ured. "Don't
forget that."

"And by someone with a good eye and a great deal of experience," Nasha
added. "Let's go."

They walked into the city between the ruined buildings. No one spoke.
They walked in silence, listening to the echo of their footsteps.

"It's macabre," Dorle muttered. "I've seen ruined cities before but they
died of old age, old age and fatigue. This was killed, seared to death.
This city didn't die--it was murdered."

"I wonder what the city was called," Nasha said. She turned aside, going
up the remains of a stairway from one of the foundations. "Do you think
we might find a signpost? Some kind of plaque?"

She peered into the ruins.

"There's nothing there," Dorle said impatiently. "Come on."

"Wait." Nasha bent down, touching a concrete stone. "There's something
inscribed on this."

"What is it?" Tance hurried up. He squatted in the dust, running his
gloved fingers over the surface of the stone. "Letters, all right." He
took a writing stick from the pocket of his pressure suit and copied the
inscription on a bit of paper. Dorle glanced over his shoulder. The
inscription was:

FRANKLIN APARTMENTS

"That's this city," Nasha said softly. "That was its name."

Tance put the paper in his pocket and they went on. After a time Dorle
said, "Nasha, you know, I think we're being watched. But don't look
around."

The woman stiffened. "Oh? Why do you say that? Did you see something?"

"No. I can feel it, though. Don't you?"

Nasha smiled a little. "I feel nothing, but perhaps I'm more used to
being stared at." She turned her head slightly. "Oh!"

Dorle reached for his hand weapon. "What is it? What do you see?" Tance
had stopped dead in his tracks, his mouth half open.

"The gun," Nasha said. "It's the gun."

"Look at the size of it. The size of the thing." Dorle unfastened his
hand weapon slowly. "That's it, all right."

The gun was huge. Stark and immense it pointed up at the sky, a mass of
steel and glass, set in a huge slab of concrete. Even as they watched
the gun moved on its swivel base, whirring underneath. A slim vane
turned with the wind, a network of rods atop a high pole.

"It's alive," Nasha whispered. "It's listening to us, watching us."

The gun moved again, this time clockwise. It was mounted so that it
could make a full circle. The barrel lowered a trifle, then resumed its
original position.

"But who fires it?" Tance said.

Dorle laughed. "No one. No one fire