The Burnt Planet

The Burnt Planet by William Brittain - Mad with despair, they fought back from the ruins. Whoever these invaders were, they should not have a world which its defenders themselves had destroyed!

The land was dark in the softly falling rain, and the smell of green things was in the air. The crew huddled in their cloaks and peered into the approaching dusk as they unloaded the great silver space ship. They were apprehensive of the stark ruins that began barely a mile from the ship, the ruins that seemed to sprawl interminably across the flat land beside the broad river.

In the metal headquarters hut, the commander glanced nervously at his chronometer. The astrogator looked up from his interminable reckonings and smiled.

"Don't worry, captain," he said. "They'll be all right. After all, we haven't seen any life but a few small animals. And they ran from us."

The commander nodded absently, but went to the open door and stared out into the rain. It made a musical tinkling on the thin metallic dome of the hut.

"I know," he said. "Perhaps that's why I'm worried. It's the feeling of death here, as though it might spring at us from some corner in those ruins.... I should have sent out a stronger scout party."

The astrogator shrugged and returned to his log. "If anything had gone wrong, they would have messaged us."