Ileth bit her lip, studied her chronometer. "The days are short. The planet rotates in a little over fourteen hours. Alpha Centauri A sets first, in about an hour, I think. Then Alpha Centauri B about three hours later. Proxima rises about ten minutes after that but it doesn't cast much light."
"Never mind," he said almost roughly. "Come on. We'd better find the geographers quick."
They did, a few minutes later, in one of the side canyons. That is, they found implements and two small piles of clothes. "I was afraid of this," said Saxon, his heart lowly sinking into his boots.
Ileth began to cry half in fright, half hysterically.
"None of that!" He shook her shoulders, until she stopped with a hiccup. Turning her loose, he bent over the instruments, secured a compass.
"We're northeast of the ship," he said, "that means if we travel in a southwesterly direction, we should hit it square on the nose. Let's hike!"
But they found it impossible to keep a true southwesterly course through the city. They walked along the deserted, resounding streets, their eyes filled with the fantastically lovely architecture of New York II, the flowing lines and gleaming planes of apartment houses built of a thousand substances from crystal to somber-veined black marble.
"To think," said Saxon, "that a people, any people, could have found it in their hearts to destroy a work like this."
"I'm glad I've seen it," Ileth replied queerly, "even if I did have to come to Alpha Centauri. It's lovely." She shivered.