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Updated: May 12, 2025
Hobart and Lablet were engrossed in speculation about what might lie ahead. Soriki had gone back to the flitter to make his report to the ship. The pilot sat where he was, content to be forgotten, but eager to see an animal peering at him from cover, a bird winging through the air. " if we don't hit it by nightfall But we can't be that far away! I'll stay out and try tomorrow." That was Hobart.
But the discipline which had shaped him almost since birth sent him now to check the flyer and wait, inwardly impatient, for Hobart, Lablet, and Soriki, the com-tech, to join him. The wait was not a long one since the three others, with equipment hung about, tramped down the ramp as Raf settled himself behind the control board of the flyer.
Hobart's hand went to the weapon at his belt. "We must make peaceful contact if we can." Lablet took off his helmet and ran his fingers through the scrappy ginger-and-gray fringe receding from his forehead. "Yes contact will be necessary " he said thoughtfully. Well, he was supposed to be their expert on that. Raf watched the older man with something akin to amusement.
The land on the south side of the mountains was different in character to the wild northern plains. "Fields!" It did not require that identification from Lablet to point out what they had already seen. The section below was artificially divided into long narrow strips. But the vegetation growing on those strips was no different from the northern grass they had seen about the spacer.
At the other end of the room Lablet and Hobart were trying to communicate with the nobles about them, while Soriki, a small palm recorder in his hand, was making a tape strip of the proceedings. Raf glanced from one of his neighbors to the other.
Do you want the other installed? It will mean that the flitter can only carry three instead of four " Hobart pulled his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger. He glanced at his lieutenant then to Lablet, sitting quietly to one side. It was the latter who spoke first. "I'd say this shows definite traces of retrogression." He touched the photograph. "The place may even be only a ruin."
"They're just shuttling around up there. What do we do now?" Lablet turned his head. He was smiling faintly. "We wait," he told the com-tech. "I should imagine it takes time to climb twenty flights of stairs if they have stairs " Soriki's attention fell from the flyer hovering over their heads to the surface of the roof. Raf had already looked that over without seeing any opening.
A block of solid masonry loomed high in the sky, dwarfing not only the building they were standing on but all the towers around it. Its imposing lines made clear its one-time importance. "Palace," mused Lablet, "or capitol. I'd say it was just about the heart of the city." He dropped his glasses to swing on their cord, his eyes glistening as he spoke directly to Raf.
And war by fire aroused in them that old horror. Surely Soriki must feel it too, and when the com-tech did not comment, Raf was sure of that. He hoped that the slaughter had made some impression on the captain and on Lablet into the bargain.
He could remember with unusual distinctness how he had disliked, somehow feared the things they had brought from the city storehouse, how he had privately hoped that Hobart and Lablet would be content to let well enough alone and not bring that knowledge of an alien race back with them.
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