THE GUN
By PHILIP K. DICK
The Captain peered into the eyepiece ofthe telescope. He adjusted the focusquickly.
"It was an atomic fission we saw, allright," he said presently. He sighed andpushed the eyepiece away. "Any of youwho wants to look may do so. But it's not apretty sight."
"Let me look," Tance the archeologistsaid. He bent down to look, squinting."Good Lord!" He leaped violently back,knocking against Dorle, the Chief Navigator.
"Why did we come all this way, then?"Dorle asked, looking around at the othermen. "There's no point even in landing.Let's go back at once."
"Perhaps he's right," the biologist murmured."But I'd like to look for myself, if Imay." He pushed past Tance and peeredinto the sight.
He saw a vast expanse, an endless surfaceof gray, stretching to the edge of the planet.At first he thought it was water but after amoment he realized that it was slag, pitted,fused slag, broken only by hills of rock juttingup at intervals. Nothing moved orstirred. Everything was silent, dead.
"I see," Fomar said, backing away fromthe eyepiece. "Well, I won't find any legumesthere." He tried to smile, but his lipsstayed unmoved. He stepped away and stoodby himself, staring past the others.
"I wonder what the atmospheric samplewill show," Tance said.
"I think I can guess," the Captain answered."Most of the atmosphere is poisoned.But didn't we expect all this? I don'tsee why we're so surprised. A fission visibleas far away as our system must be a terriblething."
He strode off down the corridor, dignifiedand expressionless. They watched him disappearinto the control room.
As the Captain closed the door the youngwoman turned. "What did the telescopeshow? Good or bad?"
"Bad. No life could possibly exist. Atmospherepoisoned, water vaporized, all theland fused."
"Could they have gone underground?"
The Captain slid back the port window sothat the surface of the planet under themwas visible. The two of them stared down,silent and disturbed. Mile after mile of unbrokenruin stretched out, blackened slag,pitted and scarred, and occasional heaps ofrock.
Suddenly Nasha jumped. "Look! Overthere, at the edge. Do you see it?"
They stared. Something rose up, notrock, not an accidental formation. It wasround, a circle of dots, white pellets on thedead skin of the planet. A city? Buildingsof some kind?
"Please turn the ship," Nasha said excitedly.She pushed her dark hair from herface. "Turn the ship and let's see what itis!"
The ship turned, changing its course. Asthey came over the white dots the Captainlowered the ship, dropping it down as muchas he dared. "Piers," he said. "Piers of somesort of stone. Perhaps poured artificial stone.The remains of a city."
"Oh, dear," Nasha murmured. "How awful."She watched the ruins disappear behindthem. In a half-circle the white squaresjutted from the slag, chipped and cracked,like broken teeth.
"There's nothing alive," the Captain saidat last. "I think we'll go right back; I knowmost of the crew want to. Get the GovernmentReceiving Station on the sender andtell them what we found, and that we—"
He staggered.
The