The City And The Stars - Arthur C. Clarke [96]
‘I’m not going to; I’ll send the robot—it can travel 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 insisted on one which Alvin had overlooked. Before the robot left 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 world had nothing to offer. Together they watched miles of empty, dust-carpeted corridors and passageways drift across the screen as the robot explored these empty labyrinths. All buildings designed by intelligent beings, whatever form their bodies may take, must comply with certain basic laws, and after a while even the most alien forms of architecture or design fail to evoke surprise, and the mind becomes hypnotised by sheer 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 human in 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 anti-gravity 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 labour by armies of men and robots.
They left the planet two hours later, and were thankful 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 there. 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.
This planet was near the sun, and even from space it looked hot. It was partly covered with low clouds, indicating that water was plentiful, but there were no signs of any oceans. Nor was there any sign of intelligence; they circled the planet twice without glimpsing a single artefact of any kind. The entire globe, from poles down to the equator, was clothed with a blanket of virulent green.
‘I think we should be very careful here,’ said Hilvar. ‘This world is alive—and I don’t like the colour of that vegetation. It would be best to stay in the ship, and not to open the airlock at all.’
‘Not even to send out the robot?’
‘No, not even that. You have forgotten what disease is, and though my people know how to deal with it, we are a long way from home and there may be dangers here which we cannot see. I think this is a world that has run amok. Once it may have been all one great garden or park, but when it was abandoned Nature took over again. It could never have been like this while the system was inhabited.’
Alvin did not doubt that Hilvar was right. There was something evil, something hostile