What do you mean, it fires itself?”
“Watch, I’ll show you. Don’t move.” Dorle picked up a rock from the ground. He hesitated a moment and the tossed the rock high in the air. The rock passed in front of the gun. Instantly the great barrel moved, the vanes contracted.
The rock fell to the ground. The gun paused, then resumed its calm swivel, its slow circling.
“You see,” Dorle said, “it noticed the rock, as soon as I threw it up in the air. It’s alert to anything that flies or moves above the ground level. Probably it detected us as soon as we entered the gravitational field of the planet. It probably had a bead on us from the start. We don’t have a chance. It knows all about the ship. It’s just waiting for us to take off again.”
“I understand about the rock,” Nasha said, nodding. “The gun noticed it, but not us, since we’re on the ground, not above. It’s only designed to combat objects in the sky. The ship is safe until it takes off again, then the end will come.”
“But what’s this gun for?” Tance put in. “There’s no one alive here. Everyone is dead.”
“It’s a machine,” Dorle said. “A machine that was made to do a job. And it’s doing the job. How it survived the blast I don’t know. On it goes, waiting for the enemy. Probably they came by air in some sort of projectiles.”
“The enemy,” Nasha said. “Their own race. It is hard to believe that they really bombed themselves, fired at themselves.”
“Well, it’s over with. Except right here, where we’re standing. This one gun, still alert, ready to kill. It’ll go on until it wears out.”
“And by that time we’ll be dead,” Nasha said bitterly.
“There must have been hundreds of guns like this,” Dorle murmured. “They must have been used to the sight, guns, weapons, uniforms. Probably they accepted it as a natural thing, part of their lives, like eating and sleeping. An institution, like the church and the state. Men trained to fight, to lead armies, a regular profession. Honored, respected.”