Analog SFF, April 2010 Read Online Free

that he agreed with the lieutenant.
    Garret took a moment to think about that. “Older than anything I've ever seen, sir. Really old. A thousand years, maybe."
    That sounded ridiculous, but then again saying the ruins were even a decade old, even a month old, would be equally absurd. They hadn't been here and now they were.
    Picking their way out along another path, Benton paused before a deep opening that gapped in the earth, kneeling to examine it. “I think this was a salt mine. A long time ago it was a salt mine, anyway. This place must have been built around the mines to protect them. A whole walled town grew up here.” It all made sense, except that he wasn't talking about the ancient Middle East but about the central Kansas prairie.
    Benton wanted to have those disquieting relics out of sight, so he kept the column moving until the impossibly old ruins were no longer visible, the cavalry reaching the low, wooded areas alongside Thompson Creek before halting for the night.
    "What do you think they'll say at Fort Harker when we report that, cap'n?” Tyndall asked.
    "They may call us crazy.” Benton shrugged. “But they may have already heard of it. Plenty of civilians ride through this area."
    "Yes, sir. I been meaning to ask you about that, cap'n.” Sergeant Tyndall pursed his mouth, clearly and uncharacteristically hesitating to speak. “Where are they, sir? This area's been plenty settled in the last few years, especially since the railroad came in as far as Ellsworth. But we've seen no one else and seen none of the trails we should've crossed."
    "You think everyone disappeared and that ruined city appeared in their place?"
    "I don't know what happened, cap'n, but I do know that I'll be real happy when I lay eyes on Fort Harker again."
    * * * *
    By late morning the next day even Benton was feeling extremely uneasy. They should have passed some roads and farms by now, but the only road they'd found wasn't where it should have been and seemed to have been wide and very heavily traveled in the past. Aged ruins of abandoned buildings, some still bearing the scorches of fire on their walls, were spotted near once-cultivated fields gone wild. Even stranger, another desolate tower lay tumbled to one side of the large road not far from where the cavalry column crossed it. Lieutenant Garret was sent to investigate and came back bewildered. “It's not the same architecture as the fortress ruins, sir. The tower seems sort of Roman, like the ones on Hadrian's Wall."
    First the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and now Hadrian's Wall. “Kansas seems to be gaining ancient historical artifacts at a very unusual rate, lieutenant. How old is that tower, do you think?"
    "It seems a lot younger than the city, sir. I'd guess it's maybe a hundred years old, or maybe two hundred. That's just a guess.” Garret had been growing more and more puzzled. “Captain, are these ruins being kept secret for some reason? I've never heard a word about them."
    "That's because they haven't been here, lieutenant.” Feeling increasingly unsettled, Benton turned to face the column. “Mount up!” With he and his men settled into their saddles, he ordered the company into motion again, eager to see Fort Harker and the adjacent town of Ellsworth as soon as possible.
    It was well after noon when they came over the last of the rises before the river lowland holding Fort Harker and Ellsworth. They had come up from the south, so both the fort and the town should have been almost due north of them. The Smoky Hill River, which skirted both places, was there, but otherwise the landscape was marked only by another wide road leading east. There was no sign Fort Harker or Ellsworth had ever been here, no indication the railroad line coming in from the east and then up along the Smoky Hill had ever been built here. How could an entire town and a fort with more than seventy buildings have vanished within a couple of weeks? How could the rail line and the warehouses