His disappointment was so bitter that Alvin did not trust himself to speak again but stared silently at the great world ahead. With impressive slowness the planet turned benea the ship, and its surface rose majestically to meet them. No they could see buildings-minute white incrustations eve where save on the ocean beds themselves.
Once this world had been the center of the Universe. Now it was still, the air was empty and on the ground were no of the scurrying dots that spoke of life. Yet the ship was still sliding purposefully over the frozen sea of stone-a sea which here and there had gathered itself into great waves that challenged the sky.
Presently the ship came to rest, as if the robot had at last traced its memories to their source. Below them was a column of snow-white stone springing from the center of an immense marble amphitheater. Alvin waited for a little while; then, as the machine remained motionless, he directed it to land at the foot of the pillar.
Even until now, Alvin had half hoped to find life on this planet. That hope vanished instantly as the air lock opened. Never before in his life, even in the desolation of Shalmirane, had he been in utter silence. On Earth there was always the murmur of voices, the stir of living creatures, or the sighing of the wind. Here were none of these, nor ever would be again.
«Why did you bring us to this spot?» asked Alvin. He felt little interest in the answer, but the momentum of his quest still carried him on even when he had lost all heart to pursue it further.
«The Master left from here,» replied the robot.
«I thought that would be the explanation,» said Hilvar. «Don’t you see the irony of all this? He fled from this world in disgrace now look at the memorial they built for him!»
The great column of stone was perhaps a hundred times the height of a man, and was set in a circle of metal slightly raised above the level of the plain. It was featureless and bore no inscription. For how many thousands or millions of years, wondered Alvin, had the Master’s disciples gathered here to do him honor? And had they ever known that he died in exile on distant Earth?
It made no difference now. The Master and his disciples alike were buried in oblivion.
«Come outside,» urged Hilvar, trying to jolt Alvin out of his mood of depression. «We have traveled halfway across the Universe to see this place. At least you can make the effort to step outdoors.»
Despite himself, Alvin smiled and followed Hilvar through the air lock. Once outside, his spirits began to revive a little. Even if this world was dead, it must contain much of interest, much that would help him to solve some of the mysteries of the past.
The air was musty, but breathable. Despite the many suns in the sky, the temperature was low. Only the white disc of the Central Sun provided any real heat, and that seemed to have lost its strength in its passage through the nebulous haze around the star. The other suns gave their quota of color, but no warmth.
It took only a few minutes to make sure that the obelisk could tell them nothing. The stubborn material of which was made showed definite signs of age; its edges were rounded, and the metal on which it was standing had bee worn away by the feet of generations of disciples and visitors. It was strange to think that they might be the last many billions of human beings ever to stand upon this spot.
Hilvar was about to suggest that they should return the ship and fly across to the nearest of the surrounding buildings when Alvin noticed a long, narrow crack in th marble floor of the amphitheater. They walked along it for a considerable distance, the crack widening all the time until presently it was too broad for a man’s legs to straddle. A moment later they stood beside its origin. The surface of the arena had been crushed and splintered into an enormous shallow depression, more than a mile long. No intelligence,no imagination was needed to picture its cause. Ages ago though certainly long after this world had been deserted immense cylindrical shape had rested here, then lift once more into space and left the planet to its memories.
Who had they been? Where had they come from? Alvin could only stare and wonder. He would never know if he had missed these earlier visitors by a thousand or a million years.
They walked in silence back to their own ship (how tiny that would have looked beside the monster which once had rested here!) and flew slowly across the arena until they came to the most impressive of the buildings flanking it. As they landed in front of the ornate entrance, Hilvar pointed out something that Alvin had noticed at the same moment.
«These buildings don’t look safe. See all that fallen stone over there-it’s a miracle they’re still standing. If there were any storms on this planet, they would have been flattened ages ago. I don’t think it would be wise to go inside anyof them.»
«I’m not going to; I’ll send the robot-it can travel far faster than we can, and it won’t make any disturbance which might bring the roof crashing down on top of it.»
Hilvar approved of this precaution, but he also insistet on one which Alvin had overlooked. Before the robot lef on its reconnaissance, Alvin made it pass on a set of instructions to the almost equally intelligent brain of the ship, so that whatever happened to their pilot they could at least return safely to Earth.
It took little time to convince both of them that this work had nothing to offer. Together they watched miles of empty dust-carpeted corridors and passageways drift across thd screen as the robot explored these empty labyrinths. All buildings designed by intelligent beings, whatever form their bodied may take, must comply with certain basic laws, and after i while even the most alien forms of architecture or design fail to evoke surprise, and the mind becomes hypnotized by sheet repetition, incapable of absorbing any more impressions. These buildings, it seemed, had been purely residential, and the beings who had lived in them had been approximately humanoid size. They, might well have been men; it was true that there were a surprising number of rooms and enclosures that could be entered only by flying creatures, but that did not mean that the builders of this city were winged. They could have used the personal antigravity devices that had once been in common use but of which there was now no trace in Diaspar.
«Alvin,» said Hilvar at last, «we could spend a million years exploring these buildings. It’s obvious that they’ve not merely been abandoned-they were carefully stripped of everything valuable that they possessed. We are wasting our time.»
«Then what do you suggest?» asked Alvin.
«We should look at two or three other areas of this planet and see if they are the same-as I expect they are. Then we should make an equally quick survey of the other planets, and only land if they seem fundamentally different or we notice something unusual. That’s all we can hope to do unless we are going to stay here for the rest of our lives.»
It was true enough; they were trying to contact intelligence, not to carry out archaeological research. The former task could be achieved in a few days, if it could be achieved at all. The latter would take centuries of labor by armies of men and robots.
They left the planet two hours later, and were thankful enough to go. Even when it had been bustling with life, Alvin decided, this world of endless buildings would have been very depressing. There were no signs of any parks, any open spaces where there could have been vegetation. It had been an utterly sterile world, and it was hard to imagine the psychology of the beings who had lived here. If the next planet was identical with this, Alvin decided, he would probably abandon the search there and then.
It was not; indeed, a greater contrast would have been impossible to imagine.