A burned-out tank with a carbonized skeleton still frozen in that slice of time when it had been a man struggling to be free of the glowing-hot hatch.
The twisted, rusting remains of a great-engined aircraft lying in the vanguard of a plowed-up V of land, marking its last touchdown.
A circular pool of superheated sand, now glazed over to form a diamond-hard slab, its smoothness interrupted by the eruption of a large, twisted piece of steel. The image is of a piece of untitled and very avant-garde sculpture.
Machines and pieces of machines litter the sand like dead leaves. The wind slips easily through the countless edges and angles, occasionally rising to produce an eerie music which is a combination of a wail and the phrases of an atonal sonata.
If one believed in them, the place could be aswarm with ghosts. The eidolons of a million soldiers crowd the open spaces, all drifting in the stoop-shouldered half step of forgotten tramps; as though condemned to shamble aimlessly through the ruins forever.
Varian was the one to break the cold silence.
“It’s like this all over? I can’t believe it. . . .”
“Oh yeah, you’d better believe it,” said Stoor. “It goes on like this! On and on and on . . . thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of square kays.”
“It’s like a museum,” said Tessa. “So cold and sterile. It’s like we don’t belong here. Don’t you get that feeling?”
“I’ve had that feeling,” said Varian, looking at the incredible vista of destruction. As a trained fighter, he could understand the necessity for arms; he could respect the power of the machines and armies which had gathered here; he could even feel a twinge of the excitement, the glory which must have hung in the air like a burning mist. But all that notwithstanding, even Varian was horrified at the bleak testament of the Ironfields.
It was the ultimate metaphor. The final image. The lasting monument to man’s need to study war once more.
“Look at the Finder,” said Tessa, pointing to the screen where a flurry of blips danced like snowflakes. “It’s going crazy!”
Stoor reached out, turning down the gain. “We’ll have to fine-tune it, adjust it so it will only be sensitive to electromagnetics.”
“Can you do that?” Varian looked at the old man, wondering if this was the preamble to another tale.
Stoor nodded. “Raim can. You don’t spend twenty years in Zend Avesta, hanging around the World’s most inventive folk, without learning something.”
“What exactly are you talking about?” Tessa looked at him while Raim continued to navigate among the ruins.
“All the old First Age stuff was run on little pieces of wire and chipboard. They called ‘em ‘crickets’ ‘cause that’s what they looked like. These little things sent out specific signals and the Finder can pick them up, if there’s any around. It just has to be told what to look for, see?”
“Right,” said Varian. “We don’t need it to locate objects ahead anymore: We can see them plain enough. But if one of these wrecks is really the Citadel or the Guardian, we’d never know it.”
“We could spend a lifetime checking out each wreck,” said Tessa.
“All our lifetimes,” said Stoor, looking out the windshield. He rubbed his beard, eyed the sky for a moment, then spoke again. “Listen, why don’t we pack it in for the night? Raim can adjust the Finder. We’ll make camp. A good meal and plenty of rest. We’ll be busy for quite a while in here.”
Everyone agreed and the vehicle slowly came to a stop under the shadow of a great machine which had moved on large spiked wheels, now transformed into pinwheels of iron oxide.
The sky was high and cloudless as he walked with her on the perimeter of the camp. The stars were bright and cold above them, and the lyrical notes of Raim’s flutelike arthis wove expertly among the sheets of night silence. She held his hand tightly, and he could sense her on the brink of trembling.
“Cold?”
“No, it’s not that.”
“Tessa, do you fear me?” His voice was calm and matter of fact. “Is that it, then? Or is it this place—this thing that we are doing?”
“Maybe all of those things. . . . I don’t know, Varian. I’ve been thinking, and things are not right. I thought that my life was going to be different after I met you. After you saved me. . . .”
“And it isn’t. . . ?” Sometimes Varian had the feeling that all women were of a similar essential nature that would be forever a mystery to men.
“No, wait. Listen to me. You know my life. I’ve never had any control over it. Never! My father. And then the men he sold me to . . . I never had a chance to even think about controlling my own affairs. I never stopped to think about what I wanted. Except for one thing: I knew I never wanted to be with another man as long as I lived.”
“I understand that,” he said. “You told me—”
“Let me finish.” She gestured with her hand at the ruins which surrounded them. “I feel like a prisoner here. I feel totally oppressed, and I’m surprised that you and the others don’t feel it. It’s like a real presence here, hanging over us. I feel it, Varian, and it makes me think of what’s happened to me. What’s happened to my life.” She paused to rub her eyes, shake her head slowly.
“Go on. . . .” He touched her shoulder and she pulled away.
“It’s just that . . . I’ve had time to think about a lot of things since we’ve started the journey, and—”
“And you’ve decided you don’t want to be with me? That’s all right, Tessa. I can understand that. That wasn’t one of the conditions of saving your life. . . .”
Tessa smiled. “No, no! It’s nothing like that. No, Varian. And your saying that just proves to me again that you are a real man, a real person. I’ve met
