There was a shock; in a minute, of the ship with something it. Drifting the now bore, it had touched the wall. There was no to the impact.
Keller an noise. When to him, he pointed to a dial. A on that pointed just past the "30." Burke grunted.
"The devil! We've been waiting for to happen, and they already have! It's our move."
"According to that needle," Holmes, "somebody has put thirty point seven of air-pressure around the ship outside. We can walk out and breathe, now."
"If," said Burke, "it's air. It be something else. I'll have to check it."
He got out the self-contained that had been along to as a temporary space suit.
"I'll try a cigarette-lighter. Maybe it will naturally. Maybe it will go out. It make an explosion. But I that very much."
"We'll hope," said Holmes, "that the burns."
Burke into the suit, which had been designed for of to use in waters. On Earth it would have been heavy, for a man moving about out of the ocean. But there was no weight here. If M-387 had a at all, which in it had to have, it would be on the order of of the of Earth.
Keller sat in the control-chair, the and the television screens which the now to fifty feet. Somehow the more parts of the looked hazy, as if there were a in had been in it. Sandy Burke on the and close the face-plate. She a hand-hold, her white. Pam in a of the of the control-room. Holmes as Burke into the air-lock and closed the door.
His voice came out of a at the control-desk.
"I'm air from the suit," he said curtly.
There were scrapings. The lock-door noises. There was what to be a long wait. Then they Burke's voice again.
"I've it," he reported. "The when it's next to the opened door. I'm opening wide now."
More from the air-lock.
"It still burns. Repeat. The all right. The is with air. I'm going to my face-plate and see how it smells."
Silence, while Sandy white. But a moment later Burke said crisply, "It all right. It's and stuffy, but there's nothing in it with an odor. Hold on—I something!"
A long minute, while the little ship almost in with the about it. It slowly. Then there came brisk, noises. They were familiar in kind. But this was a message, of some fifteen or twenty length, no more. It ended, was repeated, ended, was repeated, and on with an of and parrot-like repetition.
"It's good air," reported Burke. "I'm normally. But it might have been for ages. It's stale. Do you what I do?"
"Yes," said Sandy in a to the control-room. "It's a call. It's telling us to do something. Come inside, Joe!"
They the air-lock door and its locking-dogs engaging. The to be audible. The door wide. Burke came into the control-room, his face-plate open. He out of the suit.
"Something up the that we'd entered. It closed a door us. Then it on lights for us. Then it let air into the entrance-lock. Now it's telling us to do something."
The ship surged, so gently. Keller had on an of drive. The of the past on the television screens. There was in the air outside. It to clear as the ship moved.
Keller a small sound. They see the end of the tunnel. There was a there. Stairs to it from the of the bore. There was a door with in the end wall. That was metal.
Keller the ship until the was in proper position for a landing, if there had been to make the stairs usable. Very, very gently, he the ship upon the platform.
There was a which ceased, came again, ceased, and up to a perfectly normal of weight. They upon the of the control-room with every physical they'd one-gravity on the way out here, and which they'd have if the ship were on Earth.
"Artificial gravity! Whoever this something!" Burke said.
Pam and spoke with an attempt at nonchalance.
"Now what do we do?"
"We—look for the people," said Sandy in a tone.
"There's nobody here, Sandy!" Burke said irritably. "Can't you see? There can't be here! They'd have us what to do if there had been! This is working. We do something and it operates. But then it for us to do something else. It's like—like a self-service elevator!"
"We didn't come here for an ride," said Sandy.
"I came to out what's here," said Burke, "and why it's to Earth. Holmes, you here with the girls and I'll take a look outside."
"I'd like to mention," said Holmes drily, "that we haven't a on this ship. When they at us on Earth, we didn't have a pea-shooter to shoot with. We haven't now. I think the girls are as safe as they are here. And besides, we'll all if we're together."
"I'm going!" said Sandy defiantly.
Burke hesitated, then shrugged. He the which doors to the air-lock from being open at the same time. It was not a thing to do, but was impractical. The ship was imprisoned. It was of defense. There was nothing about that couldn't prevent anything.
Burke open the lock door. One by one, the five of them to the so designed for a ship of space—a small one—to land upon. Nothing happened. Their were uninformative. This landing-platform might have been by any on Earth or else, provided only that it used stairs.
"Here goes," said Burke.
He to the door with corners. There was something like a at one side, about waist-high. He put his hand to it, and twisted, and the door gave. It was not rusty, but it needed lubrication. Burke it wide and beyond.
Before him there a which was not less than twenty high and just as wide. The long, of light that the ship-tunnel were here, too, in the ceiling. The away, and unbroken, until its end a point in the distance. It looked about a full mile long. There were in its walls, and they in the with a until they, too, were specks. One not speak of the length of this in or yards. It was a mile.
It was incredible. It was overwhelming. And it was empty. It in the of the light which a river of overhead. It that so a should have no thing in it. But it was vacant.
They its length for long seconds. Then Burke to shake himself.
"Here's the parlor. Let's walk in, if there's no committee."
His voice echoed. It rolled and and then very slowly to nothing.
Burke with Sandy close to him. Pam blankly, and moved up to Holmes. Once they were through the door, the was not that of in a part of space, but of being in some and on Earth. The of weight, if not normal, was so near it as not to be noticed. They have been in some unknown by men, at home.
This corridor, though, was not built. It was excavated. Some had been used which did not the to be removed. The surface of the about them was smooth. In places it glittered. The had been cut out, not constructed. They were of a size which them designed for the use of men. The to which they gave were matter-of-fact. They were windowless, of course, but their in the that they were empty, as if to that all this and labor had been thousands of years before. Yet from in the a call still out urgently, the with sounds, to come and do something which was necessary.
A long, long way the there were two specks. A quarter-mile from the entrance, they saw that one of the rooms a of metal ingots, and in place by still-glistening wire. At a mile they came upon the in the itself. One was a table with a single leg, of metal. It was unrusted, but of use. The other was an object with a top. In the there were twisted, of something unguessable.
"If men had this," said Burke, and again his voice and rolled, "that thing would be a with a cushion, and the table would be a desk."
Sandy said thoughtfully, "If men had this, there'd be marking things. At least there'd be some of numbers on these doorways!"
Burke said nothing. They on.
The branched. A metal door closed off the branch. Burke at an handle. It did not yield. They along the straight, open way.
They came to a larger-than-usual opening in the wall. Inside it there were and and of metal some ten in diameter. There must have been hundreds of them. Beside the door there was a shelf, with a box to it. A long way farther, they came to what had appeared to be the end of this corridor. But it did not end. It and and they themselves in the same on a different level, in the direction from which they had come. Their in the still-enormous emptiness. There were other closed doors. Burke some. Holmes others. They did not open. Keller moved raptly, at this and that.
Everything was strange, but not to be frightening. One have this place the work of men, that this was the ability of men to make. There must be miles of rooms out of solid rock. They came upon some hundreds of yards of doorways, and in every room on which they opened, there were metal about the walls. Holmes said suddenly, "If men had this place, those be bunks."
They came to another place where there was dust, and a group of six rooms not only with the but with each other. They metal like cook pans. They a small object which have been a vessel. It was broken. It was of a size for men.
"If men this," said Holmes again, "these be mess-halls. But I agree with Sandy that there should be signs."
Yet another closed door. It their to open it, just like the others. Keller put out his hand and touched the it. He looked astonished.
"What?" asked Burke. He touched the as Keller had. It was bitterly, cold. "The air's warm and the stone's cold! What's this?"
Keller the of his and it on the wall. Instantly, appeared. But the air warm.
The again, and again rose. The third-level was shorter; a mile in length. Here they passed door after door, all open, with each a and somehow shape of metal. And each there was a little with a small box to it.
"These," said Holmes, "could be guns, if there were any way for them to shoot anything. Just by the look of them I'd say they were weapons."
Burke said abruptly, "Keller, the being cold while the air's warm means that this place has been up lately. Heat's been into it. Within hours!"
Keller considered. Then he his head.
"Not heat. Warmed air."
Burke onward. He followed, actually, the only that was open. Other were cut off by doors which to open. Sandy, him, noted the floor. It was like the and ceiling. But it was worn. There were in it, a or so from the walls. Sandy thousands of moving about these for hundreds or thousands of years in order to wear away the solid in this fashion. She age about her—incredible age to time past imagining, while the of this world about its interior. Doing what?
Burke other things. There were the ten-foot metal spheres, by hundreds in what might be a magazine below. There were the and metal which definitely to somebody or something. There were the metal like bunks. There was no rust, here, which be for if Keller to be right and air had been in which before—for ten thousand years or more—had only the of space. And there were those rooms which be mess-halls.
These were for thought. But if what they at was true, there must be other elsewhere. There must be for food for those who managed the guns—if they were guns—and the spheres, and in the bunk-rooms and ate in the mess-halls. There'd be for and of all sorts. And again, if Keller were right about the air, there must be pressure-tanks which had the asteroid's under high pressure for millennia, only to warm it and it the hour so that those who came by ship use it.
An old phrase to Burke. "A in an enigma." It to these discoveries. Plainly the of air had been done without the of any creature. There be none here! As plainly, the from space had been without the of life. The which still its message to Earth was a robot. The operation of the ship-lock, the of air, the of the ship-lock and the corridors—all had been by machinery, orders to the by some stimulus.
But why? Other aside, there had been for the of a ship from space. No, not welcoming. Acceptance of a ship from space. Somebody had been to respond to those which through the system. Who were those waited-for visitors to be? What were they to do? For that matter, what was the purpose of the itself? What had it been for? At some time or another it must have thousands of inhabitants. What were they here for? What of them? And when the was left—abandoned—what was to the to send out urgent calls, and then a guiding-signal the the call was answered? When Burke's ship came, the it without question and out operations to make it possible for that ship's to at will through it. What this of so many ago?
The five newly-arrived humans, three men and two girls, along the cut out of the asteroid's heart. Murmurous them. Once they came to a place where a whispering-gallery existed. They their as if the were invisibly, but no one came.
"I don't like this!" Pam said uneasily.
Then her own voice her, and she what it was, and nervously. That also was repeated, and like something which to at them. It was unpleasant.
They came to the end of the gallery. There was a leading upward. There was else to go, so Burke started up, Sandy close him, and Holmes and Pam them. Keller up the rear. They climbed, and small to be audible.
They were sounds. They louder as the party from Earth up and up. They a landing, and here also there was a metal door with corners. Through it and from it came the notes that Burke had in his some hundreds of times and that had come to Earth from emptiness. The to pause and to again, and once more to pause. It was not possible to tell they came from one source, speaking pathetically, or from two in conversation.
Sandy white and her upon Burke. He was nearly as pale, himself. He stopped. Here and now there was no of ribbony-leaved trees or the of green things, but only air which was and as if it had been for centuries. And there was no sky with two in it, but only and stone. Yet there were the familiar sounds....
Burke put his hand to the curiously-shaped of the door. It yielded. The door opened inward. Burke in, his dry. Sandy him.
And again there was disappointment. Because there was no here. The room was thirty long and as wide. There were many vision-screens in it, and some of them the with a of detail no television provide. The sun as a small a third of its proper diameter. It was dimmer, too. The Milky Way clearly. And there were very many screens which clear views of the surface of the asteroid, all broken, chaotic, and massy, metal.
But there was no life. There were not of life. There were only machines. They noticed a large some ten across. Specks of light its substance. Off at one an metal arm a small object very close to the disk's surface, a third of the way from its edge. It did not touch the disk, but under it and in the there was a little group of bright-red which and wavered. They were in a mathematical which very, very slowly so that it would be hours it had a and had the same again.
The came from a tall metal on the floor. Another machine a plate out toward the cone. "There's nobody here," said Sandy in a voice. "What'll we do now, Joe?"
"This must be the transmitter," he murmured. "The sound-record for the must be in here, somehow. It's possible that this plate is a of microphone—"
Keller, beaming, pointed to a spot which with an luminescence. It more and according to the flutings. Burke said "The devil!" and the spot up very for an instant.
"Yes," said Burke. "It's a mike. It's likely—" the spot up and with the of his voice—"it's likely that what I say goes into the to Earth."
The to noises. Burke said very steadily—and the spot with the sounds—"I think I am to Earth. If so, this is Joe Burke. I the of my ship at Asteroid M-387. The has been out and with an air-lock which our ship. It is a—a—"
He hesitated, and Holmes said curtly, "It's a fortress."
"Yes," said Burke heavily. "It's a fortress. There are we haven't had time to examine. There are for a of thousands. But there is no one here. It has been deserted, but not abandoned, the was set up to send out a call when some occasion arose. It to have arisen. There is a big plate here which may be a star map, with a on which light-years may be by inches. I don't know. There are bright-red on it. They are moving. There is a machine to watch those specks. Apparently it the to make it call to all the system."
Keller put his to his lips. Burke and said curtly, "I'll report further."
Keller over an odd with something of a flourish—after which he looked embarrassed. The dead.
"He's right," said Holmes. "Back home they know we're here, I suspect, and you've told to give them fits. I think we'd be what we say in the clear."
Burke again. "There'll be calls from Earth and we can decide or not to use then. Keller, can you the leads to this and the that up that West Virginia beam-signal and the to the second? It should be as as this is powerful."
Keller confidently.
"It'll take thirty-some minutes for that report of mine to Earth and an answer to back," Burke, "if perfectly and the proper of Earth is this way. I think we can be sure there's nobody but us in the fortress."
His were peculiar. It was to have a in space, of course. It was the of thing that might have satisfied a scientist completely. Burke the of the discovery, but it was an accomplishment. It did not mean, to Burke, that he'd out the purpose his here. This was to a about a world with two in its sky and someone or something foliage. But this place was not the place of that dream, did it it. Mystery remained, and frustration, and Burke was left in the of mind of a who has a which means much to men, but doesn't make him any he doesn't want what men can give him.
He and spoke without elation.
"Let's go to the ship and a message for Earth."
He the way out of this room of many but machines. The perfect vision-screen images still the with all the and the sun itself moving slowly across their plates. They saw and on the broken, surface of the asteroid. Wavering, red on the ten-foot their motion. Keller with as he to this apparatus.
They all to the ship, for Keller. They their way along the long and galleries. They and along more corridors. Then they came to the branch which had been off by a door that would not open. It was open now. They see along the new for a long, long way. They passed places where other doors had been closed, but now were open. What they see them was almost a of what they saw of them. They passed the place where hundreds of ten-foot metal waited for an unknown use. They passed the table with a single leg, and the with many metal in it.
Finally, they came to the door with corners, through it, and there was their ship with its air-lock doors open, waiting in the tunnel.
They in, and the was of complete anticlimax. They knew, of course, that they had a which all archæological on Earth were trivial. They had come upon which must be old imagining, in emptiness, and to anything that men had made. They had come upon a to every brain on Earth. The of their to this place would re-make all of Earth's future. But they were unelated.
"I'll make up a of report," said Burke heavily, "of what we saw as we arrived, and our landing, and that of thing. We'll it in and for transmission. We can use the asteroid's transmitter."
Holmes at the of the little ship.
"You'll make a report, too," said Burke. "You that this is a fortress. There can't be any doubt. It was and put here to something. It wasn't for fun. But I wonder who it was meant to do with, and why it was left by its garrison, and why they set up a to when something happened! Maybe it was to call the if they were needed. But thousands of years—You make a report on that!"
Holmes nodded.
"You might add," said Pam, a little, "that it's a place."
"What I don't understand," said Sandy, "is why nothing's labelled. Nothing's marked. Whoever it must have how to write, in some fashion. A has to have records to civilized! But I haven't a symbol or a or a color used to give information."
She got out the papers on which she would the reports as Burke and Holmes them over for transmission. She to out, carefully, the key to the coding. Almost reluctantly, Pam prepared to do the same with Holmes' of what he'd seen.
But if was in the ship, there was no such in the United States. Burke's voice had cut into one of the space which every seventy-nine minutes. There had been the cryptic, noises, for the thousandth time their meaningless message. Then a voice said almost inaudibly, "... 'll we do now, Joe?" It was over an entire hemisphere, where satellite-tracking and to and recorded every from space.
It was a happening. Then Burke's voice came through the flutings. "This must be the transmitter. The sound-record for the must be in here, somehow. It's possible that this plate is a of microphone...." A later he was to say, "The devil!" And later still he himself directly to his on Earth.
He'd spoken the eighteen and a minutes they arrived, though they at the speed of light. Broadcast and reported in the United States, they touched off a popular as as that by the of the themselves. Broadcasters all other matter. Announcers with the and then them into nonsense. Man had M-387. Man had spoken to Earth across two hundred seventy miles of emptiness. Man had taken of a in space. Man now had an outpost, a stepping-stone toward the stars. Man had achieved.... Man had risen.... Man now took the step toward his destiny, which was to and all the thousands of thousands of all the way to the galaxy's rim.
But this was in the United States. Elsewhere, was much less, after a American politician was reported to have said that America's of Earth was not likely to be again. A number of the smaller nations in the United Nations. That was to put upon its a full-scale of U.S. space developments. Middle European nations that the purpose of America was to not only the practical means of traveling to other members of the system, but all natural and by such journeyings. With a unanimity, the nations at the of the Russian that there should be of on Earth. No nation should scientific information. In fact, there was of the use of by the now on M-387. It was that they answer in the clear all scientific by any government—in the clear so eavesdrop.
In effect, the United States in and of the of some of its citizens who, after attack by American missiles, had a stepping-stone toward the stars. But the of the world that the United States no from the fact. International tension, in fact, rose to a new high.
And Burke and the others this of and the of that. They purpose or they not understand. They every possible of a which that of Earth was backward. But the had the asteroid.
By the second day the of had alarming. They marvel, but they not understand. And not to was intolerable. They that there was a device with red in it which had another device send a fluting, call to all the system. Nothing else was understandable. The purpose of the call a mystery.
But the with from Earth. It that every upon the had been with a and that every one the with a tight arguments, offers, and threats.
"This ought to be funny," said Burke dourly. "But it isn't. All we know is that we've a which was to a about which we know nothing that it isn't in the system. We know an off, to call the fortress' to duty, but the didn't come. We did. We've some that a or something is this way and that it to this and may Earth. You'd think that that of news would them down, on Earth!"
The was so with that there was no at all. None be when all at once. Burke had to send a message to Earth in code, a new and wavelength, it possible to have a two-way with Earth. But the to come out, every one for something else of to itself alone.
