“That’s an old-fashioned telephone, isn’t it?” said Beth. It had a rotor and push-buttons.

Ken took a long look. “Yeah. Right out of the twentieth century.”

Hutch couldn’t resist attempting to pick up the handset. She expected it to be frozen to the cradle, but it broke loose when she pulled on it. She pushed it against her helmet and then pushed down on the cradle. It didn’t move.

“If somebody answers,” said Derek, “you’ll have a heart attack.”

She wasn’t sure she’d have been able to hear a voice at all through the helmet. In any case, there was of course nothing. “I doubt,” she said, “these people, whoever they were, could have evacuated the planet. If the technology in these rooms is typical of what they had, I’d say nobody was going anywhere.”

They found what appeared to be a picture frame on the floor. But it lay face down. It was a breathless moment. Derek stood for a minute staring at it while they all waited. Finally, he reached for it. The frame stuck to the floor. “Damn,” he said.

He used the laser again. Eventually, after they’d cut around it and to some extent under it, they were able to free the thing. Surprisingly, the glass frame was intact, save for a couple of cracks. But it had turned to something dark and impenetrable. Whatever had been behind it was hopelessly out of reach. Wally spoke from orbit. “Probably nothing more than a smudge anyhow.”

“Pity,” said Beth.

There were two doors in the room. One had fallen off its hinges and lay on the floor, revealing another, smaller office. They found another framed picture, this one frozen to the wall. They could make nothing out of the artwork. Or photo. Whatever it had been.

There was a door in the smaller office, but it wouldn’t move either. They returned to the main room where its other door was also frozen. They used the cutters to open it and emerged in a passageway. It was lined with doors, but none of them could be moved. The only way through them was to use the cutters. “It makes me uncomfortable,” said Derek. “I can’t give you a reasonable explanation why, but I don’t like destroying stuff, even out here, that’s been in place probably thousands of years.”

Most of the offices were basically the same. The corridor itself started to tilt downward. “That’s far enough,” said Derek, extending an arm to halt his companions.