by Brian N Ball
“And what, may I ask, is that?” demanded Mrs. Zulkifar.
“That, Madam,” announced Dross, “is a spin-shaft.”
“Very interesting,” said Mrs. Zulkifar.
Her sarcasm escaped Wardle. “One of the original systems, eh, Doctor? Is it? In good shape if it is!”
“No,” said Dross. “A recently installed system. My engineer, Mr. Knaggs, had it sent out by Center. He put it in. It saves a good deal of physical exertion.”
“Quite safe,” Knaggs said to Mrs. Zulkifar. “Serviced regularly. All Ancient Monuments have fixed service schedules for this kind of installation.”
“You may prefer to find your own way through the various levels,” invited Dross, “or you may remain here in the rain. Your decision is of no importance whatever to me.” He was coldly furious at what he took to be Mrs. Zulkifar’s impertinence.
Mrs. Zulkifar followed the direction of Dross’s big hand. A gash in the side of a clifflike wall of metal was the only opening. There may or may not have been handholds. It looked sinister and dangerous.
“I wouldn’t try it,” said Knaggs. “I’ve been working here for years and it would take me a quarter of an hour to find my way down.”
Mrs. Zulkifar flicked rain from her elegant nose. “I wasn’t complaining,” she said. She stepped towards the shaft. “I just like to know where I’m going. Ugh!”
Mr. Moonman refused to acknowledge that an accidental brush against him was the cause of the woman’s exclamation.
Danecki plunged into the vast gap smashed through the deck of the surface installation. He felt rotting vegetation beneath his feet, and then he was in deep darkness falling forward and flailing his arms about in a desperate effort to find a handhold. He fell into a shallow muddy pool which broke his fall.
“Tourists may not enter this area, sir!” The robot, for all its creaking antiquity, moved fast.
“Where’s the other man,” Danecki asked.
“My sensors are impaired at this depth, sir. My last reading placed him near the reception area. You must return there, Brigadier. Come, sir.” It took his arm firmly.
“No!” Bones grated in his arm as he tore himself free. He ran again without thought. The remaining Jacobi clansman was closing. And still he had no weapon. The lower decks of the fort were suffused by a dim light. Some of it came from above, where the weak daylight filtered through gashes in the upper decks. But as much again would be from the fort’s own energy system, still functioning after its ruin; little independent lighting units alerted by his presence.
“Danecki!” screamed a high-pitched voice. It was a terrible cry of rage and bewilderment. “Danecki, you killed my brother!”
“Mr. Danecki! Brigadier Wardle!” called the robot. It halted in its pursuit, electrons spinning madly about its old cortex. “You must go to Dr. Dross!”
Danecki, the robot, and the youth raced through the echoing corridors, across warped decks, past vast coiled machines that had been halted in the act of pouring gobbets of incandescence against the enemy.
Danecki caught a glimpse of the agile youth, who had suddenly appeared around a ten-foot-high cylinder. He ducked and skittered away as the long weapon came up. Molten metal splashed the ground where he had momentarily paused.
“Firearms are not permitted!” shouted the robot, sorely puzzled.
“Disarm him!” yelled Danecki.
The robot set up an outburst of high-pitched electronic nonsense, gibbering into the echoing vaults of the ruined fort. It stopped abruptly as Jacobi ranged the powerful weapon at its dull-green body.
“Danecki!” screamed Jacobi.
But Danecki had found a sloping corridor in a hidden recess and he was pounding along gray ashy floors—down and down into the bowels of the ruin.
A stray gust of wind reached into the sheltering cliff of metal. It flicked Khalia’s skirts aside showing her firm, white thighs. Brigadier Wardle grunted appreciatively.
“I’m not sure I shouldn’t go back,” said Mrs. Zulkifar, noting the direction of Wardle’s interest.
“Stay up here if you wish!” Dross said.
Before the first faint squeaks and odd sparks of light indicated that the tunnel was moving them through the upper layers of the fort, a hard squall of rain sent a few drops to splash Khalia’s upturned face. For no reason at all she felt apprehensive. She noticed that Mr. Moonman too was afraid. It showed in the careful way he measured the distance between the black shaft of the tunnel and the flowering tiny gobbets of light where the shaft was operating. It showed too in a tiny movement he made to watch the sullen sky.
“Cold, Miss?” asked Knaggs.
“Not really. But it is a bit mysterious and goose-pimply. Eerie, that is.”
“I’m sure it’s safe,” said Brigadier Wardle.
“I hope so,” Mrs. Zulkifar said. “What I’ve always wondered is what exactly happens when these things break down.” She poked a jewel-laden hand at the almost incandescent sides of the shaft.
Dross considered her carefully. Suddenly he said “Boom!”
Wardle regarded Dr. Dross in astonishment. Khalia found herself liking the irate big-bellied archaeologist.
“I beg your pardon?” Mrs. Zulkifar rasped.
“Boom!” Dross said louder.
“I really don’t know what you can mean!”
“I think he means ‘Boom!’ ” Khalia giggled. “Boom!”
“Really!”
“Yes,” said Knaggs. He winked openly at Khalia. “I’m the technical man. I’ll explain. At the moment we’re displacing the constituents of matter for a tiny fragment of time. Before the next bit is moved away, we displace the next section equivalent to our mass and energy. We have to move at precisely ‘n’ to maintain our equilibrium.”
“It isn’t a speed,” the Brigadier inserted in the voice that had bored Khalia for weeks, “it’s more of a—an—”
“Orbital movement,” continued Knaggs. “An orbital spin imparted to the molecules in the mass we fill.”
“Oh.” Mrs. Zulkifar persisted. “And if it stops?”
“We have two lots of mass trying to fill the same space.”
“Boom!” boomed Dross again, raising his big arms to encompass the group.
“Now I know I shouldn’t have come,” said Mrs. Zulkifar. “Brigadier, don’t you have a nasty premonition about this tour?”
Wardle laughed. “Yes! A premonition, yes. I heard about this fort when I was stationed in the Vandersberg Complex, and I’ve waited ten years to see it. I have a premonition— but only of excitement and the satisfaction of intellectual curiosity!”
“Is that so?” said Knaggs.
The mysterious play of the lights ceased at that moment.
“Safely down,” Dross intoned. “And now I am appointed to entertain you. We walk now to the main observation deck.”
They followed the course of the fighting as they stepped over shattered weapons and pulverized heaps of material, horribly suggestive of the long-dead men who had died there. Above them a jagged hole had been ripped through the honeycombed tiers of offices. Huge banks of control panels lay twisted fantastically; great fibered girders were strewn about, smashed into wreckage; living quarters gaped, their bright furnishings still hanging. Three immense halls were fused into one block of basalt-like residue. Dross talked of a battery of rockets spinning out of control: of a sudden blistering surge of power from a portable sungun; and the hand-to-hand fighting which had left the black heaps of solidified matter where groups of men and women perished.
“Hand-to-hand fighting, Doctor?” Wardle spoke with no arrogance whatsoever. Khalia realized that there was a basic solidness beneath his pedantic manner and, stripped of his tiresome gallantry, Wardle was a decent human being.
“That’s what I said,” droned Dross.
“Why does that surprise you?” asked Mr. Moonman.
“The object of any attack is to destroy the enemy,” Wardle said. “There would be no p
oint in committing forces within this kind of installation, except for a particular purpose. Certainly it was unnecessary to send them in to complete the destruction of the fort.”
They passed a weapons store that was split neatly into two sections. Ruptured storage tanks lay in rows beyond.
Eventually Dross answered the Brigadier: “The Confederation forces wanted the fort’s equipment intact. Had they so wished, they could have obliterated the fort. They felt it worth the sacrifice of eight crack regiments in a massive assault to reach the ultimate weapon.”
Khalia sensed the archaeologist’s obsessive interest. Dross’s fluting voice trembled slightly. The Brigadier noticed too. “The Hidden Fort, Dr. Dross?”
“Indeed, Brigadier. The Hidden Fort!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Mrs. Zulkifar. “Have we much farther to go? And I can’t say I’m interested in seeing any more military bases. One’s very much like another, isn’t it?”
“No, Madam,” Dross said. “Not this one.”
“You mean there’s another fort here? Another one?”
“Quite possibly, Madam.”
“More than that,” said Wardle. “More than possible, eh, Doctor? There wouldn’t be the legend without some substance would there?”
Dross recognized a fellow-enthusiast and responded. “The legend is too strong for pure chance to have placed the Hidden Fort here. No matter how garbled a recollection the legend is of the true facts. I can’t escape the conclusion that there is a lost army of robots hereabouts.”
“What about the other reference, eh, Doctor?” asked Wardle eagerly. “The Pit, sir. Underground silo, wouldn’t you say?”
“In all probability,” Dross said.
“Now I am lost,” said Mrs. Zulkifar.
They passed into a smallish room that was little more than adequate to house the party. Even here, the violence of the centuries-gone conflict was evident. Dross’s own equipment was in the middle of the room.
“Incredible!” said Wardle.
“The complete war room,” Dross said with pride. “We found it only this year. From here the entire interplanetary situation can be monitored. All three planets.”
“Yet it fell,” said Mr. Moonman.
Dross looked at the Revived Man. “Yes, sir,” he said with formal politeness, “it did.”
“With the legendary army intact,” Khalia put in.
Dross’s eyes gleamed. “Yes, my dear! I see you have more than the usual shallow interest in the Confederation!”
“It’s a terrible story,” she said. “And this is a haunting place.”
“But full of interest!” Wardle enthused. “What was it again? Ah! ‘The Regiments of Night shall come at the end!’ ”
“They didn’t, though,” sniffed Mrs. Zulkifar.
“The greatest mystery of all!” Dross intoned. “Yes— ‘The Regiments of Night shall come at the end!’ And then, as the Brigadier says, there’s a weak source that refers to their falling into the ‘Pit.’ ”
“I thought that had been effectively shown to be false, Doctor!” said Wardle. “Surely it referred to a silo—an underground hangar, or whatever?”
“That, Brigadier, is the object of my researches! I appreciate your interest, sir! Perhaps we might discuss this further after the tour?”
“With pleasure!” Wardle beamed.
“There’ll hardly be time,” said Mrs. Zulkifar. “I expect you to see that the excursion ship leaves at the appointed hour, Brigadier!”
“Ah, yes—ah—Emma!”
Dross looked coldly once more at the woman. “As I was saying, sir. Mr. Knaggs and I are taking the ruin apart piece by piece to establish the truth about the end of the Confederation. I have hopes of solving—”
They all heard the robot’s high-pitched yell. It halted Dross’s speech. “What’s troubling Batty?” said Knaggs.
Jacobi had made the mistake of bringing too heavy a weapon. Its power was entirely disproportionate to the task at hand. Where a simple stun-gun would have been sufficient—it could have been carried feather-light in one hand—Jacobi had encumbered himself with a long heat projector more suitable for encounters in the free-fall of space. But he was young and agile, while Danecki felt his thirty-three years, and the long slog through the mud of the tracks.
The weapon had to be pointed with some accuracy, but there again, thought Danecki, the terrain was against it. Trees, rocks, even deep-space armor, would have given way to its rolling shock waves of heat. Time and time again, though, he had been able to shelter himself in the massive ruined installations of the ancient fort; it had been built to absorb such onslaughts.
“Brigadier, can you explain what is happening!” jerked the robot. “Sir, I am completely confused. First this,” it said, holding out the antique carapace with its mud-streaked patina, “then that!”
Danecki nodded, poised to move as the remaining clansman tried to outflank him where he lay safely protected in a narrow fissure between two sections of a computer system. No wonder the robot was confused. The Jacobi youth had reduced it to a one-sided wreck. More than half of the robot’s right side had boiled off on to the gray ash of the floor as the heatgun blasted out.
“I think my friend has become psychotic,” Danecki said. “To protect yourself and me you should get us to a safe place.”
The trouble was that the robot had lost some of its memory banks as well as a good deal of its locomotive power.
“I am confused,” admitted the robot.
“Isn’t there some way of getting to safety? We have to get out of the fort without Danecki knowing it. That, or find a weapon for me.”
“No weapons, sir,” the robot whined. “Absolutely no firearms permitted!”
Jacobi’s aim improved and a section of the computer fell wetly beside Danecki. He watched as a pool of red metal crept downhill away from him.
“Then find a way out,” ordered Danecki.
The robot gained its surviving foot and hopped out of the fissure towards an almost-hidden archway. Jacobi sensed the movement and shot off another splash of steaming liquid metal. Danecki jumped over it, barely avoiding the glowing pool. “Dr. Dross!” bellowed the robot. “Dr. Dross!
Danecki plunged after the crazily hopping automaton. He saw the face of the age-old head staring at him from the green-bronze robot’s remaining hand. It glared like some distraught spectator deprived of the power to follow the terrible game.
It seemed days since the tourist ship had flipped his own little vessel aside as it spun about the untenable regions of Phase.
At times the robot spun dizzily on its one leg; it halted, considered the blasted green-bronze body, and then jumped into the air. Then it attempted an end-over-end motion, whirling noisily through the echoing corridors, disturbing a colony of bats that had taken possession of a vast domed place.
In a moment of near-sanity it called to him: “I regret the lack of a commentary on the tour, sir! No doubt Dr. Dross will—” It realized its complete inability to cope with the situation. It began to howl—a fearful tremulous, high-pitched quavering that rang down the long, dimly lit corridor. The howls were taken up by distant echoes and the shrill answers of frightened bats.
The robot made for a doorway. Danecki followed.
A small group of people stared back at him in bewildered astonishment.
* * *
CHAPTER 4
Knaggs was the first to speak: “You Outlanders aren’t supposed to come down here! How the hell did you get through the fort?”
“Kindly explain your presence,” added Dross.
“Batty!” Knaggs shouted, seeing the robot properly. “How in blazes—”
Batibasaga pegged his way noisily to Dross and Knaggs. Mr. Moonman cowered back as the robot raised the ancient head towards Dross. Mrs. Zulkifar screamed and hid behind the Brigadier. Khalia, who had been staring at the blood and mud-stained Danecki, felt hysterical laughter rising up in her throat. Knaggs
stuttered in incredulity at the sight of the grotesque robot. Dross was similarly unable to express his amazement.
“Dr. Dross?” Danecki inquired, taking advantage of the inability of the others to get out a comprehensible question. Had the situation not been so desperate, he might have found it amusing. His clothing hung in muddy shreds. There was blood from half a dozen scratches on his arms and legs; his hair was plastered to his head by the rain, and he knew that his eyes were bright with the fear of the hunt. Altogether he must present a desperate sight.
Knaggs stuttered at the automaton. “B-B-Batty! What the devil’s happened?”
Dross, however, took control. “Who are you?” he demanded. “And how has this happened?”
It was no time for evasions. Danecki decided that he could trust the archaeologist. “Danecki. Licensed victim. I have to get out of here.”
“Victim!”
Khalia was hysterical now. She screamed once, twice, and then Knaggs was holding her, telling her quietly that she was safe.
She had heard of the barbarous customs of the Antiran Sector. The licensed vendetta was tolerated only in such primitive societies. She stared at Danecki, seeing now the fatigue in the slope of his wide shoulders. This man had been forced to become an animal. He had the aura of a cornered but still dangerous beast.
Knaggs burst out: “You’re not one of the Outlanders! Then how did you get here?”
Dross looked thoughtfully at the doorway. “That doesn’t really matter at the moment, Mr. Knaggs. I think this gentleman has some explaining to do, but it can wait. What’s more to the point just now is that he is being hunted.”
“Yes,” interrupted Wardle. “Explains the state of the robot! Heatgun of some sort?”
“I think that can wait too, Brigadier,” Dross put in. To Danecki he said, “Where is your licensed executioner?”
Danecki could see by the intent, half-frightened stares, that the men and women in the small room knew they were rubbing shoulders with a killer. They knew too that he was a marked man, one that might himself be killed before them. They were deliciously thrilled by the presence of impending violence. He had an impulse to explain.