A Scene On An Extra-Solar Planet

Poul Anderson, "The Horn of Time the Hunter" IN Anderson, The Horn Of Time (New York, 1968), pp. 11-26.

An empty, towered city;

unbroken glasit windows;

white, fluting seabirds;

skirling wind;

rolling surf;

reefs;

a large, patrolling, tiger-striped fish;

streets filled with sand and grass;

toppled colonnades around a square;

polished stone blocks thrusting up; 

machines corroded beneath dunes;

four Kith explorers making a fire at night;

their leader radioing the orbiting Golden Flyer;

Jong Errifans alone thinking that he hears:

 

"...the distant blowing of a horn." (p. 11)