The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke by Arthur C. Clarke

soon as his colleagues had entered the airlock, Orostron hurled his tiny machine into the sky and set the controls to home on S9000. Then he turned to his friends.
    ‘Well, what have you found?’ he asked.
    Klarten produced a large roll of canvas and spread it out on the floor.
    ‘This is what they were like,’ he said quietly. ‘Bipeds, with only two arms. They seem to have managed well, in spite of that handicap. Only two eyes as well, unless there are others in the back. We were lucky to find this; it’s about the only thing they left behind.’
    The ancient oil paintings stared stonily back at the three creatures regarding it so intently. By the irony of fate, its complete worthlessness had saved it from oblivion. When the city had been evacuated, no one had bothered to move Alderman John Richards, 1909–1974. For a century and a half he had been gathering dust while far away from the old cities the new civilisation had been rising to heights no earlier culture had ever known.
    ‘That was almost all we found,’ said Klarten. ‘The city must have been deserted for years. I’m afraid our expedition has been a failure. If there are any living beings on this world, they’ve hidden themselves too well for us to find them.’
    His commander was forced to agree.
    ‘It was an almost impossible task,’ he said. ‘If we’d had weeks instead of hours we might have succeeded. For all we know, they may even have built shelters under the sea. No one seems to have thought of that.’
    He glanced quickly at the indicators and corrected the course.
    ‘We’ll be there in five minutes. Alveron seems to be moving rather quickly. I wonder if Torkalee has found anything.’
    The S9000 was hanging a few miles above the seaboard of a blazing continent when Orostron homed upon it. The danger line was thirty minutes away and there was no time to lose. Skilfully, he manoeuvred the little ship into its launching tube and the party stepped out of the airlock.
    There was a small crowd waiting for them. That was to be expected, but Orostron could see at once that something more than curiosity had brought his friends here. Even before a word was spoken, he knew that something was wrong.
    ‘Torkalee hasn’t returned. He’s lost his party and we’re going to the rescue. Come along to the control room at once.’
    From the beginning, Torkalee had been luckier than Orostron. He had followed the zone of twilight, keeping away from the intolerable glare of the sun, until he came to the shores of an inland sea. It was a very recent sea, one of the latest of Man’s works, for the land it covered had been desert less than a century before. In a few hours it would be desert again, for the water was boiling and clouds of steam were rising to the skies. But they could not veil the loveliness of the great white city that overlooked the tideless sea.
    Flying machines were still parked neatly round the square in which Torkalee landed. They were disappointingly primitive, though beautifully finished, and depended on rotating airfoils for support. Nowhere was there any sign of life, but the place gave the impression that its inhabitants were not very far away. Lights were still shining from some of the windows.
    Torkalee’s three companions lost no time in leaving the machine. Leader of the party, by seniority of rank and race was T’sinadree, who like Alveron himself had been born on one of the ancient planets of the Central Suns. Next came Alarkane, from a race which was one of the youngest in the Universe and took a perverse pride in the fact. Last came one of the strange beings from the system of Palador. It was nameless, like all its kind, for it possessed no identity of its own, being merely a mobile but still dependent cell in the consciousness of its race. Though it and its fellows had long been scattered over the galaxy in the exploration of countless worlds, some unknown link still bound them together as inexorably as the living cells