The City was gone.
At last Erick turned away. “That part’s done,” he said. “Now the rest! Give me a hand, Jan. There’ll be a thousand patrol ships around here in a minute.”
“I see one already,” Mara said, pointing up. A spot winked in the sky, a rapidly moving spot. “They’re coming, Erick.” There was a throb of chill fear in her voice.
“I know.” Erick and Jan squatted on the ground around the pyramid of tubes and plastic, pulling the pyramid apart. The pyramid was fused, fused together like molten glass. Erick tore the pieces away with trembling fingers. From the remains of the pyramid he pulled something forth, something he held up high, trying to make it out in the darkness. Jan and Mara came close to see, both staring up intently, almost without breath.
“There it is,” Erick said. “There!”
In his hand was a globe, a small transparent globe of glass. Within the glass something moved, something minute and fragile, spires almost too small to be seen, microscopic, a complex web swimming within the hollow glass globe. A web of spires. A city.
Erick put the globe into the case and snapped it shut. “Let’s go,” he said. They began to lope back through the trees, back the way they had come before. “We’ll change in the car,” he said as they ran. “I think we should keep these clothes on until we’re actually inside the car. We still might encounter someone.”
“I’ll be glad to get my own clothing on again,” Jan said. “I feel funny in these little pants.”
“How do you think I feel?” Mara gasped. “I’m freezing in this, what there is of it.”
“All young Martian brides dress that way,” Erick said. He clutched the case tightly as they ran. “I think it looks fine.”
“Thank you,” Mara said. “But it is cold.”
“What do you suppose they’ll think?” Jan asked. “They’ll assume the City was destroyed, won’t they? That’s certain.”
“Yes,” Erick said. “They’ll be sure it was blown up. We can count on that. And it will be damn important to us that they think so!”
“The car should be around here, someplace,” Mara said, slowing down.
“No. Farther on,” Erick said. “Past that little hill over there. In the ravine, by the trees. It’s so hard to see where we are.”
“Shall I light something?” Jan said.
“No. There may be patrols around who –”
He halted abruptly. Jan and Mara stopped beside him. “What –” Mara begin.
A light glimmered. Something stirred in the darkness. There was a sound.
“Quick!” Erick rasped. He dropped, throwing the case far away from him into the bushes. He straightened up tensely.
A figure loomed up, moving through the darkness, and behind it came more figures, men, soldiers in uniform. The light flashed up brightly, blinding them. Erick closed his eyes. The light left him, touching Mara and Jan, standing silently together, clasping hands. Then it flicked down to the ground and around in a circle.
A Leiter stepped forward, a tall figure in black, with his soldiers close behind him, their guns ready. “You three,” the Leiter said. “Who are you? Don’t move. Stand where you are.”
He came up to Erick, peering at him intently, his hard Martian face without expression. He went all around Erick, examining his robes, his sleeves.
“Please –” Erick began in a quavering voice, but the Leiter cut him off.
“I’ll do the talking. Who are you three? What are you doing here? Speak up.”
“We — we are going back to our village,” Erick muttered, staring down, his hands folded. “We were in the City, and now we are going home.”
One of the soldiers spoke into a mouthpiece. He clicked it off and put it away.
“Come with me,” the Leiter said. “We’re taking you in. Hurry along.”
“In? Back to the City?”
One of the soldiers laughed. “The City is gone,” he said. “All that’s left of it you can put in the palm of your hand.”
“But what happened?” Mara said.
“No one knows. Come on, hurry it up!”
There was a sound. A soldier came quickly out of the darkness. “A Senior Leiter,” he said. “Coming this way.” He disappeared again.
“A Senior Leiter.” The soldiers stood waiting, standing at a respectful attention. A moment later the Senior Leiter stepped into the light, a black-clad old man, his ancient face thin and hard, like a bird’s, eyes bright and alert. He looked from Erick to Jan.
“Who are these people?” he demanded.
“Villagers going back home.”
“No they’re not. They don’t stand like villagers. Villagers slump — diet poor food. These people are not villagers. I myself came from the hills, and I know.”
He stepped close to Erick, looking keenly into his face. “Who are you? Look at his chin — he never shaved with a sharpened stone! Something is wrong here.”
In his hand a rod of pale fire flashed. “The City is gone, and with it at least half the Leiter Council. It is very strange, a flash, then heat, and a wind. But it was not fission. I am puzzled. All at once the City has vanished. Nothing is left but a depression in the sand.”
“We’ll take them in,” the other Leiter said. “Soldiers, surround them. Make certain that –”
“Run!” Erick cried. He struck out, knocking the rod from the Senior Leiter’s hand. They were all running, soldiers shouting, flashing their lights, stumbling against each other in the darkness. Erick dropped to his knees, groping frantically in the bushes. His fingers closed over the handle of the case and he leaped up. In Terran he shouted to Mara and Jan.
“Hurry! To the car! Run!” He set off, down the slope, stumbling through the darkness. He could hear soldiers behind him, soldiers running and falling. A body collided against him and he struck out. Someplace behind him there was a hiss, and a section of the slope went up in flames. The Leiter’s rod —
“Erick,” Mara cried from the darkness. He ran toward her. Suddenly he slipped, falling on a stone. Confusion and firing. The sound of excited voices.
“Erick, is that you?” Jan caught hold of him, helping him up. “The car. It’s over here. Where’s Mara?”
“I’m here,” Mara’s voice came. “Over here, by the car.”
A light flashed. A tree went up in a puff of fire, and Erick felt the singe of the heat against his face. He and Jan made their way toward the girl. Mara’s hand caught his in the darkness.
“Now the car,” Erick said. “If they haven’t got to it.” He slid down the slope into the ravine, fumbling in the darkness, reaching and holding onto the handle of the case. Reaching, reaching —
He touched something cold and smooth. Metal, a metal door handle. Relief flooded through him. “I’ve found it! Jan, get inside. Mara, come on.” He pushed Jan past him, into the car. Mara slipped in after Jan, her small agile body crowding in beside him.
“Stop!” a voice shouted from above. “There’s no use hiding in that ravine. We’ll get you! Come up and –”
The sound of voices was drowned out by the roar of the car’s motor. A moment later they shot into the darkness, the car rising into the air. Treetops broke and cracked under them as Erick turned the car from side to side, avoiding the groping shafts of pale light from below, the last furious thrusts from the two Leiters and their soldiers.
Then they were away, above the trees, high in the air, gaining speed each moment, leaving the knot of Martians far behind.
“Toward Marsport,” Jan said to Erick. “Right?”
Erick nodded. “Yes. We’ll land outside the field, in the hills. We can change back to our regular clothing there, our commercial clothing. Damn it — we’ll be lucky if we can get there in time for the ship.”
“The last ship,” Mara whispered, her chest rising and falling. “What if we don’t get there in time?”
Erick looked down at the leather case in his lap. “We’ll have to get there,” he murmured. “We must!”
For a long time there was silence. Thacher stared at Erickson. The older man was leaning back in his chair, sipping a little of his drink. Mara and Jan were silent.
“So you didn’t destroy the City,” Thacher said. “You didn’t destroy it at all. You shrank it down and put it in a glass globe, in a paperweight. And now you’re salesmen again, with a sample case of office supplies!”
Erickson smiled. He opened the briefcase and reaching into it he brought out the glass globe paperweight. He held it up, looking into it. “Yes, we stole the City from the Martians. That’s how we got by the lie detector. It was true that we knew nothing about a destroyed City.”
“But why?” Thacher said. “Why steal a City? Why not merely bomb it?”