"No, nor the demons either. It was the hand of man struck him down, my
boy. If it's violent death you're trying to explain, don't drag in the
supernatural. There's enough murder in the hearts of humankind to take
care of every case."
In the third room Green said, "There's no wall of dust to stop us. The
ionic charges haven't stopped working. Notice how clean everything is.
Ah, here we are! Before the door!"
Grizquetr looked puzzled. "Door? I see only a blank wall."
"That's all I saw too," said Green, "and that is all I would ever have
seen, if it hadn't been for the tale of Samdroo."
"Let me tell you how you got in!" chattered the boy excitedly. "I know
what you were thinking of, what you did. You stood before the wall
and you made a sign like this on it!"--He traced a rough outline of a
rocket against the cool white metal--"and the wall suddenly slid to one
side, and you had an entrance. See!"
A whole section had moved noiselessly into the wall, leaving a round
doorway.
"Yes, I remembered the story of Samdroo and, though it was ridiculous
to think that it would work, I did what the Sailor did. Remember that
the cannibals were after him, and he ran into the cave and came to just
such a blank wall. And he, wishing to protect himself against the evil
spirits that he was sure lived in the cave, traced the sign that is
supposed to prevent them from touching a man. And the door slid open
and he plunged on into the chambers of the wicked magician, the savages
howling frustratedly after him.
"And," continued Green, "I did just what he did, and the sign proved to
be an _Open, O Sesame_ for me."
"A what?"
"Never mind. The point is that the ancient maintenance men must
have used just such a gesture to open the door, or else used it in
conjunction with other means. And if they did, then they must also have
been repair technicians for the ships that landed here. Perhaps the
sign of the rocket was a secret symbol for their guild. I don't know,
but it sounds reasonable."
Ignoring the boy's flood of questions, he walked into a great room.
It was more bare than he'd expected when he had found it the first
time; it contained four machines or their fuel supplies, all concealed
in four large square metal containers. In the center of the room was
a chair and an instrument panel. The panel contained six TV windows,
several oscilloscopes, and dials whose purpose he didn't know. But the
controls attached to the arms of the chair seemed simple enough.
"The only trouble," he said, "is that I don't know where the activating
switch is. I tried to find it the other night and couldn't. Yet, it
must be so obvious that I'll feel like a fool when I do locate it."
Vainly he pulled at the little levers set in the arms.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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