_Nothing moved or stirred. Everything was silent, dead. Only the gun
showed signs of life ... and the trespassers had wrecked that for
all time. The return journey to pick up the treasure would be a
cinch ... they smiled._
The Captain peered into the eyepiece of the telescope. He adjusted the
focus quickly.
"It was an atomic fission we saw, all right," he said presently. He
sighed and pushed the eyepiece away. "Any of you who wants to look may
do so. But it's not a pretty sight."
"Let me look," Tance the archeologist said. He bent down to look,
squinting. "Good Lord!" He leaped violently back, knocking against
Dorle, the Chief Navigator.
"Why did we come all this way, then?" Dorle asked, looking around at the
other men. "There's no point even in landing. Let's go back at once."
"Perhaps he's right," the biologist murmured. "But I'd like to look for
myself, if I may." He pushed past Tance and peered into the sight.
He saw a vast expanse, an endless surface of gray, stretching to the
edge of the planet. At first he thought it was water but after a moment
he realized that it was slag, pitted, fused slag, broken only by hills
of rock jutting up at intervals. Nothing moved or stirred. Everything
was silent, dead.
"I see," Fomar said, backing away from the eyepiece. "Well, I won't find
any legumes there." He tried to smile, but his lips stayed unmoved. He
stepped away and stood by himself, staring past the others.
"I wonder what the atmospheric sample will show," Tance said.
"I think I can guess," the Captain answered. "Most of the atmosphere is
poisoned. But didn't we expect all this? I don't see why we're so
surprised. A fission visible as far away as our system must be a
terrible thing."
He strode off down the corridor, dignified and expressionless. They
watched him disappear into the control room.
As the Captain closed the door the young woman turned. "What did the
telescope show? Good or bad?"
"Bad. No life could possibly exist. Atmosphere poisoned, water
vaporized, all the land fused."
"Could they have gone underground?"
The Captain slid back the port window so that the surface of the planet
under them was visible. The two of them stared down, silent and
disturbed. Mile after mile of unbroken ruin stretched out, blackened
slag, pitted and scarred, and occasional heaps of rock.