"But Mercedes?"
"She's gone! We can't help Mercedes now. The others! Hurry!"
They ran through the doorway back across the carpeted foyer, halting at
the street.
Four little mounds of clothes met their eyes.
Saxon could feel his stomach knot inside himself. He felt the clothes.
They were still warm from contact with the men's bodies. He stirred
the brief red kilt that Clo-Javel had been wearing, saw with a macabre
flash of humor that where Mercedes' underthings had been eminently
practical, Clo-Javel didn't wear any at all.
Ileth suppressed a scream. "The helicopter! Look! It's gone, too!"
Saxon glanced up in consternation.
The square was empty. The twin suns riding high in the sky beat down on
bare plastic blocks where the helicopter had stood.
"We're hiking back to the ship--_now_," Saxon said to the frightened
girl.
"But it's twenty-five kilometers."
"So it's twenty-five kilometers. We can average four an hour or better.
That's six hours. How many more hours of daylight have we?"
Ileth bit her lip, studied her chronometer. "The days are short. The
planet rotates in a little over fourteen hours. Alpha Centauri A sets
first, in about an hour, I think. Then Alpha Centauri B about three
hours later. Proxima rises about ten minutes after that but it doesn't
cast much light."
"Never mind," he said almost roughly. "Come on. We'd better find the
geographers quick."
* * * * *
They did, a few minutes later, in one of the side canyons. That is,
they found implements and two small piles of clothes. "I was afraid of
this," said Saxon, his heart lowly sinking into his boots.
Ileth began to cry half in fright, half hysterically.
"None of that!" He shook her shoulders, until she stopped with a
hiccup. Turning her loose, he bent over the instruments, secured a
compass.
"We're northeast of the ship," he said, "that means if we travel in a
southwesterly direction, we should hit it square on the nose. Let's
hike!"
But they found it impossible to keep a true southwesterly course
through the city. They walked along the deserted, resounding streets,
their eyes filled with the fantastically lovely architecture of New
York II, the flowing lines and gleaming planes of apartment houses
built of a thousand substances from crystal to somber-veined black
marble.
"To think," said Saxon, "that a people, any people, could have found it
in their hearts to destroy a work like this."
"I'm glad I've seen it," Ileth replied queerly, "even if I did have to
come to Alpha Centauri. It's lovely." She shivered.
Saxon said in perplexity, "Why did they let us escape? I don't
understand it."
"We were in the foyer, alone, when it must have happened," she
suggested. "Maybe they overlooked us."
"Maybe," agreed Saxon doubtfully and paused.
They had come to the end of the city which stopped abruptly as if it
had been set down in the middle of the green rolling prairie. Beyond
the last building, a herd of cannibal plants rolled by, browsing as
they went.
"It's going to be damned tricky keeping a straight course across this,"
he said. "There doesn't seem to be a tree on the planet." He sighted
the compass, picked out a round hill like the dome of a building, to
the southwest. "We'll keep a little to the left of that hill."
* * * * *
Alpha Centauri A was setting. By the time they had advanced a kilometer
across the prairie it was gone. The orange light of Alpha Centauri B
lent a queer unearthly complexion to the scene. It became perceptibly
cooler, and a breeze sprang up from the east, bringing the faint scent
of bitter almonds.
Saxon lengthened his stride. "We're not keeping to schedule," he said;
then, "Look at that!"
A fawn colored creature like a large cat but with four pairs of legs,
broke from a draw and went undulating across the grass.
"I'm getting tired," said Ileth in a small voice.
He took his eyes from the strange animal, studied the girl. The
emotional turmoil which they'd been through had drained her of
strength. Her features were white, drawn, her lids drooping over her
hazel-green eyes. Her lashes, he thought, were the thickest curliest
lashes he'd ever seen and black as her lustrous hair. He felt a
tenderness well up inside him and banished it.
"We've got to make the ship. Walk until you drop. Then I'll carry you.
But we have to get back as soon as possible."
Her features stiffened at the harshness of his words. He caught a weary
flash of anger in her thoughts, then she turned and began to plod again
toward the southwest.
"Faster," said Saxon.
Alpha Centauri B was setting when they reached the domed hill which
Saxon had lined up with the compass. He left Ileth stretched exhausted
at the base and climbed to the summit. His eyes swept the horizons with
the last orange rays of the sun, but the _Shooting Star_ was still not
in sight.
By the time he rejoined Ileth, it was dark. "Did you see it?" the girl
asked in a sleepy voice.
"No. We haven't come far enough, I suppose. We'll have to wait until
Proxima rises before we can go on. That'll give us a chance to rest.
How long before Proxima comes up?"
"Ten or fifteen minutes." She hesitated. "I'm cold."
Saxon put his arms around the shivering girl, pulled her against him.
She gave a little sigh, laid her head on his shoulder. He caught her
sleepy thoughts, "_Two times two is four. Three times two is six_," and
chuckled to himself.
The darkness was not dispelled very much when Proxima rose above the
hills like a sullen red hot drop of metal. The light was red and
wavering like the shimmering heat waves above a brush fire. Saxon could
not see very well or very far. Nevertheless he wakened Ileth.
She rubbed her eyes, glanced about her in consternation. The change in
light had brought about a startling change in the scenery. It looked as
if it were bathed in blood.
She said, "Oh, Jon, I wish we were home. I wish we'd never come on this
horrible expedition."
He didn't look up from his compass. "The ship can't be much further."
He spotted the black gash of a gully a hundred yards ahead. "We'll walk
to the gully, then pick out another object."
"I'm still tired. I don't feel as if I'd slept at all."
"You didn't--much. Only about ten minutes. Come on."
They reached the gully and Saxon found a cone-shaped hill looming up
redly almost a quarter of a mile further on. They set out for it, Ileth
holding his hand.
Their progress was necessarily slower because Saxon had to stop often
and consult the compass. Even so, he began to be afraid that they had
overshot the ship in the dark.
Slowly Proxima Centauri blazed its blood red path across the night sky.
Not far from Proxima a star twinkled faintly, steadily. It was about in
the position that Sol should be. He wondered if it was.
"It's growing lighter," said Ileth.
Saxon glanced toward the east, recognized the graying darkness that
heralded the dawn. He said, "Alpha Centauri A's rising. Maybe we can
see where we are."
The light was quickening fast with dawn. Saxon climbed to the crest of
a ridge, stared off into the southwest.
All at once his heart stood still. He called, "Ileth! Ileth! Come up
here!"
The girl ran up the ridge, the urgency in his voice dispelling her
weariness. "What is it, Jon?"