The Gun Read online

move!" Dorle cried. The barrel swung past them as they stood,rigid and still. For one terrible moment it hesitated over their heads,clicking and whirring, settling into position. Then the sounds died outand the gun became silent.

  Tance smiled foolishly inside his helmet. "I must have put my fingerover the lens. I'll be more careful." He made his way up onto thecircular slab, stepping gingerly behind the body of the gun. Hedisappeared from view.

  "Where did he go?" Nasha said irritably. "He'll get us all killed."

  "Tance, come back!" Dorle shouted. "What's the matter with you?"

  "In a minute." There was a long silence. At last the archeologistappeared. "I think I've found something. Come up and I'll show you."

  "What is it?"

  "Dorle, you said the gun was here to keep the enemy off. I think I knowwhy they wanted to keep the enemy off."

  They were puzzled.

  "I think I've found what the gun is supposed to guard. Come and give mea hand."

  "All right," Dorle said abruptly. "Let's go." He seized Nasha's hand."Come on. Let's see what he's found. I thought something like this mighthappen when I saw that the gun was--"

  "Like what?" Nasha pulled her hand away. "What are you talking about?You act as if you knew what he's found."

  "I do." Dorle smiled down at her. "Do you remember the legend that allraces have, the myth of the buried treasure, and the dragon, the serpentthat watches it, guards it, keeping everyone away?"

  She nodded. "Well?"

  Dorle pointed up at the gun.

  "That," he said, "is the dragon. Come on."

  * * * * *

  Between the three of them they managed to pull up the steel cover andlay it to one side. Dorle was wet with perspiration when they finished.

  "It isn't worth it," he grunted. He stared into the dark yawning hole."Or is it?"

  Nasha clicked on her hand lamp, shining the beam down the stairs. Thesteps were thick with dust and rubble. At the bottom was a steel door.

  "Come on," Tance said excitedly. He started down the stairs. Theywatched him reach the door and pull hopefully on it without success."Give a hand!"

  "All right." They came gingerly after him. Dorle examined the door. Itwas bolted shut, locked. There was an inscription on the door but hecould not read it.

  "Now what?" Nasha said.

  Dorle took out his hand weapon. "Stand back. I can't think of any otherway." He pressed the switch. The bottom of the door glowed red.Presently it began to crumble. Dorle clicked the weapon off. "I think wecan get through. Let's try."

  The door came apart easily. In a few minutes they had carried it away inpieces and stacked the pieces on the first step. Then they went on,flashing the light ahead of them.

  They were in a vault. Dust lay everywhere, on everything, inches thick.Wood crates lined the walls, huge boxes and crates, packages andcontainers. Tance looked around curiously, his eyes bright.

  "What exactly are all these?" he murmured. "Something valuable, I wouldthink." He picked up a round drum and opened it. A spool fell to thefloor, unwinding a black ribbon. He examined it, holding it up to thelight.

  "Look at this!"

  They came around him. "Pictures," Nasha said. "Tiny pictures."

  "Records of some kind." Tance closed the spool up in the drum again."Look, hundreds of drums." He flashed the light around. "And thosecrates. Let's open one."

  Dorle was already prying at the wood. The wood had turned brittle anddry. He managed to pull a section away.

  It was a picture. A boy in a blue garment, smiling pleasantly, staringahead, young and handsome. He seemed almost alive, ready to move towardthem in the light of the hand lamp. It was one of them, one of theruined race, the race that had perished.

  For a long time they stared at the picture. At last Dorle replaced theboard.

  "All these other crates," Nasha said. "More pictures. And these drums.What are in the boxes?"

  "This is their treasure," Tance said, almost to himself. "Here are theirpictures, their records. Probably all their literature is here, theirstories, their myths, their ideas about the universe."

  "And their history," Nasha said. "We'll be able to trace theirdevelopment and find out what it was that made them become what theywere."

  Dorle was wandering around the vault. "Odd," he murmured. "Even at theend, even after they had begun to fight they still knew, someplace downinside them, that their real treasure was this, their books andpictures, their myths. Even after their big cities and buildings andindustries were destroyed they probably hoped to come back and findthis. After everything else was gone."

  "When we get back home we can agitate for a mission to come here," Tancesaid. "All this can be loaded up and taken back. We'll be leavingabout--"

  He stopped.

  "Yes," Dorle said dryly. "We'll be leaving about three day-periods fromnow. We'll fix the ship, then take off. Soon we'll be home, that is, ifnothing happens. Like being shot down by that--"

  "Oh, stop it!" Nasha said impatiently. "Leave him alone. He's right: allthis must be taken back home, sooner or later. We'll have to solve theproblem of the gun. We have no choice."

  Dorle nodded. "What's your solution, then? As soon as we leave theground we'll be shot down." His face twisted bitterly. "They've guardedtheir treasure too well. Instead of being preserved it will lie hereuntil it rots. It serves them right."

  "How?"

  "Don't you see? This was the only way they knew, building a gun andsetting it up to shoot anything that came along. They were so certainthat everything was hostile, the enemy, coming to take their possessionsaway from them. Well, they can keep them."

  Nasha was deep in thought, her mind far away. Suddenly she gasped."Dorle," she said. "What's the matter with us? We have no problem. Thegun is no menace at all."

  The two men stared at her.

  "No menace?" Dorle said. "It's already shot us down once. And as soon aswe take off again--"

  "Don't you see?" Nasha began to laugh. "The poor foolish gun, it'scompletely harmless. Even I could deal with it alone."

  "You?"

  Her eyes were flashing. "With a crowbar. With a hammer or a stick ofwood. Let's go back to the ship and load up. Of course we're at itsmercy in the air: that's the way it was made. It can fire into the sky,shoot down anything that flies. But that's all! Against something on theground it has no defenses. Isn't that right?"

  Dorle nodded slowly. "The soft underbelly of the dragon. In the legend,the dragon's armor doesn't cover its stomach." He began to laugh."That's right. That's perfectly right."

  "Let's go, then," Nasha said. "Let's get back to the ship. We have workto do here."

  * * * * *

  It was early the next morning when they reached the ship. During thenight the Captain had died, and the crew had ignited his body, accordingto custom. They had stood solemnly around it until the last ember died.As they were going back to their work the woman and the two menappeared, dirty and tired, still excited.

  And presently, from the ship, a line of people came, each carryingsomething in his hands. The line marched across the gray slag, theeternal expanse of fused metal. When they reached the weapon they allfell on the gun at once, with crowbars, hammers, anything that was heavyand hard.

  The telescopic sights shattered into bits. The wiring was pulled out,torn to shreds. The delicate gears were smashed, dented.

  Finally the warheads themselves were carried off and the firing pinsremoved.

  The gun was smashed, the great weapon destroyed. The people went downinto the vault and examined the treasure. With its metal-armoredguardian dead there was no danger any longer. They studied the pictures,the films, the crates of books, the jeweled crowns, the cups, thestatues.

  At last, as the sun was dipping into the gray mists that drifted acrossthe planet they came back up the stairs again. For a moment they stoodaround the wrecked gun looking at the unmoving outline of it.

  Then
they started back to the ship. There was still much work to bedone. The ship had been badly hurt, much had been damaged and lost. Theimportant thing was to repair it as quickly as possible, to get it intothe air.

  With all of them working together it took just five more days to make itspaceworthy.

  * * * * *

  Nasha stood in the control room, watching the planet fall away behindthem. She folded her arms,