So it hadn't been a nightmare after all. There really were a people who called themselves the Cosmic Engineers. There really was a city.
The ship still plunged downward, but its speed was slowing and now Gary realized that when first they had seen this pile of stone beneath them they had been many miles away. In comparison to the city, they and their ship were tiny things… little things, like ants crawling in the shadow of a mountain.
Then they were within the city, or at least its upper portion. The ship flashed past a mighty spire of stone and swung into its shadow. Below them they saw new details of the city, winding streets and broad parkways and boulevards, like tiny ribbons fluttering in the distance. A city that could thrill one with its mere bigness. A city which would have put a thousand New Yorks to shame. A city that dwarfed even the most ambitious dreams of mankind.
A million of Man's puny cities piled into one. Gary tried to imagine how big the planet must be to bear such a city, but there was no use of thinking, for there was no answer.
They were dropping down toward one of the fifth tiers of buildings, down and down, closer and closer to the massive blocks of Stone. So close now that their vision was cut off, and the terrace of the tier seemed like a broad, flat plain.
A section of the roof was opening, like a door opening outward into space.
The ship, floating on an even keel, drifted gently downward, toward that yawning trap door. Then they were through the door, with plenty of room to spare, were floating quietly down between walls of delicate pastel hues.
The ship settled with a gentle bump and was still. They had arrived at their destination.
'Well, we're here,' said Herb. 'I wonder what we're supposed to do.”
As if in answer to his question, the voice came again, the voice that was not a voice, but as if each person were thinking for himself.
It said: 'This is a place we have prepared for you. You will find the gravity and the atmosphere and the surroundings natural to yourselves. You will need no space armor, no artificial trappings of any sort. Food is waiting you.”
They stared at one another in amazement.
'I think,' said Herb, 'that I will like this place. Did you hear that?
Food? I trust there's also drink.”
'Yes,' said the voice, 'there is drink.”
Herb's jaw dropped.
Tommy stepped out of the pilot's chair. 'I'm hungry,' he said. He strode to the inner valve of the air lock and spun the wheel. The others crowded behind him.
They stepped out of the ship onto a great slab of stone placed in the center of a gigantic room. The stone, apparently, was merely there for the ship to rest upon, for the rest of the floor was paved in scintillating blocks of mineral that flashed and glinted in the light from the three suns pouring in through a huge, translucent skylight. The walls of the room were done in soft, pastel shades, and on the walls were hung huge paintings, while ringed about the ship was furniture, perfect rooms of furniture, but with no dividing walls. An entire household, of palatial dimension, set up in a single room.
A living room, a library, bedrooms and a dining room. A dining room with massive oaken table and five chairs, and upon the table a banquet to do justice to a king.
'Chicken!' cried Herb and the word carried a weight of awe.
'And wine,' said Tommy.
They stared in amazement at the table. Gary sniffed. He could smell the chicken.
'Antique furniture,' said Kingsley. 'That stuff would bring a fortune back in the solar system. Mostly Chatterton and it looks authentic. And beautiful pieces, museum pieces, every one. Thousand years old at least.”
He stared from piece to piece. 'But how did they got it here?' he burst out.
Caroline's laughter rang through the room, a chiming, silver laughter that had a note of wild happiness in it.
'What's the matter?' demanded Tommy.
'I don't see anything funny,' declared Herb. 'Unless there is a joke.
Unless that chicken really isn't chicken.”
'It's chicken,' Caroline assured him. 'And the rest of the food is real, too. And so is that furniture. Only I didn't think of it as antique. You see, a thousand years ago that sort of furniture was the accepted style.
That was the smartest sort of pieces to have in your home.”
'But you?' asked Gary. 'What did you have to do with it?”
'I told the Engineers,' she said. 'They asked me what we ate and I told them. They must have understood me far better than I thought. I told them the kind of clothes we wore and the kind of furniture we used. But, you see, the only things I knew about were out of date, things the people used a thousand years ago. All except the chicken. You still eat chicken, don't you?”
'And how,' grinned Herb.
'Why,' said Gary, 'this means the Engineers can make anything they want to.
They can arrange atoms to make any sort of material. They can transmute matter!”
Kingsley nodded. 'That's exactly what it means,' he said.
Herb was hurrying for the table.
'If we don't get there, there won't be anything left,' Tommy suggested.
The chicken, the mashed potatoes and gravy, the wine, the stuffed olives…
all the food was good. It might have come out of the kitchen of the solar system's smartest hotel only a few minutes before. After days of living on coffee and hastily slapped-together sandwiches, they did full justice to it.
Herb regarded with regret the last piece of chicken and shook his head dolefully.
'I just can't do it,' he moaned. 'I just can't manage any more.”
'I never tasted such food in all my life,' Kingsley declared.
'They asked me what we ate,' Caroline said, 'so I thought of all the things I like the best. They didn't leave out a single one.”
'But where are the Engineers?' asked Gary. 'We haven't seen a thing of them. We have seen plenty of what they have done and can do, but not one has showed himself.”
Footsteps rasped across the floor and Gary swung around in his chair.
Advancing toward them was something that looked like a man, but not exactly a man. It was the same height, had the same general appearance — two arms, two legs, a man-shaped torso and a head. But there was something definitely wrong with the face; something wrong with the body, too.
'There's the answer to your question,' said Tommy.
'There's an Engineer.”
Gary scarcely heard him. He was watching the Engineer intently as the creature approached. And he knew why the Engineer was different. Cast in human shape, he was still a far cry from the humans of the solar system, for the Engineer was a metal man! A man fashioned of metallic matter instead of protoplasm.
'A metal man,' he said.
'That's right,' replied Kingsley, and keen interest rather than wonderment was in his words. 'This must be a large planet. The force of gravity must be tremendous. Protoplasm probably would be unable to stand up under its pull. We'd probably just melt down if the Engineers hadn't fixed up this place for us.”
'You are right,' said the metal man, but his mouth didn't open, his facial expression didn't change. He was speaking to them as the voice had spoken to them back on Pluto and again as they had entered the city. The Engineer stopped beside the table and stood stiffly, his arms folded across his chest.
'Is everything satisfactory?' asked the Engineer.
It was funny, this way he had of talking. No sound, no change of expression, no gesture… just words burning themselves into one's brain, the imprint of thought thrust upon one's consciousness.
'Why, yes,' said Gary, 'everything is fine,”
'Fine,' shouted Herb, waving a drumstick. 'Why, everything is perfect.”
