Nolan said nothing. He didn't believe that the discovery of this dead planet could be kept a secret for very long.
The mountains drew back to northward and the desert took their place. The Lotus went by overhead, unseen. But it gave a message to Kelley.
"We're on course," he reported. "The ship just said so. Ten miles more."
In ten miles they came upon a city, or what had been one. It was partly buried in the omnipresent dust. That is, they saw part of a city's remnants showing in the mile wide trough between dunes hundreds of feet high. There were other remnants between two other dunes, and still more in yet other troughs beyond. Structures of stone had existed, and portions of them remained. They had cast shadows the Lotus had discovered from aloft. The stone remains were abraded by the dust-carrying winds of a hundred centuries. Their roofs had been crushed when monster dunes formed over them. They had been reexposed to the sunshine when winds moved the dunes away. There was no metal left. No glass. No artifacts. They had been buried tens or hundreds of times, and uncovered as many. There was nothing left but skeletons of stone which cast angular shadows, though their fragments were rounded by centuries of patient wind erosion.
It had been a very great city, but Nolan made the only observation that could tell anything about its occupants.
"The builders of this city," he said tonelessly, "used doors about the same size we do."
And that was all they could find out. Presently: