Explore "Second Landing" by Murray Leinster on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The arid and utterly monotonous desolation of Aspasia seems to / negate at once any idea of surviving inhabitants, though the / possibility cannot be entirely ruled out. The _Franklin_ cruised / over all probable areas without making contact with intelligent / life-forms. Yet civilization did exist here. Highways still in / good repair exist. It seems likely, however, that its former / culture was developed in oases in its deserts, in concentrated / population-centers. The previously mentioned lakes of blue glass / may be considered to cover the sites of such oases, melted down by / fusion-bombs from Thalassia. / After this disaster it would be expected that any survivors would / live only in caves or other inconspicuous places, and would hand / down legends of destruction coming from the sky. The _Franklin_, / indeed, could have been hidden from. -- _Astrographic Bureau / Publication 11297, Appendix to Space Pilot Vol. 460, Sector XXXIV, / p. 61._
Brett descended from a rainstorm to the small river before the / camp-cave. He'd been in the cloudbank for a period that had no / particular meaning because there was never any real night on Thalassia, / and he descended in a downpour that was like the heavens opening, / except that he'd been up where it started.