Free The Unreasoning Mask by Philip José Farmer Page B

planet.
     
     
Two of the continents were on the equatorial line. Their interiors were

masses of firestorms so bright that they could be seen through the clouds.

Here and there were darker areas which the scientists said were the results

of heavy rains. The fires had been put out there, but the bordering regions

were so hot that the moisture would quickly be dried up and the vegetation

reignited.
     
     
"There were vast rain forests there," Toyce said. "Much like those in

Africa and southeast Asia before they were cleared and became deserts."
     
     
Ramstan decided to investigate at close range one of the continents in the

southern hemisphere. It had a great interior desert but had been heavily

populated on the coastlines. Though the fires were still raging along

the shores, extending sometimes to 300 kilometers into the interior,

there were temporarily extinguished areas. The clouds had moved in from

outlying areas, carried by the very strong winds, but spacesuited personnel

could fly in jeeps a few meters above the still-quaking ground.
     
     
Al-Buraq poised above an area where rain was falling heavily. The stony

desert was only 10 kilometers to the north, but ruins of buildings

indicated that the region directly beneath ship had once been thickly

populated. Not that there were many objects detectible by the probers.

Most of the wooden materials and trees and bushes had been burned

entirely and their ashes swept away by the winds and rains. If there

were any bones left of the sentient and animal inhabitants, they could

not be detected by the probers.
     
     
The chief meteorologist reported again.
     
     
"The winds have a velocity of 150 kilometers per hour. They're mild,

though, compared to the winds in the northern area."
     
     
Ramstan knew this because he could read the indicators on the tec-op

panels. He thanked the scientist, anyway. What interested him was the

detection by the fine-discriminator probers of thousands of golfball-shaped

and -sized objects on the ground or half-buried in the mud. He ordered

that the investigators in the jeeps secure some of these. Then, impatient,

he commanded al-Buraq to get close enough to the surface to extend a

suction pseudopod and bring in some specimens immediately.
     
     
While waiting, he ordered a launch sent to the northern shoreline to

determine if there were similar objects there. "And if you find them,

proceed to the continent above this in the northern hemisphere and look

for them there."
     
     
Al-Buraq headed into the wind at 5 kph. It was not easy for her to scoop

in the spheres. The ground was subject to shock after shock, many strong

enough to toss the spheres a meter into the air. A few times, fissures

opened, and the spheres fell into them. Al-Buraq did not try to obtain

these. If she had inserted her pseudopod into the fissure, she might

have been trapped if the fissure closed.
     
     
At another order, ship brought in some pieces of what had been stone

columns and some twisted and dented steel beams.
     
     
The chemicophysical laboratory reported that there were many smaller spheres

in the mud which had been carried in. These had a diameter of three

millimeters.
     
     
Al-Buraq continued sampling, and she began to trace a spiral path over

a twenty-square-kilometer area.
     
     
The launch left ship with two pilots and six scientists aboard. It shot

northward at 300 kph, its probers scanning the area for 100 kilometers

on both sides.
     
     
The laboratory chief reported again.
     
     
"The larger spheres have a diameter of four centimeters. Each weighs one

kilogram. Each has a shell of nickel-iron five millimeters thick. That's

estimated, since the shell has been partially melted and some of the

nickel-iron has evaporated. Burned off. The core is some black, unknown

substance, though it looks like metal. It can't be X-rayed. It's unaffected

by the strongest acid. It won't bend or break under a pressure of