Eventuellt The Jewels of Aptor av Samuel Delaney. Det finns en Wikipedia-artikel om historien här .
Huvudpersonen är Geo och han reser med en prästinna. Platsen med byggnaden är:
The building they suddenly came upon had tongues of moss licking twenty to fifty feet up the loosely mortared stones. A hundred yards from the water, the jungle came right to its edges. The whole edifice had sunk a bit to one side in the boggy soil. It was a far more stolid and primitive structure than the barracks. They scraped and hacked in front of the entrance where two great columns of stone, six feet across at the base, rose fifty feet to a supported arch. The stones of the building were rough and unfinished.
Och statyn inuti byggnaden:
Behind a twisted metal rail and raised on steps of stone, the ruins of a huge statue sat. Carved from black rock, it represented a man seated cross-legged on a dais. An arm and shoulder had broken off and lay in pieces on the altar steps. The hand, its fingers as thick as Urson's thigh, lay just behind the altar rail. The head was completely missing. Both the hand still on the statue and the one in front of them on the steps looked as though they had once held something, but whatever it was had been removed.
Men huvudpersonerna reser med skepp inte genom att flyga. Även byggnaden avger inte rök, men några sidor tidigare har vi:
Twigs and rubbish littered the metal floor. They walked between double seats toward a door at the far end. Effaced signs still hung on the walls.
N .. SM .. K .. G
som om du verkligen sträcker det kan det vara mystiska bokstäver relaterade till rök.