"Records of some kind." Tance closed the spool up in the drum again.
"Look, hundreds of drums." He flashed the light around. "And those
crates. Let's open one."
Dorle was already prying at the wood. The wood had turned brittle and
dry. He managed to pull a section away.
It was a picture. A boy in a blue garment, smiling pleasantly, staring
ahead, young and handsome. He seemed almost alive, ready to move toward
them in the light of the hand lamp. It was one of them, one of the
ruined race, the race that had perished.
For a long time they stared at the picture. At last Dorle replaced the
board.
"All these other crates," Nasha said. "More pictures. And these drums.
What are in the boxes?"
"This is their treasure," Tance said, almost to himself. "Here are their
pictures, their records. Probably all their literature is here, their
stories, their myths, their ideas about the universe."
"And their history," Nasha said. "We'll be able to trace their
development and find out what it was that made them become what they
were."
Dorle was wandering around the vault. "Odd," he murmured. "Even at the
end, even after they had begun to fight they still knew, someplace down
inside them, that their real treasure was this, their books and
pictures, their myths. Even after their big cities and buildings and
industries were destroyed they probably hoped to come back and find
this. After everything else was gone."
"When we get back home we can agitate for a mission to come here," Tance
said. "All this can be loaded up and taken back. We'll be leaving
about--"
He stopped.
"Yes," Dorle said dryly. "We'll be leaving about three day-periods from
now. We'll fix the ship, then take off. Soon we'll be home, that is, if
nothing happens. Like being shot down by that--"
"Oh, stop it!" Nasha said impatiently. "Leave him alone. He's right: all
this must be taken back home, sooner or later. We'll have to solve the
problem of the gun. We have no choice."
Dorle nodded. "What's your solution, then? As soon as we leave the
ground we'll be shot down." His face twisted bitterly. "They've guarded
their treasure too well. Instead of being preserved it will lie here
until it rots. It serves them right."
"How?"
"Don't you see? This was the only way they knew, building a gun and
setting it up to shoot anything that came along. They were so certain
that everything was hostile, the enemy, coming to take their possessions
away from them. Well, they can keep them."
Nasha was deep in thought, her mind far away. Suddenly she gasped.
"Dorle," she said. "What's the matter with us? We have no problem. The
gun is no menace at all."
The two men stared at her.
"No menace?" Dorle said. "It's already shot us down once. And as soon as
we take off again--"
"Don't you see?" Nasha began to laugh. "The poor foolish gun, it's
completely harmless. Even I could deal with it alone."
"You?"
Her eyes were flashing. "With a crowbar. With a hammer or a stick of
wood. Let's go back to the ship and load up. Of course we're at its
mercy in the air: that's the way it was made. It can fire into the sky,
shoot down anything that flies. But that's all! Against something on the
ground it has no defenses. Isn't that right?"
Dorle nodded slowly. "The soft underbelly of the dragon. In the legend,
the dragon's armor doesn't cover its stomach." He began to laugh.
"That's right. That's perfectly right."
"Let's go, then," Nasha said. "Let's get back to the ship. We have work
to do here."
* * * * *
It was early the next morning when they reached the ship. During the
night the Captain had died, and the crew had ignited his body, according
to custom. They had stood solemnly around it until the last ember died.
As they were going back to their work the woman and the two men
appeared, dirty and tired, still excited.
And presently, from the ship, a line of people came, each carrying
something in his hands. The line marched across the gray slag, the
eternal expanse of fused metal. When they reached the weapon they all
fell on the gun at once, with crowbars, hammers, anything that was heavy
and hard.
The telescopic sights shattered into bits. The wiring was pulled out,
torn to shreds. The delicate gears were smashed, dented.
Finally the warheads themselves were carried off and the firing pins
removed.
The gun was smashed, the great weapon destroyed. The people went down
into the vault and examined the treasure. With its metal-armored
guardian dead there was no danger any longer. They studied the pictures,
the films, the crates of books, the jeweled crowns, the cups, the
statues.
At last, as the sun was dipping into the gray mists that drifted across
the planet they came back up the stairs again. For a moment they stood
around the wrecked gun looking at the unmoving outline of it.
Then they started back to the ship. There was still much work to be
done. The ship had been badly hurt, much had been damaged and lost. The
important thing was to repair it as quickly as possible, to get it into
the air.
With all of them working together it took just five more days to make it
spaceworthy.
* * * * *
Nasha stood in the control room, watching the planet fall away behind
them. She folded her arms, sitting down on the edge of the table.
"What are you thinking?" Dorle said.
"I? Nothing."
"Are you sure?"
"I was thinking that there must have been a time when this planet was
quite different, when there was life on it."
"I suppose there was. It's unfortunate that no ships from our system
came this far, but then we had no reason to suspect intelligent life
until we saw the fission glow in the sky."
"And then it was too late."
"Not quite too late. After all, their possessions, their music, books,
their pictures, all of that will survive. We'll take them home and study
them, and they'll change us. We won't be the same afterwards. Their
sculpturing, especially. Did you see the one of the great winged
creature, without a head or arms? Broken off, I suppose. But those
wings-- It looked very old. It will change us a great deal."
"When we come back we won't find the gun waiting for us," Nasha said.
"Next time it won't be there to shoot us down. We can land and take the
treasure, as you call it." She smiled up at Dorle. "You'll lead us back
there, as a good captain should."
"Captain?" Dorle grinned. "Then you've decided."
Nasha shrugged. "Fomar argues with me too much. I think, all in all, I
really prefer you."
"Then let's go," Dorle said. "Let's go back home."
The ship roared up, flying over the ruins of the city. It turned in a
huge arc and then shot off beyond the horizon, heading into outer space.
* * * * *
Down below, in the center of the ruined city, a single half-broken
detector vane moved slightly, catching the roar of the ship. The base of
the great gun throbbed painfully, straining to turn. After a moment a
red warning light flashed on down inside its destroyed works.
And a long way off, a hundred miles from the city, another warning light
flashed on, far underground. Automatic relays flew into action. Gears
turned, belts whined. On the ground above a section of metal slag
slipped back. A ramp appeared.
A moment later a small cart rushed to the surface.
The cart turned toward the city. A second cart appeared behind it. It
was loaded with wiring cables. Behind it a third cart came, loaded with
telescopic tube sights. And behind came more carts, some with relays,
some with firing controls, some with tools and parts, screws and bolts,
pins and nuts. The final one contained atomic warheads.
The carts lined up behind the first one, the lead cart. The lead cart
started off, across the frozen ground, bumping calmly along, followed by
the others. Moving toward the city.
To the damaged gun.
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Planet Stories_ September 1952.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
typographical errors have been corrected without note.