least they no longer had to rope themselves to the carrier.
They came into the ruins again, maintaining a careful watch for any signs of life there. The brilliant hues of the buildings were subdued by the lack of sunlight, but they still warred with one another and jolted Terran senses in a subtle fashion. Either the people who had built this city had a different type of vision, or a chemical reaction from the burn-off had altered the colour scheme for the worse. As it was none of the Traders felt exactly comfortable if they looked too long at those walls.
“It isn’t altogether the colour—” Rip spoke aloud. “It’s their shape, too. Those angles are wrong—just enough wrong to be disturbing—”
“The burn-off blast may have shaken them up,” offered Dane. But Mura was not ready to accept that.
“No, Rip has it right. The colours, they are wrong for us, also the shapes. See that tower—over there? Only three floors remain, but once it was taller. Let your eye rise along the lines of those floors into space—where once must have been other walls, It is all wrong—those lines—”
Dane saw what he meant. With imagination one could add floors to the tower—but when one did! For a moment he was dizzy as he tried that feat. It was very easy, after studying all this, to believe that the Forerunners had been alien, alien beyond any race that the Terrans, new come to the Galactic lanes, had encountered.
He hurriedly averted his eyes from that tower, winced as his gaze swept across an impossibly scarlet foundation and fastened with relief on the comfortable monotone of the crawler and Wilcox’s square back in the drab brown Service tunic.
But the astrogator had not joined his companions in their speculations concerning their surroundings. He was hunched over, both hands clutching the mike of the stepped-up com Kosti had not yet altered. And there was something in his posture which altered the others as they watched him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN:
SARGASSO WORLD
Dane strained to hear a hint of sound in his helmet phones. There was a far off click which faded quickly. But it was evident that Wilcox with his double powered com received more than that.
The astrogator took one hand from the mike and gestured the others to come to the stalled crawler. Luckily no drone from the interference blanketed the air waves. And by some freak the word “stay” boomed suddenly in Dane’s ears.
Wilcox looked up at them. “We’re not to go back now—”
“What’s wrong?” Mura’s voice lost none of its mild tone.
“The Queen’s surrounded—”
“Surrounded!” “By whom?” “What happened?” the questions came together in a confused gabble.
“They were fired upon when they tried to leave the ship. And there’s some reason why they can’t lift. We’re to keep clear until they can find out what’s behind it all—”
Mura glanced over his shoulder at the valleys now unveiled as the mist drifted away in tattered streamers.
“If we cut across the open,” he said slowly, “we can be seen with ease now that the fog is gone. But suppose we go back—along the valley mouths, paralleling the burnt-off country. We should reach a point opposite the Queen, and then we can climb the heights until we are able to see what is going on about her—”
Wilcox nodded. “We’re not to try contact by com. They’re afraid we might be picked up.”
Though the fog had lifted visibility was not good. It must be well into evening and the astrogator surveyed their present surroundings with disfavour. It was plain that they could not move through the rough foothill country in the dark. Their travels must wait until morning. But he did not order them to find shelter in the city buildings. Mura broke the short silence first.
“There is the bubble—we could camp there for the night. I do not think it has been used since it was erected as a blind.”
They seized upon that thankfully and the crawler made the return trip to the abandoned camp of the archaeologists. They unsealed the full door flap, allowing their carrier space to enter. And when that portal was closed again Dane had a feeling of relief. The walls enclosing them were Terran made, he had slept in such shelters before. And that familiarity was in a measure security against the alien quality of the city without.
The bubble cut off the night winds and they were not too uncomfortable in spite of the lack of heat. Kosti who had been wandering about the hollow shell kicked at an inoffensive bit of rock.
“They could have left the heating unit. That’s supposed to be part of one of these—”
Rip laughed. “But they didn’t know we were coming.”
Kosti stared at him, inclined to be affronted, and then he chuckled.
“No, they did not know. We can’t complain—” His deep roar of laughter was directed at himself.
Mura busied himself with duties which were part of his usual job, collecting their emergency rations and parcelling out to each one of the tasteless cubes and so many sips from their canteens. Dane wondered at the steward’s careful measurements. It was as if Mura did not believe they were going to return to the Queen in the near future and thought that these limited supplies might have to last for a long time.
Once they had eaten, they drew together for warmth, stretching out on the bare floor. Outside the bubble they could hear the moan of the night winds, rising to a crescendo of weird cries as it wailed through fissures of the ruins.
Dane’s thoughts were restless. What was wrong with the Queen? If the ship was besieged why hadn’t she simply lifted from the landing and set down elsewhere, giving them directions where to join her, or sending out the flitter to pick them up? What kept the freighter planet bound?
Perhaps the others shared his worries, but there were no speculations voiced in the dark, no questions asked. Having their orders they had determined upon a course of action for themselves and now they were getting what rest they could.
Shortly after dawn the haggard Wilcox sat up and then limped to the crawler. In the pinched grey light he looked years older and there was a tight set to his lips as he bent over the machine, making the adjustments which would leave it on manual control during the hours to come.
None of them could have been asleep for Wilcox’s action acted as a signal and they were all on their feet, stretching the cramp out of arms and legs. Greetings were grunts as they ate what Mura allowed them. Then they were out in the crispness of the morning. Streaks of colour heralded the sun they had not seen for so long and the last of the fog was gone. In the north the mountains were stark and bare against the sky.
Wilcox pointed the crawler north where the foothill valleys pushed out in a ragged fringe. There was plenty of cover there and they could slip east undetected. Of them all the astrogator had the most difficult job. Here was no smooth path for the crawler. And within a half mile he had to throttle down to a slow walking pace or be bounced from his seat.
In the end they separated into two parties. Two of them at time scouted ahead, while the two remaining stayed with Wilcox and the crawler at the slower pace. From all signs they might have been alone in a dead world. No tracks broke the soil, there were no sounds, and they did not even sight one of the rare insects which must keep to the more hospitable inner portions of the valleys.
Dane was on advance patrol with Mura when the steward gave a grunt and raised his hands as if to shade his eyes. Above them the sun had struck fire from some gleaming surface, struck it strong enough to flash a burning beam down at the Terrans.
“Metal!” Dane cried. Could this be another clue to the installation?
He started towards that spot, first clambering with difficulty over the debris left by a recent slide of small rocks. Then he pulled himself up on a ledge the slide had uncovered and made his way to the source of that flash. What he expected he did not really know. But what he found was wreckage—wreckage of another space ship— although the outlines were strange, even allowing for alterations made by the force of its landing. It was smaller than the prospector they had discovered the day before, and in a greater state of disintegration, the parts which had been exposed before the slide brought it all to the surface were only rust-eaten scraps.
Mura joined him and looked down at the crumpled thing which had once navigated space.
