Lenk wandered through the section already roughly surveyed, and declared safe. He felt convinced the inhabitants of this world once had been more like men than most other races. They had been two-legged, with arms and heads in a human position on their upright bodies.
Judging from the size of the furniture, they had been slightly larger than men but not enough to matter. The pictures on the walls were odd mostly for the greenish tints of the skin and the absence of outward noses or ears. With a little fixing and recoloring, they might have been people.
He came to a room that had been sealed off, pried open the door, and went in. It smelled stale enough to indicate that it had been reasonably air-tight. Benches and chairs ran along one wall, and a heavy wooden table occupied the middle. On that were piled bits and pieces in a curious scramble. He studied them carefully—belts, obviously, buttons, the inevitable weapons, scraps of plastic material.
A minute later, he was shouting for Jeremy over the little walkie-talkie. The xenologist appeared in less than five minutes. He stared about for a second, then grinned wryly.
"Your first, eh? I've found a lot of them. Sure, those were corpses there once." He saw Lenk's expression, and shrugged. "Oh, you were right to call me. It proves we weren't crazy. Wood and some cloth still preserved, but no bones. I've got a collection of pictures like that."
"A corrosive gas—" Lenk suggested.
Jeremy shook his head vigorously. "No dice, Captain. See that belt? It's plant fiber—something like linen. No gas strong enough to eat up a body would leave that unharmed. And they had skeletons, too—we've found models in what must have been a museum. But we can't even find the fossil skeletons that should be there. Odd, though."
He prodded about among the weapons, shaking his head. "All the weapons in places like this show evidence of one homogeneous design. And all the ornaments are in a T shape, like this one."
He lifted a stainless metal object from the floor and dropped it. "But outside in the square, there are at least two designs. For once, it almost looks as if your idea of an alien invader might be worth considering."
The radio at his side let out a squawk, and he cut it on listening to the thin whisper that came from it. Abruptly, he swung about and headed toward his tractor outside, with Lenk following.