The City And The Stars - Arthur C. Clarke [95]
Even until now, Alvin had half hoped to find life on this planet. That hope vanished instantly as he left the airlock. 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 honour? 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 travelled half-way across the universe to see this place. At least you can make the effort to step out of doors.’
Despite himself, Alvin smiled and followed Hilvar through the airlock. 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 breatheable. 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 quotas of colour, but no warmth.
It took only a few minutes to make sure that the obelisk could tell them nothing. The stubborn material of which it was made showed definite signs of age; its edges were rounded, and the metal on which it was standing had been worn away by the feet of generations of disciples and visitors. It was strange to think that they might be the last of many billions of human beings ever to stand upon this spot.
Hilvar was about to suggest that they should return to the ship and fly across to the nearest of the surrounding buildings when Alvin noticed a long, narrow crack in the marble floor of the amphitheatre. 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—an immense cylindrical shape had rested here, then lifted 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 any of them.