Slaves of the Switchboard of Doom, page 14
He thought that over for a couple of pounding strides. No, Sleeping Sculptor had never sounded all that practical.
So at last Dash fell back on his ray gun, a weapon of last resort.
This was one thing he’d found was very different from the way things worked in fiction. In the magazine stories Our Hero would whip out his blaster, or his disintegrator, or, really, any kind of gun at all; and even though he might be running, falling, or rising far too rapidly on a column of inverted gravitons, that guy would fire off a single shot that would strike the one thing that he ought to be shooting, at just the right time, and in just the right place, to get him out of a jam.
Dash had taken that pretty seriously. He’d spent uncountable hours on the roof, firing at very small targets in very trying circumstances. He’d become, he knew without any arrogance at all, a pretty remarkable shot.
Still, out in the actual world things were different. Nine times out of ten when you pulled out your gun, you actually made things worse.
It was frustrating.
But as he took stock—one more time—of his situation (pursuit, several robots; location, an unsteady catwalk; exits, none) he decided that things probably couldn’t get that much worse this time.
So he pulled his gun and aimed it, more or less, at the pulsing eyes of the closest robot. He waited until his left foot had absorbed the shock of its step and in that instant of near stability he squeezed the trigger.
A golden beam shot out and drew a swift, short line across the robot’s face, turning both of its eyes to pools of molten glass.
Dash grinned. He turned his attention back to the catwalk ahead. Somewhere off to the side he heard the loud collision of at least two of his pursuers. Stealing another glance back he saw that three were still chasing after him while the others were bouncing off each other, rebounding from the catwalk, and plunging into the cavern wall.
All in all, quite satisfactory.
He turned his eyes forward again and considered his next shot.
The alarm was still thundering out its screams of warning; the scene was lit bloody by the flashing lights. He was approaching one of the big red lamps when he heard the sound of something very large out there, coming across the void. He glanced back again.
The crane was swinging out across the gulf with more robots clinging to its beam. Dash could see that the crane itself would be enough to finish him: the robots were gratuitous, when it came right down to it. That crane could shear through the catwalk without taking more than a scratch. He revised his list of problems while his feet kept on pounding forward.
Forward?
Dash dug his heels into the grating and lurched to a stop, spinning to face the oncoming robots. His pistol’s beam swept across the eyes of the three flying robots: they wobbled to a stop and began to bob uncertainly in midair. Then Dash turned to take a better look at the crane’s trajectory. It was going to strike the catwalk about thirty feet ahead of him, sometime in the next few seconds.
So Dash took off running straight back the way he’d come.
* * *
Down on the cavern floor Howard Pitt came running out of a hallway and looked right and left, trying to pinpoint the threat. He missed it completely until he looked straight up and saw the long arm of the crane smash into the catwalk, ripping it in half and tearing its two ragged ends away from the wall, where they swayed uncertainly and then dipped lower, and lower.…
He dove back into the hallway just as the rain of robots started to fall all around him.
* * *
Dash didn’t really consider this a retreat. He had no idea where he was going (apart from “out”) so one direction was as good as another, wasn’t it? And for the first time since the alarms had started he wasn’t actually running from anything. So, on the whole, he figured his situation had improved. He slowed to a trot, tried to ignore the claxons and the flashing red lights, and once again he took stock of his options.
(Location, a damaged catwalk; pursuers, none; exits, unknown.)
If he could just get a better view of the cavern he might even see a way to get out of this one.
* * *
Pitt heard the last rolling collision of the fallen robots and waited for a few more seconds, just in case. Then he peered out of the doorway into the darkness of the cavern. He didn’t know where the intruder was or where he was headed. He reached up to the illumination panel and threw all of the switches.
* * *
Brilliant white lights flashed into being all around Dash. He grinned.
A rocket and a tunnel borer would be handy, too, he thought. A quick look around proved that his luck would only go so far, though, which was about this far, as it turned out.
He slowed to a stop and looked all around the cavern.
He had known that Pitt’s … project … was large: very large. He’d already come to the conclusion that projects didn’t get much bigger than this. But knowing it, in the dim light of the cavern, and then seeing it, clearly lit all along its height and breadth, were two such different things that he was still amazed by the reality of the thing.
It was immense.
The great inertrium egg was chained to the floor with dozens of heavy steel chains and it still strained at them as it tried to rise. Where it hovered above the floor it was already vast; but its sides swelled wider and wider, bounded by ribs and plating, as it rose higher toward the darkness where the ceiling disappeared in the gloom. Dash couldn’t even guess how big it was, at its widest: the lights didn’t reach that far. This had to be the biggest inertrium construct ever built. Dash was sure that it presented all kinds of engineering problems that he couldn’t even conceive; he was equally sure that Pitt had conceived of, and then disposed of, every one of them. The whole structure had that same air of purpose and certainty that radiated from the man himself.
It felt more like a vehicle than a building even though it enclosed more volume than any building in the world. It had that sense of … destination.
The robots who were completing its frame and skinning its exterior had to number in the hundreds. There were large robots who were maneuvering those last ribs and struts into place, and there were smaller robots who climbed across the surface and plunged red hot rivets into their waiting holes while still more robots hammered the rivets flat. There were even smaller robots that skittered along the framework, performing tasks so small that Dash couldn’t really make out what they were doing, and he suspected that there were robots who were smaller still.
He could see the entire thing. He still had no idea what it was.
Nearer at hand, the catwalk hung along the cavern wall; in a few places there were cantilevered walkways that bridged the void between the wall and the project. At the far end of the catwalk, where it curved to match the shape of the cavern, Dash thought he could see some kind of doorway. He turned around and squinted the other way. Far past the broken section of the catwalk he thought he could see another doorway, way down at the other end. A second catwalk stretched along the cavern’s far wall from one doorway to the other.
Dash turned back toward the nearer exit and set off at a trot. The catwalk swayed back and forth beneath his feet.
* * *
Pitt reached his hover sled over at the base of the crane and leaped on board. He had it aloft before he’d even settled into his seat at the control panel.
He cursed himself for leaving his Info-Slate behind. Without it, he could only command his robots by voice; and in the clamor of the alarm bells he could only be heard at a distance of a few feet. So he wasted a vital half minute on a detour to the security console on the other side of the cavern.
A moment later the alarm echoed into silence. Pitt looked around.
“You! And you! And you! Follow me!” he barked at his robot crew. “The rest of you, block the exits!”
Three floating robots followed him when Pitt directed his hover sled back up into the air. Thirty or forty of the others swarmed up the catwalk stairs and, from there, north and south to the exits.
“Now,” Pitt said, “let’s see what we’ve trapped.”
The three robots floated in his wake. Pitt threw the sled’s lever to full speed.
* * *
When the alarms stopped, Dash figured he was likely to be in trouble again: he bolted forward at a full run. The project’s yawning ribs were flickering past him once more—though now they were flickering in the other direction—and as he ran past one of the bridge walkways he estimated that he was over halfway to his goal. A backward look showed him that somebody, with a side order of flying robots, was speeding toward him from the far end of the cavern.
That’d be Pitt, he knew.
The dim red beam of a welding torch wavered across the catwalk just ahead of him. It looked like he was out of range—for now—but Dash had a feeling that this might change. He coaxed a little more speed from his legs. They were holding up all right, but that could change, too.
FRIDAY, 7:33 PM
The roughly squared, dripping wormhole of this tunnel was a big improvement over the last one. There were interesting bits of debris embedded in the walls, including some old tree roots that had been partially eaten, and sheared masonry that had been tunneled right through, and an old, tarnished pocket watch that now rode in Evan’s pocket.
This was much more like it.
The tunnel, unlike those Tube maintenance tunnels, even smelled terrible. This was a tunnel out of those days when being a tunnel really meant something.
Evvie was holding a small flashlight ahead of them. Its faint yellow beam was almost the only source of light they had to go by. About every hundred feet or so there was an old light fixture, and some of those still had working bulbs; but for the most part this evil smelling, roughly carved, sinister, and completely forgotten tunnel had lain in darkness for many years.
Evan and Evvie had nearly forgotten their terrible day at school. This was so great that it could only have been improved by rats.
Somewhere up ahead, they heard something squeak. The two of them exchanged a look and darted forward. The flickering beam of Evvie’s flashlight bounced ahead of them across the floor.
FRIDAY, 7:34 PM
Dash could tell that his pursuers were drawing closer by the strength of the dim red beam that passed back and forth across the catwalk. He didn’t think his legs had any more speed in them; he wasn’t even sure how much longer they were going to hold him up.
The doorway was a lot closer, though. That was a point in his favor.
When he turned his head to get a look at his pursuers, though, Dash caught a glimpse of a pack of robots on the catwalk at the cavern’s far side. It looked like they were racing him to the doorway on steady, metallic legs that might be a little more reliable than his own, and they were making headway.
Dash frowned.
Because he didn’t dare to stop completely he just slowed a little while he reached over his shoulder to sift through the contents of his back pack.
Then he remembered his gun: it had worked pretty well on those flying robots before.
So he pulled the pistol out again and slowed a little. He took a deep breath. When his weight landed on his right foot he turned from the waist, aimed, and fired off a shot at the robots that were floating beside Pitt’s hover sled.
The beam went wide. It scored a shallow gash on the riveted skin of Pitt’s project.
Dash recovered from what was almost a stumble and he ran on. Okay, not so good; he slid the gun back into its holster and thought.
The hover sled was definitely gaining on him. With a quick look to his left he saw that the robots on the other catwalk were catching up, too: at this rate they were going to beat him to the door.
So I guess, he thought, I need to figure out which one is the first problem.
He risked another look over his shoulder. Pitt and his fliers were moving faster than the robots on the walkway. The red welding beam smoked across the catwalk railing. It looked like they were almost in range now.
Another bridge was coming up on Dash’s left. He lurched sideways onto the bridge and ran out on its span. Right around the middle, he had to dodge the welding ray—now a bright, threatening red—and he dropped flat on the bridge just as the other two flying robots fired up their own beams. That’s when things got pretty hot.
The bright red rays drew arcs across the bridge—which was getting less stable as they carved it away—and even though Dash’s prone position made him a small target, that wouldn’t matter much when the bridge finally gave way. He slipped his pistol out again and took careful aim at one of the robots.
His pencil-thin yellow ray drew an X across the robot’s face, obliterating both eyes. It drifted to a stop. He forced himself to move slowly and carefully as he aimed at the second robot; that one spun the first time he hit it, and he had to take another shot for the second eye.
The third robot’s welding beam winked out. The robot darted low under the hover sled and sped along, under the sled’s cover.
Dang it, Dash thought. Too slow.
The hover sled was so close now that Dash could see Pitt’s angry face above the console. Their eyes met. Then Dash fired again.
* * *
Pitt glared at the intruder. He knew him now. D. Kent, from the side of the office building: Perkins’s accomplice. A resourceful young man.
With two of his robots down Pitt knew that his best course of action was to protect the third one until the last possible moment, when it could bring Kent down with a single shot. He called his orders to the robot and aimed the hover sled so that it would pass right over the railing of the bridge, exactly at the spot where Kent lay on the grating.
The hover sled’s engine whined.
Then Kent fired another shot.
The hover sled’s engine erupted.
Pitt fought the steering wheel for control; but without the thrust from its upward-facing jets the sled’s inertrium body drifted upward. He was still headed in the direction of the bridge, but he couldn’t see it anymore. The sled shot up toward the ceiling and left the third robot floating, exposed in the open air.
You can’t hear a ray pistol, but Pitt was certain that it was firing again.
That’s what he would have done.
* * *
Dash kept an eye on the hover sled. My, that thing sure wants to fly. Without any motive power it was rising in an arc that would hit the ceiling in under a minute.
The third blinded robot was drifting aimlessly, but it was still firing toward the bridge and that was as good a reason as any to get off the thing. The bridge was groaning under its own weight and it wasn’t exactly all there anymore. Dash set off at a run back toward the catwalk.
On the far side of the cavern the pack of robots had nearly reached the doorway. He couldn’t hope to beat them there; but that was where he needed to be, so as soon as he reached his own walkway he asked his legs to help him one more time.
He heard the bridge collapse behind him. He didn’t bother to look back.
He did steal a glance up at the hover sled. It didn’t have much farther to go.
The real problem was up ahead. The pack of robots had reached their goal; they lined up in immovable rows in front of the doorway. Then, as mechanical people do, they just waited in a patient, implacable way.
FRIDAY, 7:39 PM
The first rats had taken one look at Evan and Evvie and scurried off. This showed a good deal of intelligence. In their retreat they flowed right over more rats and those rats, wondering what the rumpus was about, had lingered just long enough to see the Campbells for themselves. Then they whipped around and followed the original rats, who had been in no mood to stop and explain.
So the rats became a tide of rats, and then a wave of rats, and, at last, a heaving carpet of rats, running at great speed through the damp, dark tunnels while Evan and Evvie ran along behind them having more fun than another human could possibly imagine.
The rats were running so fast, in fact, that they had no idea what was about to happen to them.
FRIDAY, 7:40 PM
Dash still didn’t know what he was going to do when he reached the wall of robots in front of the door. He was going to have to decide, though, because he was almost there.
He slowed to a trot, and then to a walk. The robots weren’t threatening him in any way. He came to a stop about twenty feet away from them and finally, after he couldn’t guess how long, he managed to breathe normally again. Then he straightened up and stared them in the eye.
They stared back.
“Uh, hello there,” Dash said.
They continued to stare.
“I don’t suppose you’d like to let me through?”
Somewhere in the back of the line a robot’s voice said, “Instruction: block the exits.”
Up near the ceiling, Pitt was shouting. You couldn’t really tell what he was on about way down here, though. Dash smiled.
“Well, that’s fine,” Dash said. “You’re blocking this exit like crazy, I mean, it’s really, really blocked. Good job.”
Part of him was hoping that the robots would figure they were done.
“So … now what?”
The robots stared.
“I mean, do you have any other orders that are, sort of, pending? Like, a schedule to keep?”
The robots in front turned back to stare at their foreman. He didn’t seem to have anything to add.
Dash gestured at the main body of the cavern, full of things half-welded, half-riveted, and half assembled.
“You’ve got a heck of a lot left to do, out there, I mean. When’s it all got to be finished?”
“We are scheduled to complete the work in twenty-two hours and forty minutes,” said the robot foreman.
“Oh, right. Okay.”
Dash leaned against the railing. “And about how much time do you think you need to get that all done?”
Pitt’s voice grew higher in pitch. It was just a squeaking noise in the distance.
