When Cities Implode: Golden Age Space Opera Tales

THE BURNT PLANET-4

THE SCHOLAR MADE HIS greatest find late that afternoon, on the street-level floor of an almost-intact building. It must have been a place where writings had been stored, or perhaps sold. The brown rotting pages were everywhere, and the mouldering covers in which the writings had been bound. The scholar cried out with pleasure, and the commander was forced to delay their return to the ship so that the crew could carry part of the loot with them, for further study.

The scholar was squatting in a corner of the room, poring over one of the ancient records, when he looked up and shouted, “I think I’ve got it! I think I’ve got it! I think I’ve found the key to their language!”

The commander had smiled indulgently, for though he believed in action, he had respect for the scholar, and knew that the things the scholar might discover in the old writings might help him in his own task as leader of the expedition.

It was then that the creatures attacked for the last time. They must have crept into the building and gathered there in the dimness, waiting their opportunity. There were six of them. They poured through a rear door into the room of writings, howling, their projectile-throwers barking. Their wild ululations were the screams of the demented. The commander could see the madness in their eyes and he knew why he had been afraid.

The astrogator was down before they could return the fire, and then the projectors cracked out their blue-flamed doom.

The lieutenant cursed as he was hit; he dropped to one knee, firing swiftly, and then the creatures were down and it was over. The wild bearded faces were charred and blackened, and in the sudden silence was the crackle of the little blue flames as they danced over the filthy ragged clothing of the dead. The commander let his breath go, at last, in a long gasping sigh.

He started to walk toward the bodies, knowing that they were the last, knowing that if there had been any more they would have waited, gathering strength, and they would not have made the crazy suicidal attack. The fighting was over. The savage creatures, unbalanced by their miserable existence among the ruins of the glory that had been theirs, would never again threaten the bridgehead he had carved on this world. It was his world now.

There was a frantic tugging at his sleeve, and he shook the battle fog from his eyes and grinned at the scholar. The commander remembered that even while the fight had roared hot and sharp, the scholar had not moved from his corner, nor taken his eyes from the pages he was studying. And now the scholar was fairly dancing with excitement.

“I’ve got it!” he said, almost chortling. “It wasn’t hard with the key—and I found the key!”

He gestured toward the little tangle of bodies, silent in the room of writings.

“They called themselves ‘Men,’” he said.

The commander shrugged.