Short Fiction, Poul Anderson [simple e reader .TXT] 📗

then they died. Their own weapons swept them away in one burst of fire, and only broken ruins were left⁠—ruins and desert, and the ghost who lay waiting in that bottle.”

I signalled for another round of drinks, wondering what he meant, wondering just how sane that big man with the worn rocky face was. Still⁠—you never know. I’ve seen things out beyond that veil of stars which your maddest dreams never hinted at. I’ve seen men carried home mumbling and empty-eyed, the hollow cold of space filling their brains where something had broken the thin taut wall of their reason. They say spacemen are a credulous breed. Before Heaven, they have to be!

“You don’t mean New Egypt?” I asked.

“Stupid name. Just because there are remnants of a great dead culture, they have to name it after an insignificant valley of ephemeral peasants. I tell you, the men of Vwyrdda were like gods, and when they were destroyed whole suns were darkened by the forces they used. Why, they killed off Earth’s dinosaurs in a day, millions of years ago, and only used one ship to do it.”

“How in hell do you know that? I didn’t think the archeologists had deciphered their records.”

“They haven’t. All our archeologists will ever know is that the Vwyrddans were a race of remarkably humanoid appearance, with a highly advanced interstellar culture wiped out about a million Earth-years ago. Matter of fact, I don’t really know that they did it to Earth, but I do know that they had a regular policy of exterminating the great reptiles of terrestroid planets with an eye to later colonization, and I know that they got this far, so I suppose our planet got the treatment too.” Laird accepted his fresh drink and raised the glass to me. “Thanks. But now do be a good fellow and let me ramble on in my own way.

“It was⁠—let me see⁠—thirty-three years ago now, when I was a bright young lieutenant with bright young ideas. The Revolt was in full swing then, and the Janyards held all that region of space, out Sagittari way you know. Things looked bad for Sol then⁠—I don’t think it’s ever been appreciated how close we were to defeat. They were poised to drive right through our lines with their battle-fleets, slash past our frontiers, and hit Earth itself with the rain of hell that had already sterilized a score of planets. We were fighting on the defensive, spread over several million cubic light-years, spread horribly thin. Oh, bad!

“Vwyrdda⁠—New Egypt⁠—had been discovered and some excavation done shortly before the war began. We knew about as much then as we do now. Especially, we knew that the so-called Valley of the Gods held more relics than any other spot on the surface. I’d been quite interested in the work, visited the planet myself, even worked with the crew that found and restored that gravitomagnetic generator⁠—the one which taught us half of what we know now about g-m fields.

“It was my young and fanciful notion that there might be more to be found, somewhere in that labyrinth⁠—and from study of the reports I even thought I knew about what and where it would be. One of the weapons that had novaed suns, a million years ago⁠—

“The planet was far behind the Janyard lines, but militarily valueless. They wouldn’t garrison it, and I was sure that such semi-barbarians wouldn’t have my idea, especially with victory so close. A one-man sneakboat could get in readily enough⁠—it just isn’t possible to blockade a region of space; too damned inhumanly big. We had nothing to lose but me, and maybe a lot to gain, so in I went.

“I made the planet without trouble and landed in the Valley of the Gods and began work. And that’s where the fun started.”

Laird laughed again, with no more mirth than before.

There was a moon hanging low over the hills, a great scarred shield thrice the size of Earth’s, and its chill white radiance filled the Valley with colorless light and long shadows. Overhead flamed the incredible sky of the Sagittarian regions, thousands upon thousands of great blazing suns swarming in strings and clusters and constellations strange to human eyes, blinking and glittering in the thin cold air. It was so bright that Laird could see the fine patterns of his skin, loops and whorls on the numbed fingers that groped against the pyramid. He shivered in the wind that streamed past him, blowing dust devils with a dry whisper, searching under his clothes to sheathe his flesh in cold. His breath was ghostly white before him, the bitter air felt liquid when he breathed.

Around him loomed the fragments of what must have been a city, now reduced to a few columns and crumbling walls held up by the lava which had flowed. The stones reared high in the unreal moonlight, seeming almost to move as the shadows and the drifting sand passed them. Ghost city. Ghost planet. He was the last life that stirred on its bleak surface.

But somewhere above that surface⁠—

What was it, that descending hum high in the sky, sweeping closer out of stars and moon and wind? Minutes ago the needle on his gravitomagnetic detector had wavered down in the depths of the pyramid. He had hurried up and now stood looking and listening and feeling his heart turn stiff.

No, no, no⁠—not a Janyard ship, not now⁠—it was the end of everything if they came.

Laird cursed with a hopeless fury. The wind caught his mouthings and blew them away with the scudding sand, buried them under the everlasting silence of the valley. His eyes traveled to his sneakboat. It was invisible against the great pyramid⁠—he’d taken that much precaution, shoveling a low grave of sand over it⁠—but, if they used metal detectors that was valueless. He was fast, yes, but almost unarmed; they could easily follow his trail down into the labyrinth and locate the vault.

Lord if he had led them here⁠—if his planning