"I think," he said hesitantly, "it's because, it's because everything looks so new. As if the city was only finished yesterday and had never been used."
"That's it," Ileth burst out.
Mercedes joined them. She too, was wearing kilts, but hers were longer than Clo-Javel's and gray and her jacket was a commodious affair with many pockets. "What's that?" she asked catching the tail end of the conversation.
"The city looks as if it has never been lived in," Ileth explained.
Mercedes lit a cigarette, said, "Nonsense, whoever heard of building a city and then not using it."
"No." Clo-Javel agreed with the gray-haired Mercedes. "It's not that altogether. Possibly it's built of some material impervious to decay. Saxon's a physicist." She gave him a brilliant smile. "He would know more about that than I do."
Clo-Javel pursed red lips. "It—it looks familiar."
There was a silence, then Mercedes said, "So it does. Though I can't put my finger on it. But that shouldn't be so strange. The creatures who built it might have been very similar to us. If I could lay my hands on some of their bones...." She laughed good humoredly. "I could tell you in a minute what they were like."
"Were?" Saxon thought, but he didn't express it aloud. He was conscious all the time of the presence of the aliens. It was like being in the midst of a crowded city street.
The semantics expert, the psycho-historian, and the ethnologist joined them in a body. They headed for the nearest building, a towering windowless structure of yellow crystal.