Maybe there was no one left, Dard said.
Blew themselves up? Kimbers expressive eyebrows rose as he considered that. Kind of wholesale, even for a big-time war. The burn-off took most of Terras cities and the purge killed off the people who could rebuild them. But there were still plenty of men kicking around afterward. Of course, they were ahead of us technically here-those things in the carrier point to that. Which argues that-if they were like us-they were way ahead in the production of bigger and more lethal weapons, too. Well, I have a feeling that tomorrow or the next day were going to learn about it.
The light was that gray wash which preceded sunrise when Dard sat up in his bedroll to answer the shadowy figure who roused him. He shivered, more with excitement than the morning chill, as he rolled his bag together and stole after Cully out of the cave to the sled.
There the four explorers made a hasty breakfast on cold scraps while Kimber talked disjointedly with Kordov, Harmon and Rogan.
Well say five days, he said. But it may be longer. Give us a good margin for error. And dont send out after us if we dont make it back. Just take precautions.
Kordov shook his head. No man is expendable here, Sim, not any more. But why should we borrow trouble in such large handfuls? I will not believe that you wont return! You have the list of plants, of things you are to look for?
Simba Kimber touched a breast pocket in answer. Cully took his place in the second seat of the sled and beckoned Dard to join him. When Kimber was behind the control Santee scrambled in, a stun rifle across his big knees.
Ill listen for any broadcast, Rogan promised. And Harmon mouthed something which might have been either reminder or farewell as Kimber took them up into the crisp air of the dawn.
Dard was too excited to waste any time waving goodbye or looking back into the safety of the valley. Instead he was leaning forward, his body tense, as if by the sheer power of his will be could speed their flight into the unknown.
They kept to a speed about equal to that of a running man as they followed the cliffs along to the narrow upper end of the valley. Close packed below to the edge of those stone wails was the woods the exploring parties had located earlier, only to be kept from penetration by the density of the growth.
Queer stuff, Cully remarked now as they soared over the tree tops. A limb grows long, bends over to the ground, touches, then takes root and another tree starts to grow out right there. That whole mass down there may have started with just one tree. And you cant break or hack through it!
The sky before them was bannered with pink streamers. A flight of the delicately hued butterfly-birds circled them and then flew as escort until they were just beyond the valley wall. What the explorers saw beneath them now was a somber earth-covering blanket of blue-green, vaguely dismal and depressing with its unchanging darkness. An- other collection of the self-planting trees made an effective border along the eastern side of the cliffs, and this was not a small wood but a far-stretching forest.
There! Santee pointed downward. That theres it! Them trees cover it some, but I say its a road!
A narrow ribbon of a light-colored substance, hidden for long distances by the invading trees ran due east. Kimber brought the sled into line over it.
But it was a full hour before they reached the end of the forest and saw clearly the cracked and broken highway which was their guide. It threaded across open plains where now and again they sighted more of the dome dwellings standing alone and deserted, wreathed with masses of greenery.
No people-the land is empty, Dard commented as the sled crossed the fourth of these.
War, Kimber wondered, or diseases Must have made a clean sweep in this section. And a long time ago-by the growth of the bushes and the appearance of the road.
It was more than two hours after they left the valley that they came upon what had been a village. And here was the first clue to the type of disaster which had struck the land. One vast pit was the center of the clustered domes. Crushed and shattered buildings ringed it, bearing the stains and melted smears of intense heat.
Air raid? Cully asked of the silence. They got it good -and for keeps; it was war then.
Kimber did not circle the damage. Instead he stepped up the speed of the sled, driven by the same desire that possessed them all, the longing to know what lay beyond the broken horizon.
A second town, larger, brutally treated, its remaining structures half melted, its heart a crater, passed under them. Then again open country, beaded by deserted farms. The road ended at last in a city, shattered, smashed. A city planted on the shore of a bay, for here the sea curved in from the northwest to meet them once more.
There were towers, snapped, torn, twisted, until those in the sled could not be sure of their original shape, looming beside dark sores of craters. And at the waterside there was literally nothing but a slick expanse of crystalline slag reflecting the suns rays.
Sea waves lipped that slag, but its edges remained unworn by the touch of water and time alike. And beyond, in the bay, the waves also curled restlessly about other wreckage-ships? Or parts of the buildings blown there?
Kimber cruised slowly across the spiderweb map of the ancient streets. But the wreckage was so complete they could only guess at the use or meaning of what they saw. Mounds of disintegrating metal might mark the residue of ground transportation devices, their weathered erosion testifying in part to the age of the disaster. And from the sled the explorers sighted nothing at all which might mark the remains of those who had lived there.
They landed on a patch of grassy ground before a huge pile of masonry which had three walls still standing. The ruined farmhouse had pictured for them tragedy, fear and cruelty. But this whole city-it was impersonal, too much,. Such complete wreckage was closer to a dream.
Atom bomb, H-bomb, Null-bomb, Cully recited the list of the worst Terra had known. They must have had them here-all of them!
And they were certainly men-for they used them! Kimber added savagely. He climbed out of the sled and faced the building. Its walls reflected the sun as if they were of some metallic substance but softly, with a glow of green-blue-as if the blocks used in building had been quarried of sea water. A flight of twelve steps, as wide as a Terran city block, led up to a mighty portal through which they could see the sun glow bright in the roofless interior.
Around that portal ran a band of colors, blending and contrasting in a queer way which might have had meaning and yet did net-for Terran eyes. As he studied the hues Dard thought he had a half-hint. Perhaps those colors did have a deliberate sequence-perhaps they were more than just decoration.
6: DISASTER
THEIR ATTEMPTS to explore on foot were frustrated by the mounds of debris and danger from falling rubble. Cully jumped to safety from the top of a mound which caved in under his weight, and so escaped a dangerous slide into one of the pits. Those pits were everywhere, dug so deeply into the foundations of the city that the Terrans, huddling on the rims, could look down past several underground levels to a darkness uncut by the sun.
A little shaken by the engineers narrow escape, they retired to the sled and made an unappetizing meal on concentrates.
No birds, Dard suddenly realized that fact. Nothing alive.
Unhuh. Santee dug his heel into the grass and earth.