"If you signal we'll come," said Kim Walpole grimly, "no matter how few we are!"
"Fine!" said Calhoun. He had no intention of calling on these weakened, starveling people for help.
He swung his depleted pack on his back again and slipped away from the glade. He made his way to the spring, which flowed clear and cool from unseen depths. He headed down the little brook which flowed away from it. Murgatroyd raced along its banks. He hated to get his paws wet. Presently, where the underbrush grew thickly close to the water's edge, Murgatroyd wailed. "Chee! Chee!" And Calhoun plucked him from the ground and set him on his shoulder. Murgatroyd clung blissfully there as Calhoun followed down the stream bed. He adored being carried.
Two miles down, there was another cultivated field. This one was set out to a gigantized root-crop, and Calhoun walked past shoulder-high bushes with four-inch blue-and-white flowers. He recognized the plants as of the family solanaceae—belladona was still used in medicine—but he couldn't identify it until he dug up a root and found a potato. But the six-pound specimen he uncovered was still too young and green to be eaten. Murgatroyd refused to touch it.
Calhoun was ruefully considering the limitations of specialized training when he came to the end of the cultivated field. There was a highway. It was new, of course. City, fields, highways and all the appurtenances of civilized life had been built on this planet before the arrival of the colonists who were to inhabit it. It was extraordinary to see such preparations for a population not yet on hand. But Calhoun was much more interested in the ground-car he found waiting on the highway, hard by a tiny bridge under which the brook he followed flowed.
The key he'd taken from the hunter fitted. He got in and put Murgatroyd on the seat beside him.
"These invaders, Murgatroyd," he observed, "must be in a bad way. A newly-built city which was never occupied will be like an empty house. There's no amusement or loot to be found in prowling it. They were sent to take over the planet, and they've done it. But they've nothing to do now, except hunt refugees—until their colonists arrive. I suspect they're bored. We'll try to fix that!"
He set the ground-car in motion. Toward the city.
It was a full twenty miles, but he did not encounter a single other vehicle. Presently the city lay spread out before him. He stopped and surveyed the vast pile. It was a very beautiful city. Fifty generations of architects on many worlds had played with stone and steel, groping for the perfect combination of materials with design. This city was a product of their tradition. There were towers which glittered whitely, and low buildings which seemed to nestle on the vegetation-covered ground. There were soaring bridges, and gracefully curving highways, and park areas laid out and ready. There was no monotony anywhere.