gadgeteers, of course, but strictly third-rate citizens who now quite rightly had been relegated to the backwash of the empire.
The place had been sought, and there had been many failures. It had been sought, but not consistently, for there were matters of much greater import than finding it. It was simply an amusing piece of galactic history, or myth, if you would rather. As a project, its discovery had never rated very high.
But here it was, spread out below the high ridge on which the ship had landed, and if any of them wondered why it had not been found before, there was a simple answer-there were just too many stars; you could not search them all.
'This is it,' said the Dog, speaking in his mind, and he looked slantwise at the Human, wondering what the Human might be thinking, for, of all of them, the finding of this place must mean the most to him.
'I am glad we found it,' said the Dog, speaking directly to the Human, and the Human caught the nuances of the thought, the closeness of the Dog and his great compassion and his brotherhood.
'Now we shall know,' the Spider said, and each of them knew, without actually saying so, that now they'd know if these humans were any different from the other humans, or if they were just the same old humdrum race.
'They were mutants,' said the Globe, 'or they were supposed to be.'
The Human stood there, saying nothing, just looking at the place. 'If we'd tried to find it,' said the Dog, 'we never would have done it.'
'We can't spend much time,' the Spider told them. 'Just a quick survey, then there's this other business.'
'The point is,' said the Globe, 'we know now that it exists and where it is. They will send experts out to investigate.'
'We stumbled on it,' said the Human, half in wonderment. 'We just stumbled on it.'
The Spider made a thought that sounded like a chuckle and the Human said no more.
'It's deserted,' said the Globe. 'They have run away again.'
'They may be decadent,' said the Spider. 'We may find what's left of them huddled in some corner, wondering what it's all about, loaded down with legends and with crazy superstitions.'
'I don't think so,' said the Dog.
'We can't spend much time,' the Spider said again.
'We should spend no time at all,' the Globe told them. 'We were not sent out to find this place. We have no business letting it delay us.'
'Since we've found it,' said the Dog, 'it would be a shame to go away and leave it, just like that.'
'Then let's get at it,' said the Spider. 'Let's break out the robots and the ground car.'
'If you don't mind,' the Human said, 'I think that I will walk. The rest of you go ahead. I'll just walk down and take a look around.' 'I'll go with you,' said the Dog.
'I thank you,' said the Human, 'but there really is no need.' So they let him go alone.
The three of them stayed on the ridge top and watched him walk down the hill toward the silent buildings.
Then they went to activate the robots.
The sun was setting when they returned, and the Human was waiting for them, squatting on the ridge, staring at the village.
He did not ask them what they had found. It was almost as if he knew, although he could not have found the answer by himself, just walking around.
They told him.
The Dog was kind about it. 'It's strange,' he said. 'There is no evidence of any great development. No hint of anything unusual. In fact, you might guess that they had retrogressed. There are no great engines, no hint of any mechanical ability.'
'There are gadgets,' said the Human. 'Gadgets of comfort and convenience. That is all I saw.'
'That is all there is,' the Spider said.
'There are no humans,' said the Globe. 'No life of any kind. No intelligence.'
'The experts,' said the Dog, 'may find something when they come.'
'I doubt it,' said the Spider.
The Human turned his head away from the village and looked at his three companions. The Dog was sorry, of course, that they had found so little, sorry that the little they had found had been so negative. The Dog was sorry because he still held within himself some measure of racial memory and of loyalty. The old associations with the human race had been wiped away millennia ago, but the heritage still held, the old heritage of sympathy with and for the being that had walked with his ancestors so understandingly.
The Spider was almost pleased about it, pleased that he had found no evidence of greatness, that this last vestige of vanity that might be held by humans now would be dashed forever and the race must now slink back into its corner and stay there, watching with furtive eyes the greatness of the Spiders and the other races.
The Globe didn't care. As he floated there, at head level with the Spider and the Dog, it meant little to him whether humans might be proud or humble. Nothing mattered to the Globe except that certain plans went forward, that certains goals were reached, that progress could be measured. Already the Globe had written off this village, already he had erased the story of the mutant humans as a factor that might affect progress, one way or another.
'I think,' the Human said, 'that I will stay out here for a while. That is, if you don't mind.'
'We don't mind,' the Globe told him.
'It will be getting dark,' the Spider said.
'There'll be stars,' the Human said. 'There may even be a moon. Did you notice if there was a moon?'
'No,' the Spider said.
'We'll be leaving soon,' the Dog said to the Human. 'I will come out and tell you when we have to leave.'
There were stars, of course. They came out when the last flush of the sun still flamed along the west. First there were but a few of the brighter ones and then there were more, and finally the entire heaven was a network of unfamiliar stars. But there was no moon. Or, if there was one, it did not show itself.
Chill crept across the ridge and the Human found some sticks of wood lying about, dead branches and shriveled bushes and other wood that looked as if it might at one time have been milled and worked, and built himself a fire. It was a small fire but it flamed brightly in the darkness, and he huddled close against it, more for its companionship than for any heat it gave.
He sat beside it and looked down upon the village and told himself there was something wrong. The greatness of the human race, he told himself, could not have gone so utterly to seed. He was lonely, lonely with a throat-aching loneliness that was more than the loneliness of an alien planet and a chilly ridge and unfamiliar stars. He was lonely for the hope that once had glowed so brightly, for the promise that had gone like dust into nothingness before a morning wind, for a race that huddled in its gadgetry in the backwash of the empire.
Not an empire of humanity, but an empire of Globes and Spiders, of Dogs and other things for which there was scarcely a description.
There was more to the human race than gadgetry. There was destiny somewhere and the gadgetry was simply the means to bridge the time until that destiny should become apparent. In a fight for survival, he told himself, gadgetry might be the expedient, but it could not be the answer; it could not be the sum total, the final jotting down of any group of beings.
The Dog came and stood beside him without saying anything. He simply stood there and looked down with the Human at the quiet village that had been quiet so long, and the firelight flamed along his coat, and he was a thing of beauty with a certain inherent wildness still existing in him.
Finally the Dog broke the silence that hung above the world and seemed a part of it.
'The fire is nice,' he said. 'I seldom have a fire.'
'The fire was first,' the Human said. 'The first step up. Fire is a symbol to me.'
'I have symbols, too,' the Dog said, gravely. 'Even the Spider has some symbols. But the Globe has none.'
'I feel sorry for the Globe,' the Human said.
