"You found something there?" asked Gary.
"Sure did," declared Ted proudly. "I found some ruins. Chiseled white stone. Scattered all over the valley floor. As if there had been a building there at one time and somebody had pulled it down stone by stone and threw the stones around.”
"Sure it wasn't just boulders or peculiar rock formations?" asked Gary.
"No, sir," said Ted, emphatically. "There were chisel marks on those stones. Workmen had dressed them at some time. And all of it was white stone. You show me any white stone around here.”
Gary understood what the radio operator meant. The mountains were black, black as the emptiness of space. He turned his head to stare at those jagged peaks that loomed over the settlement, their spearlike points faintly outlined against the black curtain of the void.
"Say," said Herb, "that sounds as if what the Engineers said about someone else living here at one time might be true.”
"If Ted found building stone, that's exactly what it means," Gary asserted.
"That would denote a city of some kind, intelligence of some kind, It takes a certain degree of culture to work stone.”
"But," argued Herb, "how could anyone have lived here? You know that Pluto cooled quick, lost its lighter gases in a hurry. Its oxygen and carbon dioxide are locked up in snow and ice. Too cold for any life.”
"I know all that," Gary agreed, "but it seems we can't be too sure of anything in this business. If Ted is right, it means the Engineers were right on at least one point where we all were wrong. It sort of gives a man more faith in what is going on.”