Free The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford and Other Classic Stories by Philip K. Dick

armaments at all; you know that.”
    “I have a hand weapon,” Doric nodded. “Well, let’s go on, then. I suppose you’re right, Tance.”
    “But let’s stay together,” Tance said nervously. “Nasha, you’re going too fast.”
    Nasha looked back. She laughed. “If we expect to get there by nightfall we must go fast.”
     
    They reached the outskirts of the city at about the middle of the afternoon. The sun, cold and yellow, hung above them in the colorless sky. Doric stopped at the top of a ridge overlooking the city.
    “Well, there it is. What’s left of it.”
    There was not much left. The huge concrete piers which they had noticed were not piers at all, but the ruined foundations of buildings. They had been baked by the searing heat, baked and charred almost to the ground. Nothing else remained, only this irregular circle of white squares, perhaps four miles in diameter.
    Doric spat in disgust. “More wasted time. A dead skeleton of a city, that’s all.”
    “But it was from here that the firing came,” Tance murmured. “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,” Doric 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,” Doric 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 fires it.”
    They stared at him. “What do you mean?”
    “It fires itself.”
    They couldn’t believe him. Nasha came close to him, frowning, looking up at him. “I don’t understand. What do you mean, it fires itself?”
    “Watch, I’ll show you. Don’t move.” Dorle picked up a rock from the ground. He hesitated a moment and the tossed the rock high in