by Andre Norton
Then the sergeant sighed with relief. Rolth had crawled into place and crouched now well above the line of the robot's vision. If only this patroller was constructed on the same general pattern they knew and could be short-circuited through the head!
But when it reached the next doorway it hesitated. Kartr tensed. This might be worse than he had thought. The thing had some sense perception. He was sure that it suspected his presence. No spy beam flashed. Instead it stood there unmoving-as if it were puzzled, making up its mind.
Was it relaying back to some dust-covered headquarters an alarm?
But its arms were moving-
"Kartr!"
Night sight or no night sight, Kartr had not needed that shout from Rolth to warn him. He had already seen what the patroller held ready. He hurled himself backward, falling flat on the floor of the hall, letting momentum carry him in a slide some distance along it. Behind him was a burst of eye-searing flame, filling the whole entrance with an inferno. Only his trained muscles and sixth sense of preservation had saved him from cooking in the midst of that!
Shakily he crawled on his belly away from the fury. Was the robot going to follow him in and complete its mission?
Hollow sounds of feet pounding-
"Kartr! Kartr!"
He had levered himself to a sitting position when Rolth plunged around an angle in the hallway and almost fell over him.
"Are you hurt? Did he get you?"
Kartr grinned lopsidedly. To just be alive-he winced as Rolth's examining hands touched skin scraped raw.
"What about-?"
"The bag of bolts? I scragged him all right-a blast hole right through his head casing and he went down. He didn't reach you?"
"No. And at least he's told us something about the civilization they had here." The sergeant surveyed the blaze behind him with critical distaste. "Blow a hole in a city block to get someone. Wonder what they would have thought of a stun gun." With Rolth's hand under his arm Kartr got to his feet. He hoped that he had not rebroken his wrist and that the red agony in it was only from the jar of his fall.
"I have a feeling," he began and then was glad that Rolth had retained a grip on him because the hallway appeared to sway under his feet, "that we'd better get away from here-fast-"
The thought which plagued him was the memory of that momentary pause before the robot had attacked. Kartr was sure that then a message had been flashed from the patroller-where? If the timeless machine had only been performing rounds set him generations before the city had been deserted by its builder-then such a report would be no menace-unless it activated other machines in turn. On the other hand, if the mysterious Ageratan controlled the robots, then the rangers might have successfully met a first attack, only to face other and perhaps worse ones.
Rolth agreed with this when he suggested it aloud.
"We can't go back that way anyhow." The Faltharian pointed to the blazing pit of radiation which had once been the door. "And they may just be combing the streets for us, too. Listen, this city reminds me in some ways of Stiltu-"
Kartr shook his head. "Heard of it, but have never been there."
"Capital of Lydias." Rolth identified it impatiently. "They're old-fashioned there-still live in big cities. Well, they have an underground system of links-ways of traveling under the surface-"
"Hm." Kartr's mind jumped to the next point easily. "Then we might try going down and see what we can find? All right. And if that patroller did rouse out the guard before you burned him, it will be some time before they can even get in here to see if their tame hunter bagged us. Let's look for a way down."
But to their bafflement there seemed to be no way down at all. They threaded rooms and halls, pushing past the remains of furnishings and strange machinery which at other times would have set them speculating for hours, hunting some means of descent. None appeared to exist-only two stairways leading up.
In the end they discovered what they wanted in the center of a room. It was a dark well, a black hole in which the beam of Kartr's flash found no end. Although the light did not reveal much it helped them in another way because its owner dropped it. He gave an exclamation and made a futile grab-much too late. Rolth supplied an excited comment, reverting in this stress to his native dialect and only making sense when Kartr demanded harshly that he translate.
"It did not fall! It is floating down-floating!"
The sergeant sat back on his heels. "Inverse descent! Still working!" He could hardly believe that.
Small articles might possibly be upborne by the gravity-dispelling rays-but something heavier-a man-say-
Before he could protest Rolth edged over the rim, to dangle by his hands.
"It's working all right! I'm treading air. Here goes!"
His hands disappeared and he was gone. But his voice came up the shaft.
"Still walking on air! Come on in, the swimming's fine!"
Fine for Rolth maybe who could see where he was going. To lower oneself into that black maw and hope that the anti-gravity was not going to fail-! Not for the first time in his career with the rangers
Kartr silently cursed his overvivid imagination as he allowed his boots to drop into the thin air of the well. He involuntarily closed his eyes and muttered a half-plea to the Spirit of Space as he let go.
But he was floating! The air closed about his body with almost tangible support. He was descending, of course, but at the rate of a feather on a light breeze. Far below he saw the blue light of Rolth's torch. The other had reached bottom. Kartr drew his feet together and tried to aim his body toward the pinprick of light.
"Happy planeting!" Rolth greeted the sergeant as he landed lightly, his knees slightly bent, and with no shock at all. "Come and see what I have found."
What Rolth had found was a platform edging on a tunnel. Anchored to this stand by a slender chain was a small car, pointed at both ends, a single padded seat in its center. It had no drive Kartr could discern and it did not touch the floor of the tunnel, hovering about a foot above that.
A keyboard was just before the seat-controls, Kartr deduced. But how could they aim it to any place? And to go shooting off blindly into the dark, liable to crash against some cave in- The sergeant began to reconsider that-too risky by far. To face a battalion of robot patrollers was less dangerous than to be trapped underground in the dark.
"Here!"
Kartr jumped at Rolth's call. The other ranger had gone to the back of the platform and was holding his dim torch on the wall there. The sergeant could just barely see by the blue light. Rolth had found something all right! A map of black lines crossing and recrossing-it could only be of the tunnel system. Having solved much more complicated puzzles in the past they set to work-to discover that this was apparently a way leading directly into the heart of the city.
Ten minutes later they crowded together on the narrow seat. Rolth pressed two buttons as Kartr threw off the restraining chain. There was a faint puff of sound-they swept forward and the dank air of the tunnel filled their nostrils.
6 - THE CITY PEOPLE
"This should be it," Rolth half whispered.
The car was slowing down, drawing to the right side of the tunnel. Ahead a dim light glowed. They must be approaching another platform. Kartr glanced at the dial on his wrist band. It had taken them exactly five minutes planet time to reach this place. Whether or not it was the one they wanted-that was another question. They had aimed at a point they thought would be directly under what seemed to be a large public building in the very center of the city. If any human or Bemmy force had taken over here that would be the logical place to find them.
"Anyone ahead?" asked Rolth, trusting as usual to Kartr's perception.
The sergeant sent a mind probe on and then shook his head. "Not a trace. Either they don't know about these ways or they have no interest in them."
"I'm inclined to believe that they don't know." The Faltharian grabbed at a mooring ring as the car came along the platform.
Kartr climbed out and stood looking about him. This place was at least three times the size of the one from which they had embarked. And other tunnels ran from it in several directions. It was lighted after a fashion. But not brightly enough to make Rolth don his goggles again.
"Now"-the Faltharian stood with his hands resting on his hips, surveying their port-"how do we get out-or rather up-from here?"
There were those other tunnels, but, on their first inspection, no other sign of an exit. Yet Kartr was sure that this platform must have one. It was air which betrayed it-a puff of warmer, less dank breeze which touched him. Rolth must have felt it too for he turned in the direction from which it had come.
They followed that tenuous guide to a flat round plate at the foot of another well. Kartr crooked his neck until his throat strained. Far above he was sure he could see a faint haze of light. But they certainly couldn't climb- He turned to Rolth bitterly disappointed.
"That's that! We might as well go back-"
But the Faltharian was engrossed by a panel of buttons on the wall.
"I don't think we need do that. Let's just see if this works!" He pressed the top button in the row. Then he jumped back to clutch his companion in a tight hold as the plate came to life under them and they zoomed up.
Both rangers instinctively dropped and huddled together. Kartr swallowed to clear the pressure in his buzzing ears. At least, he thought thankfully, the shaft was not closed at the top. They were not being borne upward to be crushed against an unyielding surface overhead.
Twice they flashed by other landing places abutting the shaft. After they passed the second Kartr squeezed his eyes shut. The sensation of being on a sideless elevator moving at some speed was one he believed he would never choose to experience again. It was infinitely worse-though akin to-the one attack of space fear he had had when he lost his mooring rope and had floated away from the ship while making repairs on the hull during flight.
"We're here-"
Kartr opened his eyes, very glad to hear a quaver in Rolth's voice. So the Faltharian had not enjoyed the voyage any more than he had!
Where was "here"? The sergeant scrambled off the plate, almost on all fours, and looked around him.
The room in which they appeared was well lighted. Above him, rising to a dizzy height, reached floor after floor, all with galleries ringing upon the center. But he did not have long to examine that for a cry from Rolth brought him around.
"It's-it's gone!" The Faltharian was staring with wide eyes at the floor.
And he was entirely right. The plate-elevator on which they had just made that too swift ascent had vanished and the floor where it had entered was, as far as Kartr could see, now a smooth, unbroken stretch of pavement.
"It sank back"-Rolth's voice was under better control now-"and then a block came out from one side and sealed it."
"Which may account for the under ways not being discovered," suggested Kartr. "Suppose this shaft only opened when our car pulled up at the platform in the tunnel, or, because we started some other automatic control-it may be set to operate in that fashion-"
"I," Rolth stated firmly, "am going to stay away from the middle of rooms in here until we leave this blasted place. What if you were on the trapdoor and somebody stepped on the proper spot below?
Regular trap!" He scowled at the floor and walked carefully, testing each step, to the nearest of the doorways. Kartr was almost inclined to follow his example. As the Faltharian had pointed out there was no way of knowing what other machinery their mere presence in the ancient buildings might activate. And then he wondered if it had been their sled's landing which had set the patroller to its work and so brought the robot upon them.
But a potential menace greater than machines which might or might not exist alerted him a few seconds later. There was an unknown and living creature ahead. The Ageratan? No. The strange mind he touched was not that strong. Whoever was before them now lacked the perception sense. Kartr need not fear betrayal until they were actually seen. Rolth caught the signal he made. And, while the
Faltharian did not draw his blaster, his hand hovered just above its grip.
But the hall beyond the first door was empty. It was square and furnished with benches of an opaline substance. Under the subdued lighting, which came out of the walls themselves, sparks of rich color caught fire in the milky surface of the simply wrought pieces. This must be an ante-room of some sort.
For in the opposite wall were set a pair of doors, twice Kartr's height, bearing the first relief sculpture he had seen in the city-conventionalized and symbolic representation of leaves. It was behind those doors that the other awaited them.
The sergeant began the tedious task of blocking out his own impressions, of concentrating only on that spark of life force hidden ahead. He was lucky in that the unknown was not a sensitive, that he could contact, could insert the mind touch, without betraying his own identity.
Human, yes. A point three-no more. A four would have been dimly aware of his spying-uneasy under it-a point five would have sensed him at once. But all this stranger knew was a discouragement, a mental fatigue. And-he was no pirate-or a prisoner of pirates-all feeling of violence past or present was lacking.
But-Kartr had already set his hand on the wide fastening of the door. Someone else had just joined the man in there. And from a first tentative contact the sergeant recoiled instantly. The Ageratan! In the same second he identified that mind, he knew that all hope of concealment was now over-that the Ageratan knew where they were as well as if his eyes could pierce stone and metal to see them. It was, Kartr's lip caught between his teeth, almost as if the Ageratan had dropped his own mind shield to bait them into showing themselves. And if that were so-! The ranger's green eyes were centered with a spark of dangerous yellow fire. He made a sign to Rolth.
Reluctantly the other's hand moved away from his blaster. Kartr studied him almost critically and then glanced down along the length of his own body. Their vlis hide boots and belts had survived without a scratch in spite of the rough life in the bush. And those blazing Comet badges were still gleaming on breast and helmet. Even if that Comet was modified by the crossed dart and leaf of a ranger it was the insignia of the Patrol. And he who wore it had authority to appear anywhere in the galaxy without question-in fact by rights the questions were his to ask.
Kartr bore down on the fastening of the doors. They parted in the center, withdrawing in halves into the walls, leaving an opening wide enough for six men instead of just the two standing in it.
Here the light radiating from the walls was brighter and much of it was focused on an oval table in the exact center of the room-a table so long that the entire crew of a cruiser might have been accommodated around it. It was of the opaline stone and there were benches curved to follow its line.
Two men sat there, quietly enough, though, Kartr noted, a blaster lay close to the hand of the taller one-the Ageratan. But when he saw the badge of the Patrol his face was a mirror of amazement and he was on his feet in one swift movement. His slighter companion stared, licked his lips-and Kartr knew when his utter surprise turned into incredulous joy.
"The Patrol!" That was the Ageratan and there was certainly no pleasure to be read in his identifying exclamation. But his mind block was tightly in place and Kartr could not know what lay behind those black, hooded eyes.
They were not pirates-those two. Both were dressed in the fantastically cut and colored tunics favored by the civilians of the decadent inner systems. And the blaster on the table was apparently their only weapon. Kartr strode forward.
"You are?" he demanded crisply, molding his stance and voice on Jaksan's. He had never before assumed the duties of a Patrolman, but as long as he wore the Comet no civilian would be allowed to guess that.
"Joyd Cummi, Vice-Sector Lord of Agerat," the tall man answered almost sneeringly. He had the usual overbearing arrogance of his race. "This is my secretary, Fortus Kan. We were passengers on the N
yorai X451. She was attacked by pirates and went into overdrive when in a damaged condition.
When we came out we discovered that her computer had failed and we were in a totally unfamiliar section of the galaxy. We had fuel enough to cruise for two weeks and then it gave out and we were forced to land near here. We have been trying to communicate with some point of civilization but we had no idea that we were so successful! You are from-?"
A Vice-Sector Lord, eh? And an Ageratan into the bargain. Kartr was treading on dangerous ground now. But, he decided, he was not going to let this Joyd Cummi know that the Patrol had not arrived to rescue castaways-but as fellow refugees. There was a suggestion of something wrong here. His perception was alert, trying to measure words where he could not tap minds.
"We are Ranger Rolth and Ranger Sergeant Kartr, attached to the Starfire. We shall report your presence here to our commander."