Free Cemetery World by Clifford D. Simak

trapdoor fixed at the mouth of the tunnel so that, once closed, no one would suspect that it was there.
    The boxes which had been unloaded from the ship were carried down into the chambers, except for a few that held furniture and furnishings for the hut atop the tunnel.
    When one of the boxes was being carried down the steps into the chambers it slipped out of a robot’s grasp and my grandfather, who, for some reason he does not recall, was in the chamber below, saw it come tumbling down the stairs and hurriedly got out of its way. It was a heavy box, but even so, as it tumbled down the stairs, it began to come apart, to be battered apart by striking on the stones, and by the time it reached the bottom of the steps it had come apart entirely so that all that it contained was either scattered on the steps or spilled out on the chamber’s floor.
    There was a great treasure in that box, my grandfather told me—jewel-encrusted pendants and bracelets and rings, all set with shining stones; small wheels of gold with strange markings on them (my grandfather insisted they were gold, although how he could tell a thing was gold by simply looking at it, I do not understand); figurines of animals and birds made of precious metals and set with precious stones; a half a dozen crowns (the kind kings or queens would wear); bags that split open to loose a flood of coins, and many other things, including some vases, all of which were smashed.
    The robots came rushing down the stairs to pick up all the treasure that was scattered and behind them came their master and when he reached the bottom of the stairs he paid no attention to all the other things, but stooped and picked up some of the pieces of a shattered vase and tried to fit them back together, but he could not fit them back together, for they had been broken into too many pieces. But from the few pieces that he did fit together, trying to hold all those broken pieces in their proper places, my grandfather saw that the vase had had painted pictures on it, fired into the glaze—pictures of strange men hunting even stranger beasts, or maybe they only seemed stranger because they were so badly done, with no thought of perspective and without the anatomical knowledge that is basic with an artist.
    The man (if it were a man) stood there with the broken pieces in his hands and his head was bent above them and his face was sad and a tear rolled down his cheek. My grandfather thought it strange that a man should weep at the sight of a broken vase.
    All this time the robots were picking up the stuff and putting it in a pile and one of them went and got a basket and put it all into the basket and carried it off to be stored with all the other boxes in one of the rock-hewn chambers.
    But they didn’t get it all, for my grandfather, with no one seeing him, picked up a coin and secreted it about his person and I now will wrap this coin, which he passed on to me, and put it in this envelope …

Chapter 7
     
     
     
    I stopped reading and looked across the fire at Cynthia Lansing.
    “The coin?” I asked.
    She nodded. “It was in the envelope, wrapped in a piece of foil, a kind of foil that has not been used for centuries. I gave it to Professor Thorndyke and asked him if he’d keep it …”
    “But did he know what it was?”
    “He wasn’t sure. He took it to another man. An expert on old Earth coins and such. It was an uncirculated Athenian owl, probably minted a few years after a battle fought at a place called Marathon.”
    “Uncirculated?” Elmer asked.
    “It had not been used. There was no wear on it. When a coin is circulated it becomes smooth and dull from much handling. But aside from some deterioration due to time, this one was exactly as it had been the day that it was struck.”
    “And there can’t be any doubt?” I asked.
    “Professor Thorndyke said there could be none at all.”
    The baying of the dogs still could be heard beyond the ridge that rose above our camp. It