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the stand’s metal foot. A grand speech perhaps for a man with noclothes, no weapon, and no plan, but it lit my fire and it never hurtsto sow the seeds of unease in your foe’s mind.The destruction of Builder machines is of course a terrible wasteof knowledge and wonder beyond our imagination. There is, however,an undeniable thrill in doing it.The door opened for me, the locking mechanism corroded, themetal degenerating into curious white powder – a good thing as Iwould not have been able to force it. The most surprising thing aboutthe works of the Builders is always not how broken they are but justhow many of them still function. After the slow passage of the elevencenturies since the Day of a Thousand Suns I would have expectedthem all to be dust. Certainly nothing built in the first three hundredyears to follow now survives.The corridor beyond lay thick with dust, the corpse of a needle-bugdisarticulated and strewn along the margins. Stairways led left andright, both blocked with rubble, the ceiling collapsed. I advancedfurther, to a point where a door opened to either side. To the left adomed steel machine glowing gently through small portals. Dozensof needle-bugs and others of similar design – but with cutting wheelsor opposing thread-laced jaws in place of the needle – scattered thefloor, most in pieces. The least damaged of them huddled close tothe dome as if seeking sustenance from it. Several twitched towardsme as I looked in, but none made it more than half way before thelight died from their eyes and they ceased to move.To the right, a room that radiated cold and contained several largechests, white, rectangular and without ornament or lock. Goosebumpsrose across me as I entered the room. Perhaps just from the cold. It’s