Then they were through the swarm, and N'Zik remarked, "This is an old system indeed. At one time a planet must have occupied that orbit."
"Look." Shi-Zik's spider-like body was taut with eagerness as she pointed to a planet far ahead, swinging away from their trajectory. "Shall we follow it?"
"There is no purpose. We can pick it up in the etheroscope." N'Zik adjusted the sights. The planet together with its two moons leaped into view on the screen. N'Zik manipulated the magnilens and it was brought still nearer.
Vast icy caps encompassed most of this world. The rest was frozen desert, slightly reddish, with a few peculiar straight-line markings that might have been man-made. But that didn't interest them now. It was all too apparent that this planet had been uninhabitable for millennia.
"Dead. A frozen, dead world," Shi-Zik intoned. "Let us go on to the next one."
They moved ever inward. The next planet with its single satellite offered no more promise. Here they saw stark mountain ranges in contrast to vast hollows that might have been dead ocean bottoms. The magnilens picked out several cities, tottering, crumbling in ruin.
"Cities," N'Zik muttered. "Cities still standing on this airless world. A civilization once existed here, and it cannot have been so long ago. Shall we go on, Shi-Zik? There are two or three other planets but I fear they will offer no more than this."
Now something of N'Zik's despair came upon Shi-Zik. "No, we need not go on. I feel weary of it all. I care not if we ever find the place we seek."
"I too, have had this feeling," N'Zik waved his limbs in agreement. "Shi-Zik, we have searched this Galaxy through. There may yet be life-giving Suns with planets, but we have not much time. Of late I have felt the engines becoming sluggish of power...."
"True. The way has been long." She gestured hopelessly. "Do you suggest then, that we put an end to the mission?"