“Ingenious,” I said.
Dobbin made a little forward dip upon his rockers, in the semblance of hewing. “Always,” he said, “we attempt to serve.”
Four of the horses came rocking up and I began loading them. When Tuck got through with handing down the gear, Sara came and helped me. Tuck closed the port and by the time he had climbed down the ladder, we were all set to go.
The sun was touching the city skyline and hunks were being nibbled out of it by the topmost towers. It was slightly more yellow than the sun of Earth-perhaps a K-type star. The ship would know, of course; the ship would have it all. The ship did all the work that a man was supposed to do. It gobbled up the data and pulled it all apart and put it back together. It knew about this planet and about the planet’s star, it knew about the atmosphere and the chemistry and all the rest of it and it would have been more than willing to give it out to anyone who asked. But I hadn’t asked. I had meant to go back and get the data sheet, but I hadn’t counted on getting a reverse bum’s rush by a pack of hobbyhorses. Although, I told myself, it probably made, no difference, I could come back in the morning. But I couldn’t bring myself to like the fact that I’d not latched onto that data sheet.
“Dobbin,” I asked, “what is all this danger business? What are we supposed to be afraid of?”
“I cannot inform you,” Dobbin said, “since I, myself, fail to understand, but I can assure you...”
“OK, let it go,” I told him.
Tuck was puffing and panting, trying to boost Smith onto one of the hobbies, Sara already was on one of them, sitting straight and prim, the perfect picture of a gal on the threshold of a very great adventure, and that, of course, was all it was to her-another great adventure. Sitting there, proud, astride her mount, with that ridiculous ancient rifle slung across her shoulder, nattily attired in an adventure-going costume.
I glanced quickly about the bowl that was the landing field, rimmed in by the city, and there was nothing stirring. Shadows ran out from the city’s western wall as the sun went inching down behind the buildings and some of those western buildings had turned from white to black, but there were no lights.
Where was everyone? Where were the city’s residents and all those visitors who’d come down on the spaceships standing like ghostly tombstones on the field? And why were the ships all white?
“Honored sir,” Dobbin said to me, “if you please, would you get into my saddle. Our time is running short.”
A chill was in the air and I don’t mind admitting that I felt a twinge of fright. I don’t know why. Perhaps just the place itself, perhaps the feeling of being trapped on the landing field rimmed in by the city, perhaps the fact that there seemed no living thing in sight except the hobbies-if you could call them living and I suppose you could.
I reached up and lifted the strap of my laser gun off my shoulder and, grasping it in hand, swung into Dobbin’s saddle.
“You need no weapon here,” Dobbin said, disapprovingly. I didn’t answer him. It was my own damn business.
Dobbin wheeled and we started out across the field, heading toward the city. It was a crazy kind of ride-smooth enough, no jerking, but going up and down as much, it seemed, as one was moving forward. It wasn’t rocking; it was like skating on a sine wave.
The city seemed not to grow much larger, nor to gain in detail. We bad been much farther from it, I realized, than it bad appeared; the landing field was larger, too, than it had appeared. Behind me, Tuck let out a yell.
“Captain!”
I twisted in the saddle.
“The ship!” yelled Tuck. “The ship! They’re doing something to it.”
And they were, indeed-whoever they might be.
A long-necked mechanism stood beside the ship. It looked like a bug with a squat and massive body and a long and slender neck with a tiny head atop it. From the mouth of it sprayed out a mist directed at the ship. Where it struck the ship, the ship was turning white, just like those other tombstone ships that stood upon the, field.
I let out an angry yelp, reaching for a rein and yanking hard. But I might as well have yanked upon a rock. Dobbin kept straight on.
“Turn around,” I yelled. “Go back!”
“There is no turning back, most honored sir,” said Dobbin, conversationally, not even panting with his running. “There is no time. We must reach the safety of the city.”
“There is time, by God,” I yelled, jerking up the gun and aiming it at the ground in front of us, between Dobbin’s ears.
“Shut your eyes,” I yelled to the others, and pulled the trigger one notch back. Even through my eyelids, I sensed the flaring of the laser-light as it bounced back from the ground. Under me Dobbin reared and spun, almost swapping end for end, and when I opened my eyes we were heading back toward the ship.
“You’ll be the death of us, crazy being,” Dobbin moaned. “All of us will die.”
I looked behind me and the hobbies all were following. Dobbin, it appeared, was leader and where he went they were content to follow. But farther back there was no sign of where the laser bolt had struck. Even at first notch capacity it should have made a mark; there should have been a smoking crater back there where it struck.
Sara was riding with one arm up across her eyes.
“You all right?” I asked.
“You crazy fool!” she cried.
“I yelled for you to close your eyes,” I said. “There was bound to be reflection.”
“You yelled, then fired,” she said. “You didn’t give us time.”
She took her arm down and her eyes blinked at me and, hell, she was all right. Just something else to bitch about; she never missed a chance.
Ahead of us the bug that had been spraying the ship was scurrying off across the field. It must have had wheels or treads underneath it, for it was spinning along at a headlong clip, its long neck stretched out in front of it in its eagerness to get away from there.
“Please, sir,” Dobbin pleaded, “we are simply wasting time. There is nothing that can be done.”
“One more word out of you,” I said, “and this time right between the ears.”
We reached the ship and Dobbin skidded to a halt, but I didn’t wait for him to stop. I hit the ground and was running toward the ship while he still was moving. Although what I intended to do I had no idea.
I reached the ship and I could see that it was covered with some stuff that looked like frosty glass and when I say covered, I mean covered-every inch of it. There was no metal showing. It looked unfunctional, like a model ship. Reduced in size, it could have passed for those little model ships sold in decorator shops to stick up on the mantle.
I put out my hand and touched it and it was slick and hard. There was no look of metal and there was no feel of metal, either. I rapped it with my gun stock and it rang like a bell, setting up a resonance that went bouncing across the field and came back as an echo from the city walls.
“What is it, captain?” Sara asked, her voice somewhat shaky. This was her ship, and there was no one who could mess around with it.
“A coating of something hard,” I said. “As if it had been sealed.”
“You mean we can’t get into it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe if we had a sledge hammer to crack it, we could peel it off.”
She made a sudden motion and the rifle was off her back and the butt against her shoulder. I’ll say this for her: crazy as that gun might be, she could handle it.
The sound of the shot was loud and flat and the hobbies reared in terror. But above the sound of the report itself was another sound, a wicked howling that almost screamed, the noise of a ricocheting bullet tumbling end for end, and pitched lower than the shrill howling of the slug was the booming resonance of the milk-white ship. But there was no indication of where the bullet might have struck. The whiteness of the ship still was smooth-uncracked, unblemished, unmarked. Two thousand foot-pounds of metal had slammed against it and had not made a dent.