CIVILIZATION

Raf surveyed the wide sweep of prairie where dawn gave a gray tinge to

soften the distance and mark the rounded billows of the ever-rippling

grass. He tried to analyze what it was about this world which made it

seem so untouched, so fresh and new. There were large sections of his

own Terra which had been abandoned after the Big Burn-Off and the

atomic wars, or later after the counterrevolution which had defeated

the empire of Pax, during which mankind had slipped far back on the

road to civilization. But he had never experienced this same feeling

when he had ventured into those wildernesses. Almost he could believe

that the records Hobart had showed him were false, that this world had

never known intelligent life herding together in cities.

He walked slowly down the ramp, drawing deep breaths of the crisp air.

The day would grow warmer with the rising sun. But now it was just the

sort of morning which led him to be glad he was alive--and young!

Maybe part of it was because he was free of the ship and at last not

just excess baggage but a man with a definite job before him.

Spacemen tended to be young. But until this moment Raf had never felt

the real careless freedom of youth. Now he was moved by a desire to

disobey orders--to take the flitter up by himself and head off into

the blue of the brightening sky for more than just a test flight, not

to explore Hobart's city but to cruise over the vast sea of grass and

find out its wonders for himself.

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. He triggered the shield which snapped over

them for a windbreak and brought the flitter up into the spreading

color of the morning. Beside him Hobart pressed the button of the

automatic recorder, and in the seat behind, Soriki had the headset of

the com clamped over his ears. They were not only making a record of

their trip, they were continuing in constant communication with the

ship--now already a silver pencil far to the rear.

It was some two hours later that they discovered what was perhaps one

reason for the isolation of the district in which the _RS 10_ had set

down. Rolling foothills rose beneath them and miles ahead the

white-capped peaks of a mountain range made a broken outline against

the turquoise sky. The broken lands would be a formidable barrier for

any foot travelers: there were no easy roads through that series of

sharp lifts and narrow valleys. And the one stream they followed for a

short space descended from the heights in spectacular falls. Twice

they skimmed thick growths of trees, so tightly packed that from the

air they resembled a matted carpet of green-blue. And to cut through

such a forest would be an impossible task.

The four in the flitter seldom spoke. Raf kept his attention on the

controls. Sudden currents of air were tricky here, and he had to be

constantly alert to hold the small flyer on an even keel. His glimpses

of what lay below were only snatched ones.

At last it was necessary to zoom far above the vegetation of the lower

slopes, to reach an altitude safe enough to clear the peaks ahead.

Since the air supply within the windshield was constant they need not

fear lack of oxygen. But Raf was privately convinced, as they soared,

that the range might well compare in height with those Asian mountains

which dominated all the upflung reaches of his native world.

When they were over the sharp points of that chain disaster almost

overtook them. A freakish air current caught the flitter as if in a

giant hand, and Raf fought for control as they lost altitude past the

margin of safety. Had he not allowed for just such a happening they

might have been smashed against one of the rock tips over which they

skimmed to a precarious safety. Raf, his mouth dry, his hands sweating

on the controls, took them up--higher than was necessary--to coast

above the last of that rocky spine to see below the beginning of the

downslopes leading to the plains the range cut in half. He heard

Hobart draw a hissing breath.

"That was a close call." Lablet's precise, lecturer's voice cut

through the drone of the motor.

"Yeah," Soriki echoed, "looked like we might be sandwich meat there

for a while. The kid knows his stuff after all."

Raf grinned a little sourly, but he did not answer that. He _ought_ to

know his trade. Why else would he be along? They were each specialists

in one or two fields. But he had good sense enough to keep his mouth

shut. That way the less one had to regret minutes--or hours--later.

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.

"Not cultivated now," the scientist amended his first report. "It's

reverting to grassland--"

Raf brought the flitter closer to the ground so that when a domed

structure arose out of a tangle of overgrown shrubs and trees they

were not more than fifty feet above it. There was no sign of life

about the dwelling, if dwelling it was, and the unkempt straggle of

growing things suggested that it had been left to itself through more

than one season. Lablet wanted to set down and explore, but the

captain was intent upon reaching the city. A solitary farm was of

little value compared with what they might learn from a metropolis.

So, rather to Raf's relief, he was ordered on.

He could not have explained why he shrank from such investigation.

Where earlier that morning he had wanted to take the flitter and go

off by himself to explore the world which seemed so bright and new,

now he was glad that he was only the pilot of the flyer and that the

others were not only in his company but ready to make the decisions.

He had a queer distaste for the countryside, a disinclination to land

near that dome.

Beyond the first of the deserted farms they came to the highway and,

since the buckled and half-buried roadway ran south, Hobart suggested

that they use it as a visible guide. More isolated dome houses showed

in the course of an hour. And their fields were easy to map from the

air. But nowhere did the Terrans see any indication that those fields

were in use. Nor were there any signs of animal or bird life. The

weird desolation of the landscape began to work its spell on the men

in the flitter. There was something unnatural about the country, and

with every mile the flyer clocked off, Raf longed to be heading in the

opposite direction.

The domes drew closer together, made a cluster at crossroads, gathered

into a town in which all the buildings were the same shape and size,

like the cells of a wasp nest. Raf wondered if those who had built

them had not been humanoid at all, but perhaps insects with a hive

mind. And because that thought was unpleasant he resolutely turned his

attention to the machine he piloted.

They passed over four such towns, all marking intersections of roads

running east and west, north and south, with precise exactness. The

sun was at noon or a little past that mark when Captain Hobart gave

the order to set down so that they could break out rations and eat.

Raf brought the flitter down on the cracked surface of the road,

mistrusting what might lie hidden in the field grass. They got out and

walked for a space along pavement which had once been smooth.

"High-powered traffic--" That was Lablet. He had gone down on one

knee and was tracing a finger along the substance.

"Straight--" Soriki squinted against the sun. "Nothing stopped them,

did it? We want a road here and we'll get it! That sort of thing. Must

have been master engineers."

To Raf the straight highways suggested something else. Master

engineering, certainly. But a ruthlessness too, as if the builders,

who refused to accept any modifications of their original plans from

nature, might be as arrogant and self-assured in other ways. He did

not admire this relic of civilization; in fact it added to his vague

uneasiness.

The land was so still, under the whisper of the wind. He discovered

that he was listening--listening for the buzz of an insect, the squeak

of some grass dweller, anything which would mean that there was life

about them. As he chewed on the ration concentrate and drank sparingly

from his canteen, Raf continued to listen. Without result.

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. And since he was

captain what he said was probably what they would do. Raf shied away

from the thought of spending the night in this haunted land. Though,

on the other hand, he would be utterly opposed to lifting the flitter

over those mountains again except in broad daylight.

But the problem did not arise, for they found their city in the

midafternoon, the road bringing them straight to an amazing collection

of buildings, which appeared doubly alien to their eyes since it did

not include any of the low domes they had seen heretofore.

Here were towers of needle slimness, solid blocks of almost windowless

masonry looking twice as bulky beside those same towers, archways

stringing at dizzy heights above the ground from one skyscraper to the

next. And here time and nature had been at work. Some of the towers

were broken off, a causeway displayed a gap--Once it had been a

breathtaking feat of engineering, far more impressive than the

highway, now it was a slowly collapsing ruin.

But before they had time to take it all in Soriki gave an exclamation.

"Something coming through on our wave band, sir!" He leaned forward to

dig fingers into Hobart's shoulder. "Message of some kind--I'd swear

to it!"