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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c0a7c7 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #63473 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/63473) diff --git a/old/63473-h.zip b/old/63473-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 6eb4cec..0000000 --- a/old/63473-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/63473-h/63473-h.htm b/old/63473-h/63473-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 947ea3c..0000000 --- a/old/63473-h/63473-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1288 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=us-ascii" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of Dust Unto Dust, by Lyman D. Hinckley. - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.right {text-align: right;} - -/* Images */ -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -div.titlepage { - text-align: center; - page-break-before: always; - page-break-after: always; -} - -div.titlepage p { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; - font-weight: bold; - line-height: 1.5; - margin-top: 3em; -} - - </style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dust Unto Dust, by Lyman D. Hinckley - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Dust Unto Dust - -Author: Lyman D. Hinckley - -Release Date: October 16, 2020 [EBook #63473] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DUST UNTO DUST *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="titlepage"> - -<h1>DUST UNTO DUST</h1> - -<h2>By LYMAN D. HINCKLEY</h2> - -<p>It was alien but was it dead, this towering, sinister<br /> -city of metal that glittered malignantly before the<br /> -cautious advance of three awed space-scouters.</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Planet Stories Summer 1955.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Martin set the lifeboat down carefully, with all the attention one -usually exercises in a situation where the totally unexpected has -occurred, and he and his two companions sat and stared in awed silence -at the city a quarter-mile away.</p> - -<p>He saw the dull, black walls of buildings shouldering grimly into the -twilight sky, saw the sheared edge where the metal city ended and the -barren earth began ... and he remembered observing, even before they -landed, the too-strict geometry imposed on the entire construction.</p> - -<p>He frowned. The first impression was ... malignant.</p> - -<p>Wass, blond and slight, with enough nose for three or four men, -unbuckled his safety belt and stood up. "Shall we, gentlemen?" and with -a graceful movement of hand and arm he indicated the waiting city.</p> - -<p>Martin led Wass, and the gangling, scarecrow-like Rodney, through the -stillness overlaying the barren ground. There was only the twilight -sky, and harsh and black against it, the convoluted earth. And the -city. Malignant. He wondered, again, what beings would choose to build -a city—even a city like this one—in such surroundings.</p> - -<p>The men from the ship knew only the surface facts about this waiting -geometric discovery. Theirs was the eleventh inter-planetary flight, -and the previous ten, in the time allowed them for exploration while -this planet was still close enough to their own to permit a safe return -in their ships, had not spotted the city. But the eleventh expedition -had, an hour ago, with just thirteen hours left during which a return -flight could be safely started. So far as was known, this was the only -city on the planet—the planet without any life at all, save tiny -mosses, for a million years or more. And no matter which direction from -the city a man moved, he would always be going north.</p> - -<p>"Hey, Martin!" Rodney called through his helmet radio. Martin paused. -"Wind," Rodney said, coming abreast of him. He glanced toward the black -pile, as if sharing Martin's thoughts. "That's all we need, isn't it?"</p> - -<p>Martin looked at the semi-transparent figures of wind and dust -cavorting in the distance, moving toward them. He grinned a little, -adjusting his radio. "Worried?"</p> - -<p>Rodney's bony face was without expression. "Gives me the creeps, kind -of. I wonder what they were like?"</p> - -<p>Wass murmured, "Let us hope they aren't immortal."</p> - -<p>Three feet from the edge of the city Martin stopped and stubbed at the -sand with the toe of his boot, clearing earth from part of a shining -metal band.</p> - -<p>Wass watched him, and then shoved aside more sand, several feet away. -"It's here, too."</p> - -<p>Martin stood up. "Let's try farther on. Rodney, radio the ship, tell -them we're going in."</p> - -<p>Rodney nodded.</p> - -<p>After a time, Wass said, "Here, too. How far do you think it goes?"</p> - -<p>Martin shrugged. "Clear around the city? I'd like to know what it -is—was—for."</p> - -<p>"Defense," Rodney, several yards behind, suggested.</p> - -<p>"Could be," Martin said. "Let's go in."</p> - -<p>The three crossed the metal band and walked abreast down a street, -their broad soft soled boots making no sound on the dull metal. They -passed doors and arches and windows and separate buildings. They moved -cautiously across five intersections. And they stood in a square -surrounded by the tallest buildings in the city.</p> - -<p>Rodney broke the silence, hesitantly. "Not—not very big. Is it?"</p> - -<p>Wass looked at him shrewdly. "Neither were the—well, shall we call -them, people? Have you noticed how low everything is?"</p> - -<p>Rodney's laughter rose, too. Then, sobering—"Maybe they crawled."</p> - -<p>A nebulous image, product of childhood's vivid imagination, moved -slowly across Martin's mind. "All right!" he rapped out—and the image -faded.</p> - -<p>"Sorry," Rodney murmured, his throat working beneath his lantern jaw. -Then—"I wonder what it's like here in the winter when there's no light -at all?"</p> - -<p>"I imagine they had illumination of some sort," Martin answered, dryly. -"If we don't hurry up and get through this place and back to the ship, -we're very likely to find out."</p> - -<p>Rodney said quickly, "I mean outside."</p> - -<p>"Out there, too, Rodney, they must have had illumination." Martin -looked back along the straight, metal street they'd walked on, and past -that out over the bleak, furrowed slopes where the ship's lifeboat -lay ... and he thought everything outside the city seemed, somehow, -from here, a little dim, a little hazy.</p> - -<p>He straightened his shoulders. The city was alien, of course, and that -explained most of it ... most of it. But he felt the black city was -something familiar, yet twisted and distorted.</p> - -<p>"Well," Wass said, his nose wrinkling a bit, "now that we're here...."</p> - -<p>"Pictures," Martin decided. "We have twelve hours. We'll start here. -What's the matter, Wass?"</p> - -<p>The blond man grinned ruefully. "I left the camera in the lifeboat." -There was a pause. Then Wass, defensively—"It's almost as if the city -didn't want to be photographed."</p> - -<p>Martin ignored the remark. "Go get it. Rodney and I will be somewhere -along this street."</p> - -<p>Wass turned away. Martin and Rodney started slowly down the wide metal -street, at right angles to their path of entrance.</p> - -<p>Again Martin felt a tug of twisted, distorted familiarity. It was -almost as if ... they were human up to a certain point, the point -being, perhaps, some part of their minds.... Alien things, dark and -subtle, things no man could ever comprehend.</p> - -<p>Parallel evolution on two inner planets of the same system? Somewhere, -sometime, a common ancestor? Martin noted the shoulder-high doors, the -heavier gravity, remembered the inhabitants of the city vanished before -the thing that was to become man ever emerged from the slime, and he -decided to grin at himself, at his own imagination.</p> - -<p>Rodney jerked his scarecrow length about quickly, and a chill sped up -Martin's spine. "What's the matter?"</p> - -<p>The bony face was white, the gray eyes were wide. "I saw—I thought I -saw—something—moving—"</p> - -<p>Anger rose in Martin. "You didn't," he said flatly, gripping the -other's shoulder cruelly. "You couldn't have. Get hold of yourself, -man!"</p> - -<p>Rodney stared. "The wind. Remember? There isn't any, here."</p> - -<p>"... How could there be? The buildings protect us now. It was blowing -from the other direction."</p> - -<p>Rodney wrenched free of Martin's grip. He gestured wildly. "That—"</p> - -<p>"Martin!" Wass' voice came through the receivers in both their radios. -"Martin, I can't get out!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Rodney mumbled something, and Martin told him to shut up.</p> - -<p>Wass said, more quietly, "Remember that metal band? It's all clear now, -and glittering, as far as I can see. I can't get across it; it's like a -glass wall."</p> - -<p>"We're trapped, we're trapped, they are—"</p> - -<p>"Shut up, Rodney! Wass, I'm only two sections from the edge. I'll check -here."</p> - -<p>Martin clapped a hand on Rodney's shoulder again, starting him moving, -toward the city's edge, past the black, silent buildings.</p> - -<p>The glittering band was here, too, like a halo around a silhouette.</p> - -<p>"No go," Martin said to Wass. He bit at his lower lip. "I think it must -be all around us." He was silent for a time, exploring the consequences -of this. Then—"We'll meet you in the middle of the city, where we -separated."</p> - -<p>Walking with Rodney, Martin heard Wass' voice, flat and metallic -through the radio receiver against his ear. "What do you suppose caused -this?"</p> - -<p>He shook his head angrily, saying, "Judging by reports of the rest of -the planet, it must have been horribly radioactive at one time. All of -it."</p> - -<p>"Man-made radiation, you mean."</p> - -<p>Martin grinned faintly. Wass, too, had an active imagination. "Well, -alien-made, anyhow. Perhaps they had a war."</p> - -<p>Wass' voice sounded startled. "Anti-radiation screen?"</p> - -<p>Rodney interrupted, "There hasn't been enough radiation around here for -hundreds of thousands of years to activate such a screen."</p> - -<p>Wass said coldly, "He's right, Martin."</p> - -<p>Martin crossed an intersection, Rodney slightly behind him. "You're -both wrong," he said. "We landed here today."</p> - -<p>Rodney stopped in the middle of the metal street and stared down at -Martin. "The wind—?"</p> - -<p>"Why not?"</p> - -<p>"That would explain why it stopped so suddenly, then." Rodney stood -straighter. When he walked again, his steps were firmer.</p> - -<p>They reached the center of the city, ahead of the small, slight Wass, -and stood watching him labor along the metal toward them.</p> - -<p>Wass' face, Martin saw, was sober. "I tried to call the ship. No luck."</p> - -<p>"The shield?"</p> - -<p>Wass nodded. "What else?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know—"</p> - -<p>"If we went to the roof of the tallest building," Rodney offered, "we -might—"</p> - -<p>Martin shook his head. "No. To be effective, the shield would have to -cover the city."</p> - -<p>Wass stared down at the metal street, as if he could look through it. -"I wonder where it gets its power?"</p> - -<p>"Down below, probably. If there is a down below." Martin hesitated. "We -may have to...."</p> - -<p>"What?" Rodney prompted.</p> - -<p>Martin shrugged. "Let's look."</p> - -<p>He led the way through a shoulder-high arch in one of the tall -buildings surrounding the square. The corridor inside was dim and -plain, and he switched on his flashlight, the other two immediately -following his example. The walls and the rounded ceiling of the -corridor were of the same dull metal as the buildings' facades, and -the streets. There were a multitude of doors and arches set into -either side of the corridor.</p> - -<p>It was rather like ... entering a gigantic metal beehive.</p> - -<p>Martin chose an arch, with beyond it a metal ramp, which tilted -downward, gleaming in the pale circle of his torch.</p> - -<p>A call from Rodney halted him. "Back here," the tall man repeated. "It -looks like a switchboard."</p> - -<p>The three advanced to the end of the central corridor, pausing before a -great arch, outlined in the too-careful geometrical figures Martin had -come to associate with the city builders. The three torches, shining -through the arch, picked out a bank of buttons, handles ... and a thick -rope of cables which ran upward to vanish unexpectedly in the metal -roof.</p> - -<p>"Is this it," Wass murmured, "or an auxiliary?"</p> - -<p>Martin shrugged. "The whole city's no more than a machine, apparently."</p> - -<p>"Another assumption," Wass said. "We have done nothing but make -assumptions ever since we got here."</p> - -<p>"What would you suggest, instead?" Martin asked calmly.</p> - -<p>Rodney furtively, extended one hand toward a switch.</p> - -<p>"No!" Martin said, sharply. That was one assumption they dared not make.</p> - -<p>Rodney turned. "But—"</p> - -<p>"No. Wass, how much time have we?"</p> - -<p>"The ship leaves in eleven hours."</p> - -<p>"Eleven hours," Rodney repeated. "Eleven hours!" He reached out for the -switch again. Martin swore, stepped forward, pulled him back roughly.</p> - -<p>He directed his flashlight at Rodney's thin, pale face. "What do you -think you're doing?"</p> - -<p>"We have to find out what all this stuff's for!"</p> - -<p>"Going at it blindly, we'd probably execute ourselves."</p> - -<p>"We've got to—"</p> - -<p>"No!" Then, more quietly—"We still have eleven hours to find a way -out."</p> - -<p>"Ten hours and forty-five minutes," Wass disagreed softly. "Minus the -time it takes us to get to the lifeboat, fly to the ship, land, stow -it, get ourselves aboard, and get the big ship away from the planet. -And Captain Morgan can't wait for us, Martin."</p> - -<p>"You too, Wass?"</p> - -<p>"Up to the point of accuracy, yes."</p> - -<p>Martin said, "Not necessarily. You go the way the wind does, always -thinking of your own tender hide, of course."</p> - -<p>Rodney cursed. "And every second we stand here doing nothing gives us -that much less time to find a way out. Martin—"</p> - -<p>"Make one move toward that switchboard and I'll stop you where you -stand!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Wass moved silently through the darkness beyond the torches. "We all -have guns, Martin."</p> - -<p>"I'm holding mine." Martin waited.</p> - -<p>After a moment, Wass switched his flashlight back on. He said quietly, -"He's right, Rodney. It would be sure death to monkey around in here."</p> - -<p>"Well...." Rodney turned quickly toward the black arch. "Let's get out -of here, then!"</p> - -<p>Martin hung back waiting for the others to go ahead of him down the -metal hall. At the other arch, where the ramp led downward, he called a -halt. "If the dome, or whatever it is, is a radiation screen there must -be at least half-a-dozen emergency exits around the city."</p> - -<p>Rodney said, "To search every building next to the dome clean around -the city would take years."</p> - -<p>Martin nodded. "But there must be central roads beneath this main level -leading to them. Up here there are too many roads."</p> - -<p>Wass laughed rudely.</p> - -<p>"Have you a better idea?"</p> - -<p>Wass ignored that, as Martin hoped he would. He said slowly, "That -leads to another idea. If the band around the city is responsible for -the dome, does it project down into the ground as well?"</p> - -<p>"You mean <i>dig</i> out?" Martin asked.</p> - -<p>"Sure. Why not?"</p> - -<p>"We're wearing heavy suits and bulky breathing units. We have no -equipment."</p> - -<p>"That shouldn't be hard to come by."</p> - -<p>Martin smiled, banishing Wass' idea.</p> - -<p>Rodney said, "They may have had their digging equipment built right in -to themselves."</p> - -<p>"Anyway," Martin decided, "we can take a look down below."</p> - -<p>"In the pitch dark," Wass added.</p> - -<p>Martin adjusted his torch, began to lead the way down the metal ramp. -The incline was gentle, apparently constructed for legs shorter, feet -perhaps less broad than their own. The metal, without mark of any sort, -gleamed under the combined light of the torches, unrolling out of the -darkness before the men.</p> - -<p>At length the incline melted smoothly into the next level of the city.</p> - -<p>Martin shined his light upward, and the others followed his example. -Metal as smooth and featureless as that on which they stood shone down -on them.</p> - -<p>Wass turned his light parallel with the floor, and then moved slowly in -a circle. "No supports. No supports anywhere. What keeps all that up -there?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know. I have no idea." Martin gestured toward the ramp with -his light. "Does all this, this whole place, look at all familiar to -you?"</p> - -<p>Rodney's gulp was clearly audible through the radio receivers. "Here?"</p> - -<p>"No, no," Martin answered impatiently, "not just here. I mean the whole -city."</p> - -<p>"Yes," Wass said dryly, "it does. I'm sure this is where all my -nightmares stay when they're not on shift."</p> - -<p>Martin turned on his heel and started down a metal avenue which, he -thought, paralleled the street above. And Rodney and Wass followed him -silently. They moved along the metal, past unfamiliar shapes made more -so by gloom and moving shadows, past doors dancing grotesquely in the -three lights, past openings in the occasional high metal partitions, -past something which was perhaps a conveyor belt, past another -something which could have been anything at all.</p> - -<p>The metal street ended eventually in a blank metal wall.</p> - -<p>The edge of the city—the city which was a dome of force above and a -bowl of metal below.</p> - -<p>After a long time, Wass sighed. "Well, skipper...?"</p> - -<p>"We go back, I guess," Martin said.</p> - -<p>Rodney turned swiftly to face him. Martin thought the tall man was -holding his gun. "To the switchboard, Martin?"</p> - -<p>"Unless someone has a better idea," Martin conceded. He waited. But -Rodney was holding the gun ... and Wass was.... Then—"I can't think of -anything else."</p> - -<p>They began to retrace their steps along the metal street, back past -the same dancing shapes of metal, the partitions, the odd windows, all -looking different now in the new angles of illumination.</p> - -<p>Martin was in the lead. Wass followed him silently. Rodney, tall, -matchstick thin, even in his cumbersome suit, swayed with jaunty -triumph in the rear.</p> - -<p>Martin looked at the metal street lined with its metal objects and he -sighed. He remembered how the dark buildings of the city looked at -surface level, how the city itself looked when they were landing, and -then when they were walking toward it. The dream was gone again for -now. Idealism died in him, again and again, yet it was always reborn. -But—The only city, so far as anyone knew, on the first planet they'd -ever explored. And it had to be like this. Nightmares, Wass said, and -Martin thought perhaps the city was built by a race of beings who at -some point twisted away from their evolutionary spiral, plagued by a -sort of racial insanity.</p> - -<p>No, Martin thought, shaking his head. No, that couldn't be. -Viewpoint ... his viewpoint. It was the haunting sense of familiarity, -a faint strain through all this broad jumble, the junkpile of alien -metal, which was making him theorize so wildly.</p> - -<p>Then Wass touched his elbow. "Look there, Martin. Left of the ramp."</p> - -<p>Light from their torches was reflected, as from glass.</p> - -<p>"All right," Rodney said belligerently into his radio. "What's holding -up the procession?"</p> - -<p>Martin was silent.</p> - -<p>Wass undertook to explain. Why not, after all? Martin asked himself. It -was in Wass' own interest. In a moment, all three were standing before -a bank of glass cases which stretched off into the distance as far as -the combined light of their torches would reach.</p> - -<p>"Seeds!" Wass exclaimed, his faceplate pressed against the glass.</p> - -<p>Martin blinked. He thought how little time they had. He wet his lips.</p> - -<p>Wass' gloved hands fumbled awkwardly at a catch in the nearest section -of the bank.</p> - -<p>Martin thought of the dark, convoluted land outside the city. If they -wouldn't grow there.... Or had they, once? "Don't, Wass!"</p> - -<p>Torchlight reflected from Wass' faceplate as he turned his head. "Why -not?"</p> - -<p>They were like children.... "We don't know, released, what they'll do."</p> - -<p>"Skipper," Wass said carefully, "if we don't get out of this place by -the deadline we may be eating these."</p> - -<p>Martin raised his arm tensely. "Opening a seed bank doesn't help us -find a way out of here." He started up the ramp. "Besides, we've no -water."</p> - -<p>Rodney came last up the ramp, less jaunty now, but still holding the -gun. His mind, too, was taken up with childhood's imaginings. "For -a plant to grow in this environment, it wouldn't need much water. -Maybe—" he had a vision of evil plants attacking them, growing with -super-swiftness at the air valves and joints of their suits "—only the -little moisture in the atmosphere."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>They stood before the switchboard again. Martin and Wass side by side, -Rodney, still holding his gun, slightly to the rear.</p> - -<p>Rodney moved forward a little toward the switches. His breathing was -loud and rather uneven in the radio receivers.</p> - -<p>Martin made a final effort. "Rodney, it's still almost nine hours to -take off. Let's search awhile first. Let this be a last resort."</p> - -<p>Rodney jerked his head negatively. "No. Now, I know you, Martin. -Postpone and postpone until it's too late, and the ship leaves without -us and we're stranded here to eat seeds and gradually dehydrate -ourselves and God only knows what else and—"</p> - -<p>He reached out convulsively and yanked a switch.</p> - -<p>Martin leaped, knocking him to the floor. Rodney's gun skittered away -silently, like a live thing, out of the range of the torches.</p> - -<p>The radio receivers impersonally recorded the grating sounds of -Rodney's sobs.</p> - -<p>"Sorry," Martin said, without feeling. He turned quickly. "Wass?"</p> - -<p>The slight, blond man stood unmoving. "I'm with you, Martin, but, as -a last resort it might be better to be blown sky high than to die -gradually—"</p> - -<p>Martin was watching Rodney, struggling to get up. "I agree. As a last -resort. We still have a little time."</p> - -<p>Rodney's tall, spare figure looked bowed and tired in the torchlight, -now that he was up again. "Martin, I—"</p> - -<p>Martin turned his back. "Skip it, Rodney," he said gently.</p> - -<p>"Water," Wass said thoughtfully. "There must be reservoirs under this -city somewhere."</p> - -<p>Rodney said, "How does water help us get out?"</p> - -<p>Martin glanced at Wass, then started out of the switchboard room, not -looking back. "It got in and out of the city some way. Perhaps we can -leave the same way."</p> - -<p>Down the ramp again.</p> - -<p>"There's another ramp," Wass murmured.</p> - -<p>Rodney looked down it. "I wonder how many there are, all told."</p> - -<p>Martin placed one foot on the metal incline. He angled his torch down, -picking out shadowy, geometrical shapes, duplicates of the ones on the -present level. "We'll find out," he said, "how many there are."</p> - -<p>Eleven levels later Rodney asked, "How much time have we now?"</p> - -<p>"Seven hours," Wass said quietly, "until take-off."</p> - -<p>"One more level," Martin said, ignoring the reference to time. "I ... -think it's the last."</p> - -<p>They walked down the ramp and stood together, silent in a dim pool of -artificial light on the bottom level of the alien city.</p> - -<p>Rodney played his torch about the metal figures carefully placed about -the floor. "Martin, what if there are no reservoirs? What if there are -cemeteries instead? Or cold storage units? Maybe the switch I pulled—"</p> - -<p>"Rodney! Stop it!"</p> - -<p>Rodney swallowed audibly. "This place scares me...."</p> - -<p>"The first time I was ever in a rocket, it scared me. I was thirteen."</p> - -<p>"This is different," Wass said. "Built-in traps—"</p> - -<p>"They had a war," Martin said.</p> - -<p>Wass agreed. "And the survivors retired here. Why?"</p> - -<p>Martin said, "They wanted to rebuild. Or maybe this was already built -before the war as a retreat." He turned impatiently. "How should I -know?"</p> - -<p>Wass turned, too, persistent. "But the planet was through with them."</p> - -<p>"In a minute," Martin said, too irritably, "we'll have a sentient -planet." From the corner of his eye he saw Rodney start at that. "Knock -it off, Wass. We're looking for reservoirs, you know."</p> - -<p>They moved slowly down the metal avenue, between the twisted shadow -shapes, looking carefully about them.</p> - -<p>Rodney paused. "We might not recognize one."</p> - -<p>Martin urged him on. "You know what a man-hole cover looks like." He -added dryly, "Use your imagination."</p> - -<p>They reached the metal wall at the end of the avenue and paused again, -uncertain.</p> - -<p>Martin swung his flashlight, illuminating the distorted metal shapes.</p> - -<p>Wass said, "All this had a purpose, once...."</p> - -<p>"We'll disperse and search carefully," Martin said.</p> - -<p>"I wonder what the pattern was."</p> - -<p>"... The reservoirs, Wass. The pattern will still be here for later -expeditions to study. So will we if we don't find a way to get out."</p> - -<p>Their radios recorded Rodney's gasp. Then—"Martin! Martin! I think -I've found something!"</p> - -<p>Martin began to run. After a moment's hesitation, Wass swung in behind -him.</p> - -<p>"Here," Rodney said, as they came up to him, out of breath. "Here. See? -Right here."</p> - -<p>Three flashlights centered on a dark, metal disk raised a foot or more -from the floor.</p> - -<p>"Well, they had hands." With his torch Wass indicated a small wheel of -the same metal as everything else in the city, set beside the disk.</p> - -<p>From its design Martin assumed that the disk was meant to be grasped -and turned. He wondered what precisely they were standing over.</p> - -<p>"Well, Skipper, are you going to do the honors?"</p> - -<p>Martin kneeled, grasped the wheel. It turned easily—almost too -easily—rotating the disk as it turned.</p> - -<p>Suddenly, without a sound, the disk rose, like a hatch, on a concealed -hinge.</p> - -<p>The three men, clad in their suits and helmets, grouped around the -six-foot opening, shining their torches down into the thing that -drifted and eddied directly beneath them.</p> - -<p>Rodney's sudden grip on Martin's wrist nearly shattered the bone. -"Martin! It's all alive! It's moving!"</p> - -<p>Martin hesitated long enough for a coil to move sinuously up toward the -opening. Then he spun the wheel and the hatch slammed down.</p> - -<p>He was shaking.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>After a time he said, "Rodney, Wass, it's dust, down there. Remember -the wind? Air currents are moving it."</p> - -<p>Rodney sat down on the metal flooring. For a long time he said nothing. -Then—"It wasn't.... Why did you close the hatch then?"</p> - -<p>Martin did not say he thought the other two would have shot him, -otherwise. He said merely, "At first I wasn't sure myself."</p> - -<p>Rodney stood up, backing away from the closed hatch. He held his gun -loosely, and his hand shook. "Then prove it. Open it again."</p> - -<p>Martin went to the wheel. He noticed Wass was standing behind Rodney -and he, too, had drawn his gun.</p> - -<p>The hatch rose again at Martin's direction. He stood beside it, -outlined in the light of two torches.</p> - -<p>For a little while he was alone.</p> - -<p>Then—causing a gasp from Wass, a harsh expletive from Rodney—a -tenuous, questing alien limb edged through the hatch, curling about -Martin, sparkling in ten thousand separate particles in the torchlight, -obscuring the dimly seen backdrop of geometrical processions of strange -objects.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Martin raised an arm, and the particles swirled in stately, shimmering -spirals.</p> - -<p>Rodney leaned forward and looked over the edge of the hatch. He said -nothing. He eyed the sparkling particles swirling about Martin, and -now, himself.</p> - -<p>"How deep," Wass said, from his safe distance.</p> - -<p>"We'll have to lower a flashlight," Martin answered.</p> - -<p>Rodney, all eagerness to be of assistance now, lowered a rope with a -torch swinging wildly on the end of it.</p> - -<p>The torch came to rest about thirty feet down. It shone on gently -rolling mounds of fine, white stuff.</p> - -<p>Martin anchored the rope soundly, and paused, half across the lip -of the hatch to stare coldly at Wass. "You'd rather monkey with the -switches and blow yourself to smithereens?"</p> - -<p>Wass sighed and refused to meet Martin's gaze. Martin looked at him -disgustedly, and then began to descend the rope, slowly, peering into -the infinite, sparkling darkness pressing around him. At the bottom -of the rope he sank to his knees in dust, and then was held even. He -stamped his feet, and then, as well as he was able, did a standing -jump. He sank no farther than his knees.</p> - -<p>He sighted a path parallel with the avenue above, toward the nearest -edge of the city. "I think we'll be all right," he called out, "as long -as we avoid the drifts."</p> - -<p>Rodney began the descent. Looking up, Martin saw Wass above Rodney.</p> - -<p>"All right, Wass," Martin said quietly, as Rodney released the rope and -sank into the dust.</p> - -<p>"Not me," the answer came back quickly. "You two fools go your way, -I'll go mine."</p> - -<p>"Wass!"</p> - -<p>There was no answer. The light faded swiftly away from the opening.</p> - -<p>The going was hard. The dust clung like honey to their feet, and eddied -and swirled about them until the purifying systems in their suits were -hard-pressed to remove the fine stuff working in at joints and valves.</p> - -<p>"Are we going straight?" Rodney asked.</p> - -<p>"Of course," Martin growled.</p> - -<p>There was silence again, the silence of almost-exhausted determination. -The two men lifted their feet out of the dust, and then laboriously -plunged forward, to sink again to the knees, repeated the act, times -without number.</p> - -<p>Then Wass broke his silence, taunting. "The ship leaves in two hours, -Martin. Two hours. Hear me, Rodney?"</p> - -<p>Martin pulled his left foot from the sand and growled deep in his -throat. Ahead, through the confusing patterns of the sparkling dust, -his flashlight gleamed against metal. He grabbed Rodney's arm, pointed.</p> - -<p>A grate.</p> - -<p>Rodney stared. "Wass!" he shouted. "We've found a way out!"</p> - -<p>Their radios recorded Wass' laughter. "I'm at the switchboard now, -Martin. I—"</p> - -<p>There was a tinkle of breaking glass, breaking faceplate.</p> - -<p>The grate groaned upward and stopped.</p> - -<p>Wass babbled incoherently into the radio for a moment, and then he -began to scream.</p> - -<p>Martin switched off his radio, sick.</p> - -<p>He turned it on again when they reached the opening in the metal wall. -"Well?"</p> - -<p>"I've been trying to get you," Rodney said, frantically. "Why didn't -you answer?"</p> - -<p>"We couldn't do anything for him."</p> - -<p>Rodney's face was white and drawn. "But he did this for us."</p> - -<p>"So he did," Martin said, very quietly.</p> - -<p>Rodney said nothing.</p> - -<p>Then Martin said, "Did you listen until the end?"</p> - -<p>Rodney nodded, jerkily. "He pulled three more switches. I couldn't -understand it all. But—Martin, dying alone like that in a place like -this—!"</p> - -<p>Martin crawled into the circular pipe behind the grate. It tilted up -toward the surface. "Come on, Rodney. Last lap."</p> - -<p>An hour later they surfaced about two hundred yards away from the -edge of the city. Behind them the black pile rose, the dome of force -shimmering, almost invisible, about it.</p> - -<p>Ahead of them were the other two scoutships from the mother ship. -Martin called out faintly, pulling Rodney out of the pipe. Crew members -standing by the scoutships, and at the edge of the city, began to run -toward them.</p> - -<p>"Radio picked you up as soon as you entered the pipe," someone said. It -was the last thing Martin heard before he collapsed.</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Dust Unto Dust, by Lyman D. 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Hinckley - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Dust Unto Dust - -Author: Lyman D. Hinckley - -Release Date: October 16, 2020 [EBook #63473] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DUST UNTO DUST *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - DUST UNTO DUST - - By LYMAN D. HINCKLEY - - It was alien but was it dead, this towering, sinister - city of metal that glittered malignantly before the - cautious advance of three awed space-scouters. - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Planet Stories Summer 1955. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - -Martin set the lifeboat down carefully, with all the attention one -usually exercises in a situation where the totally unexpected has -occurred, and he and his two companions sat and stared in awed silence -at the city a quarter-mile away. - -He saw the dull, black walls of buildings shouldering grimly into the -twilight sky, saw the sheared edge where the metal city ended and the -barren earth began ... and he remembered observing, even before they -landed, the too-strict geometry imposed on the entire construction. - -He frowned. The first impression was ... malignant. - -Wass, blond and slight, with enough nose for three or four men, -unbuckled his safety belt and stood up. "Shall we, gentlemen?" and with -a graceful movement of hand and arm he indicated the waiting city. - -Martin led Wass, and the gangling, scarecrow-like Rodney, through the -stillness overlaying the barren ground. There was only the twilight -sky, and harsh and black against it, the convoluted earth. And the -city. Malignant. He wondered, again, what beings would choose to build -a city--even a city like this one--in such surroundings. - -The men from the ship knew only the surface facts about this waiting -geometric discovery. Theirs was the eleventh inter-planetary flight, -and the previous ten, in the time allowed them for exploration while -this planet was still close enough to their own to permit a safe return -in their ships, had not spotted the city. But the eleventh expedition -had, an hour ago, with just thirteen hours left during which a return -flight could be safely started. So far as was known, this was the only -city on the planet--the planet without any life at all, save tiny -mosses, for a million years or more. And no matter which direction from -the city a man moved, he would always be going north. - -"Hey, Martin!" Rodney called through his helmet radio. Martin paused. -"Wind," Rodney said, coming abreast of him. He glanced toward the black -pile, as if sharing Martin's thoughts. "That's all we need, isn't it?" - -Martin looked at the semi-transparent figures of wind and dust -cavorting in the distance, moving toward them. He grinned a little, -adjusting his radio. "Worried?" - -Rodney's bony face was without expression. "Gives me the creeps, kind -of. I wonder what they were like?" - -Wass murmured, "Let us hope they aren't immortal." - -Three feet from the edge of the city Martin stopped and stubbed at the -sand with the toe of his boot, clearing earth from part of a shining -metal band. - -Wass watched him, and then shoved aside more sand, several feet away. -"It's here, too." - -Martin stood up. "Let's try farther on. Rodney, radio the ship, tell -them we're going in." - -Rodney nodded. - -After a time, Wass said, "Here, too. How far do you think it goes?" - -Martin shrugged. "Clear around the city? I'd like to know what it -is--was--for." - -"Defense," Rodney, several yards behind, suggested. - -"Could be," Martin said. "Let's go in." - -The three crossed the metal band and walked abreast down a street, -their broad soft soled boots making no sound on the dull metal. They -passed doors and arches and windows and separate buildings. They moved -cautiously across five intersections. And they stood in a square -surrounded by the tallest buildings in the city. - -Rodney broke the silence, hesitantly. "Not--not very big. Is it?" - -Wass looked at him shrewdly. "Neither were the--well, shall we call -them, people? Have you noticed how low everything is?" - -Rodney's laughter rose, too. Then, sobering--"Maybe they crawled." - -A nebulous image, product of childhood's vivid imagination, moved -slowly across Martin's mind. "All right!" he rapped out--and the image -faded. - -"Sorry," Rodney murmured, his throat working beneath his lantern jaw. -Then--"I wonder what it's like here in the winter when there's no light -at all?" - -"I imagine they had illumination of some sort," Martin answered, dryly. -"If we don't hurry up and get through this place and back to the ship, -we're very likely to find out." - -Rodney said quickly, "I mean outside." - -"Out there, too, Rodney, they must have had illumination." Martin -looked back along the straight, metal street they'd walked on, and past -that out over the bleak, furrowed slopes where the ship's lifeboat -lay ... and he thought everything outside the city seemed, somehow, -from here, a little dim, a little hazy. - -He straightened his shoulders. The city was alien, of course, and that -explained most of it ... most of it. But he felt the black city was -something familiar, yet twisted and distorted. - -"Well," Wass said, his nose wrinkling a bit, "now that we're here...." - -"Pictures," Martin decided. "We have twelve hours. We'll start here. -What's the matter, Wass?" - -The blond man grinned ruefully. "I left the camera in the lifeboat." -There was a pause. Then Wass, defensively--"It's almost as if the city -didn't want to be photographed." - -Martin ignored the remark. "Go get it. Rodney and I will be somewhere -along this street." - -Wass turned away. Martin and Rodney started slowly down the wide metal -street, at right angles to their path of entrance. - -Again Martin felt a tug of twisted, distorted familiarity. It was -almost as if ... they were human up to a certain point, the point -being, perhaps, some part of their minds.... Alien things, dark and -subtle, things no man could ever comprehend. - -Parallel evolution on two inner planets of the same system? Somewhere, -sometime, a common ancestor? Martin noted the shoulder-high doors, the -heavier gravity, remembered the inhabitants of the city vanished before -the thing that was to become man ever emerged from the slime, and he -decided to grin at himself, at his own imagination. - -Rodney jerked his scarecrow length about quickly, and a chill sped up -Martin's spine. "What's the matter?" - -The bony face was white, the gray eyes were wide. "I saw--I thought I -saw--something--moving--" - -Anger rose in Martin. "You didn't," he said flatly, gripping the -other's shoulder cruelly. "You couldn't have. Get hold of yourself, -man!" - -Rodney stared. "The wind. Remember? There isn't any, here." - -"... How could there be? The buildings protect us now. It was blowing -from the other direction." - -Rodney wrenched free of Martin's grip. He gestured wildly. "That--" - -"Martin!" Wass' voice came through the receivers in both their radios. -"Martin, I can't get out!" - - * * * * * - -Rodney mumbled something, and Martin told him to shut up. - -Wass said, more quietly, "Remember that metal band? It's all clear now, -and glittering, as far as I can see. I can't get across it; it's like a -glass wall." - -"We're trapped, we're trapped, they are--" - -"Shut up, Rodney! Wass, I'm only two sections from the edge. I'll check -here." - -Martin clapped a hand on Rodney's shoulder again, starting him moving, -toward the city's edge, past the black, silent buildings. - -The glittering band was here, too, like a halo around a silhouette. - -"No go," Martin said to Wass. He bit at his lower lip. "I think it must -be all around us." He was silent for a time, exploring the consequences -of this. Then--"We'll meet you in the middle of the city, where we -separated." - -Walking with Rodney, Martin heard Wass' voice, flat and metallic -through the radio receiver against his ear. "What do you suppose caused -this?" - -He shook his head angrily, saying, "Judging by reports of the rest of -the planet, it must have been horribly radioactive at one time. All of -it." - -"Man-made radiation, you mean." - -Martin grinned faintly. Wass, too, had an active imagination. "Well, -alien-made, anyhow. Perhaps they had a war." - -Wass' voice sounded startled. "Anti-radiation screen?" - -Rodney interrupted, "There hasn't been enough radiation around here for -hundreds of thousands of years to activate such a screen." - -Wass said coldly, "He's right, Martin." - -Martin crossed an intersection, Rodney slightly behind him. "You're -both wrong," he said. "We landed here today." - -Rodney stopped in the middle of the metal street and stared down at -Martin. "The wind--?" - -"Why not?" - -"That would explain why it stopped so suddenly, then." Rodney stood -straighter. When he walked again, his steps were firmer. - -They reached the center of the city, ahead of the small, slight Wass, -and stood watching him labor along the metal toward them. - -Wass' face, Martin saw, was sober. "I tried to call the ship. No luck." - -"The shield?" - -Wass nodded. "What else?" - -"I don't know--" - -"If we went to the roof of the tallest building," Rodney offered, "we -might--" - -Martin shook his head. "No. To be effective, the shield would have to -cover the city." - -Wass stared down at the metal street, as if he could look through it. -"I wonder where it gets its power?" - -"Down below, probably. If there is a down below." Martin hesitated. "We -may have to...." - -"What?" Rodney prompted. - -Martin shrugged. "Let's look." - -He led the way through a shoulder-high arch in one of the tall -buildings surrounding the square. The corridor inside was dim and -plain, and he switched on his flashlight, the other two immediately -following his example. The walls and the rounded ceiling of the -corridor were of the same dull metal as the buildings' facades, and -the streets. There were a multitude of doors and arches set into -either side of the corridor. - -It was rather like ... entering a gigantic metal beehive. - -Martin chose an arch, with beyond it a metal ramp, which tilted -downward, gleaming in the pale circle of his torch. - -A call from Rodney halted him. "Back here," the tall man repeated. "It -looks like a switchboard." - -The three advanced to the end of the central corridor, pausing before a -great arch, outlined in the too-careful geometrical figures Martin had -come to associate with the city builders. The three torches, shining -through the arch, picked out a bank of buttons, handles ... and a thick -rope of cables which ran upward to vanish unexpectedly in the metal -roof. - -"Is this it," Wass murmured, "or an auxiliary?" - -Martin shrugged. "The whole city's no more than a machine, apparently." - -"Another assumption," Wass said. "We have done nothing but make -assumptions ever since we got here." - -"What would you suggest, instead?" Martin asked calmly. - -Rodney furtively, extended one hand toward a switch. - -"No!" Martin said, sharply. That was one assumption they dared not make. - -Rodney turned. "But--" - -"No. Wass, how much time have we?" - -"The ship leaves in eleven hours." - -"Eleven hours," Rodney repeated. "Eleven hours!" He reached out for the -switch again. Martin swore, stepped forward, pulled him back roughly. - -He directed his flashlight at Rodney's thin, pale face. "What do you -think you're doing?" - -"We have to find out what all this stuff's for!" - -"Going at it blindly, we'd probably execute ourselves." - -"We've got to--" - -"No!" Then, more quietly--"We still have eleven hours to find a way -out." - -"Ten hours and forty-five minutes," Wass disagreed softly. "Minus the -time it takes us to get to the lifeboat, fly to the ship, land, stow -it, get ourselves aboard, and get the big ship away from the planet. -And Captain Morgan can't wait for us, Martin." - -"You too, Wass?" - -"Up to the point of accuracy, yes." - -Martin said, "Not necessarily. You go the way the wind does, always -thinking of your own tender hide, of course." - -Rodney cursed. "And every second we stand here doing nothing gives us -that much less time to find a way out. Martin--" - -"Make one move toward that switchboard and I'll stop you where you -stand!" - - * * * * * - -Wass moved silently through the darkness beyond the torches. "We all -have guns, Martin." - -"I'm holding mine." Martin waited. - -After a moment, Wass switched his flashlight back on. He said quietly, -"He's right, Rodney. It would be sure death to monkey around in here." - -"Well...." Rodney turned quickly toward the black arch. "Let's get out -of here, then!" - -Martin hung back waiting for the others to go ahead of him down the -metal hall. At the other arch, where the ramp led downward, he called a -halt. "If the dome, or whatever it is, is a radiation screen there must -be at least half-a-dozen emergency exits around the city." - -Rodney said, "To search every building next to the dome clean around -the city would take years." - -Martin nodded. "But there must be central roads beneath this main level -leading to them. Up here there are too many roads." - -Wass laughed rudely. - -"Have you a better idea?" - -Wass ignored that, as Martin hoped he would. He said slowly, "That -leads to another idea. If the band around the city is responsible for -the dome, does it project down into the ground as well?" - -"You mean _dig_ out?" Martin asked. - -"Sure. Why not?" - -"We're wearing heavy suits and bulky breathing units. We have no -equipment." - -"That shouldn't be hard to come by." - -Martin smiled, banishing Wass' idea. - -Rodney said, "They may have had their digging equipment built right in -to themselves." - -"Anyway," Martin decided, "we can take a look down below." - -"In the pitch dark," Wass added. - -Martin adjusted his torch, began to lead the way down the metal ramp. -The incline was gentle, apparently constructed for legs shorter, feet -perhaps less broad than their own. The metal, without mark of any sort, -gleamed under the combined light of the torches, unrolling out of the -darkness before the men. - -At length the incline melted smoothly into the next level of the city. - -Martin shined his light upward, and the others followed his example. -Metal as smooth and featureless as that on which they stood shone down -on them. - -Wass turned his light parallel with the floor, and then moved slowly in -a circle. "No supports. No supports anywhere. What keeps all that up -there?" - -"I don't know. I have no idea." Martin gestured toward the ramp with -his light. "Does all this, this whole place, look at all familiar to -you?" - -Rodney's gulp was clearly audible through the radio receivers. "Here?" - -"No, no," Martin answered impatiently, "not just here. I mean the whole -city." - -"Yes," Wass said dryly, "it does. I'm sure this is where all my -nightmares stay when they're not on shift." - -Martin turned on his heel and started down a metal avenue which, he -thought, paralleled the street above. And Rodney and Wass followed him -silently. They moved along the metal, past unfamiliar shapes made more -so by gloom and moving shadows, past doors dancing grotesquely in the -three lights, past openings in the occasional high metal partitions, -past something which was perhaps a conveyor belt, past another -something which could have been anything at all. - -The metal street ended eventually in a blank metal wall. - -The edge of the city--the city which was a dome of force above and a -bowl of metal below. - -After a long time, Wass sighed. "Well, skipper...?" - -"We go back, I guess," Martin said. - -Rodney turned swiftly to face him. Martin thought the tall man was -holding his gun. "To the switchboard, Martin?" - -"Unless someone has a better idea," Martin conceded. He waited. But -Rodney was holding the gun ... and Wass was.... Then--"I can't think of -anything else." - -They began to retrace their steps along the metal street, back past -the same dancing shapes of metal, the partitions, the odd windows, all -looking different now in the new angles of illumination. - -Martin was in the lead. Wass followed him silently. Rodney, tall, -matchstick thin, even in his cumbersome suit, swayed with jaunty -triumph in the rear. - -Martin looked at the metal street lined with its metal objects and he -sighed. He remembered how the dark buildings of the city looked at -surface level, how the city itself looked when they were landing, and -then when they were walking toward it. The dream was gone again for -now. Idealism died in him, again and again, yet it was always reborn. -But--The only city, so far as anyone knew, on the first planet they'd -ever explored. And it had to be like this. Nightmares, Wass said, and -Martin thought perhaps the city was built by a race of beings who at -some point twisted away from their evolutionary spiral, plagued by a -sort of racial insanity. - -No, Martin thought, shaking his head. No, that couldn't be. -Viewpoint ... his viewpoint. It was the haunting sense of familiarity, -a faint strain through all this broad jumble, the junkpile of alien -metal, which was making him theorize so wildly. - -Then Wass touched his elbow. "Look there, Martin. Left of the ramp." - -Light from their torches was reflected, as from glass. - -"All right," Rodney said belligerently into his radio. "What's holding -up the procession?" - -Martin was silent. - -Wass undertook to explain. Why not, after all? Martin asked himself. It -was in Wass' own interest. In a moment, all three were standing before -a bank of glass cases which stretched off into the distance as far as -the combined light of their torches would reach. - -"Seeds!" Wass exclaimed, his faceplate pressed against the glass. - -Martin blinked. He thought how little time they had. He wet his lips. - -Wass' gloved hands fumbled awkwardly at a catch in the nearest section -of the bank. - -Martin thought of the dark, convoluted land outside the city. If they -wouldn't grow there.... Or had they, once? "Don't, Wass!" - -Torchlight reflected from Wass' faceplate as he turned his head. "Why -not?" - -They were like children.... "We don't know, released, what they'll do." - -"Skipper," Wass said carefully, "if we don't get out of this place by -the deadline we may be eating these." - -Martin raised his arm tensely. "Opening a seed bank doesn't help us -find a way out of here." He started up the ramp. "Besides, we've no -water." - -Rodney came last up the ramp, less jaunty now, but still holding the -gun. His mind, too, was taken up with childhood's imaginings. "For -a plant to grow in this environment, it wouldn't need much water. -Maybe--" he had a vision of evil plants attacking them, growing with -super-swiftness at the air valves and joints of their suits "--only the -little moisture in the atmosphere." - - * * * * * - -They stood before the switchboard again. Martin and Wass side by side, -Rodney, still holding his gun, slightly to the rear. - -Rodney moved forward a little toward the switches. His breathing was -loud and rather uneven in the radio receivers. - -Martin made a final effort. "Rodney, it's still almost nine hours to -take off. Let's search awhile first. Let this be a last resort." - -Rodney jerked his head negatively. "No. Now, I know you, Martin. -Postpone and postpone until it's too late, and the ship leaves without -us and we're stranded here to eat seeds and gradually dehydrate -ourselves and God only knows what else and--" - -He reached out convulsively and yanked a switch. - -Martin leaped, knocking him to the floor. Rodney's gun skittered away -silently, like a live thing, out of the range of the torches. - -The radio receivers impersonally recorded the grating sounds of -Rodney's sobs. - -"Sorry," Martin said, without feeling. He turned quickly. "Wass?" - -The slight, blond man stood unmoving. "I'm with you, Martin, but, as -a last resort it might be better to be blown sky high than to die -gradually--" - -Martin was watching Rodney, struggling to get up. "I agree. As a last -resort. We still have a little time." - -Rodney's tall, spare figure looked bowed and tired in the torchlight, -now that he was up again. "Martin, I--" - -Martin turned his back. "Skip it, Rodney," he said gently. - -"Water," Wass said thoughtfully. "There must be reservoirs under this -city somewhere." - -Rodney said, "How does water help us get out?" - -Martin glanced at Wass, then started out of the switchboard room, not -looking back. "It got in and out of the city some way. Perhaps we can -leave the same way." - -Down the ramp again. - -"There's another ramp," Wass murmured. - -Rodney looked down it. "I wonder how many there are, all told." - -Martin placed one foot on the metal incline. He angled his torch down, -picking out shadowy, geometrical shapes, duplicates of the ones on the -present level. "We'll find out," he said, "how many there are." - -Eleven levels later Rodney asked, "How much time have we now?" - -"Seven hours," Wass said quietly, "until take-off." - -"One more level," Martin said, ignoring the reference to time. "I ... -think it's the last." - -They walked down the ramp and stood together, silent in a dim pool of -artificial light on the bottom level of the alien city. - -Rodney played his torch about the metal figures carefully placed about -the floor. "Martin, what if there are no reservoirs? What if there are -cemeteries instead? Or cold storage units? Maybe the switch I pulled--" - -"Rodney! Stop it!" - -Rodney swallowed audibly. "This place scares me...." - -"The first time I was ever in a rocket, it scared me. I was thirteen." - -"This is different," Wass said. "Built-in traps--" - -"They had a war," Martin said. - -Wass agreed. "And the survivors retired here. Why?" - -Martin said, "They wanted to rebuild. Or maybe this was already built -before the war as a retreat." He turned impatiently. "How should I -know?" - -Wass turned, too, persistent. "But the planet was through with them." - -"In a minute," Martin said, too irritably, "we'll have a sentient -planet." From the corner of his eye he saw Rodney start at that. "Knock -it off, Wass. We're looking for reservoirs, you know." - -They moved slowly down the metal avenue, between the twisted shadow -shapes, looking carefully about them. - -Rodney paused. "We might not recognize one." - -Martin urged him on. "You know what a man-hole cover looks like." He -added dryly, "Use your imagination." - -They reached the metal wall at the end of the avenue and paused again, -uncertain. - -Martin swung his flashlight, illuminating the distorted metal shapes. - -Wass said, "All this had a purpose, once...." - -"We'll disperse and search carefully," Martin said. - -"I wonder what the pattern was." - -"... The reservoirs, Wass. The pattern will still be here for later -expeditions to study. So will we if we don't find a way to get out." - -Their radios recorded Rodney's gasp. Then--"Martin! Martin! I think -I've found something!" - -Martin began to run. After a moment's hesitation, Wass swung in behind -him. - -"Here," Rodney said, as they came up to him, out of breath. "Here. See? -Right here." - -Three flashlights centered on a dark, metal disk raised a foot or more -from the floor. - -"Well, they had hands." With his torch Wass indicated a small wheel of -the same metal as everything else in the city, set beside the disk. - -From its design Martin assumed that the disk was meant to be grasped -and turned. He wondered what precisely they were standing over. - -"Well, Skipper, are you going to do the honors?" - -Martin kneeled, grasped the wheel. It turned easily--almost too -easily--rotating the disk as it turned. - -Suddenly, without a sound, the disk rose, like a hatch, on a concealed -hinge. - -The three men, clad in their suits and helmets, grouped around the -six-foot opening, shining their torches down into the thing that -drifted and eddied directly beneath them. - -Rodney's sudden grip on Martin's wrist nearly shattered the bone. -"Martin! It's all alive! It's moving!" - -Martin hesitated long enough for a coil to move sinuously up toward the -opening. Then he spun the wheel and the hatch slammed down. - -He was shaking. - - * * * * * - -After a time he said, "Rodney, Wass, it's dust, down there. Remember -the wind? Air currents are moving it." - -Rodney sat down on the metal flooring. For a long time he said nothing. -Then--"It wasn't.... Why did you close the hatch then?" - -Martin did not say he thought the other two would have shot him, -otherwise. He said merely, "At first I wasn't sure myself." - -Rodney stood up, backing away from the closed hatch. He held his gun -loosely, and his hand shook. "Then prove it. Open it again." - -Martin went to the wheel. He noticed Wass was standing behind Rodney -and he, too, had drawn his gun. - -The hatch rose again at Martin's direction. He stood beside it, -outlined in the light of two torches. - -For a little while he was alone. - -Then--causing a gasp from Wass, a harsh expletive from Rodney--a -tenuous, questing alien limb edged through the hatch, curling about -Martin, sparkling in ten thousand separate particles in the torchlight, -obscuring the dimly seen backdrop of geometrical processions of strange -objects. - -Martin raised an arm, and the particles swirled in stately, shimmering -spirals. - -Rodney leaned forward and looked over the edge of the hatch. He said -nothing. He eyed the sparkling particles swirling about Martin, and -now, himself. - -"How deep," Wass said, from his safe distance. - -"We'll have to lower a flashlight," Martin answered. - -Rodney, all eagerness to be of assistance now, lowered a rope with a -torch swinging wildly on the end of it. - -The torch came to rest about thirty feet down. It shone on gently -rolling mounds of fine, white stuff. - -Martin anchored the rope soundly, and paused, half across the lip -of the hatch to stare coldly at Wass. "You'd rather monkey with the -switches and blow yourself to smithereens?" - -Wass sighed and refused to meet Martin's gaze. Martin looked at him -disgustedly, and then began to descend the rope, slowly, peering into -the infinite, sparkling darkness pressing around him. At the bottom -of the rope he sank to his knees in dust, and then was held even. He -stamped his feet, and then, as well as he was able, did a standing -jump. He sank no farther than his knees. - -He sighted a path parallel with the avenue above, toward the nearest -edge of the city. "I think we'll be all right," he called out, "as long -as we avoid the drifts." - -Rodney began the descent. Looking up, Martin saw Wass above Rodney. - -"All right, Wass," Martin said quietly, as Rodney released the rope and -sank into the dust. - -"Not me," the answer came back quickly. "You two fools go your way, -I'll go mine." - -"Wass!" - -There was no answer. The light faded swiftly away from the opening. - -The going was hard. The dust clung like honey to their feet, and eddied -and swirled about them until the purifying systems in their suits were -hard-pressed to remove the fine stuff working in at joints and valves. - -"Are we going straight?" Rodney asked. - -"Of course," Martin growled. - -There was silence again, the silence of almost-exhausted determination. -The two men lifted their feet out of the dust, and then laboriously -plunged forward, to sink again to the knees, repeated the act, times -without number. - -Then Wass broke his silence, taunting. "The ship leaves in two hours, -Martin. Two hours. Hear me, Rodney?" - -Martin pulled his left foot from the sand and growled deep in his -throat. Ahead, through the confusing patterns of the sparkling dust, -his flashlight gleamed against metal. He grabbed Rodney's arm, pointed. - -A grate. - -Rodney stared. "Wass!" he shouted. "We've found a way out!" - -Their radios recorded Wass' laughter. "I'm at the switchboard now, -Martin. I--" - -There was a tinkle of breaking glass, breaking faceplate. - -The grate groaned upward and stopped. - -Wass babbled incoherently into the radio for a moment, and then he -began to scream. - -Martin switched off his radio, sick. - -He turned it on again when they reached the opening in the metal wall. -"Well?" - -"I've been trying to get you," Rodney said, frantically. "Why didn't -you answer?" - -"We couldn't do anything for him." - -Rodney's face was white and drawn. "But he did this for us." - -"So he did," Martin said, very quietly. - -Rodney said nothing. - -Then Martin said, "Did you listen until the end?" - -Rodney nodded, jerkily. "He pulled three more switches. I couldn't -understand it all. But--Martin, dying alone like that in a place like -this--!" - -Martin crawled into the circular pipe behind the grate. It tilted up -toward the surface. "Come on, Rodney. Last lap." - -An hour later they surfaced about two hundred yards away from the -edge of the city. Behind them the black pile rose, the dome of force -shimmering, almost invisible, about it. - -Ahead of them were the other two scoutships from the mother ship. -Martin called out faintly, pulling Rodney out of the pipe. Crew members -standing by the scoutships, and at the edge of the city, began to run -toward them. - -"Radio picked you up as soon as you entered the pipe," someone said. It -was the last thing Martin heard before he collapsed. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Dust Unto Dust, by Lyman D. 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