Slaves of the Switchboard of Doom, page 28
The typewriters dipped toward the two women. Nola grabbed Maria by the arm and lowered the pistol. “No trouble here at all,” she said. “Just a little misunderstanding. Excuse me, but could we please…”
A blue and white enameled robot looked out the hatchway. Behind him Nola saw Rusty and, to her great surprise, her former supervisor. “Mrs. Broadvine?”
Everyone made their introductions and tried to tell their stories, all at once. Nola and Maria stepped through the hatchway. All along Pitt’s switchboard, groups of technicians and robots were loosening the bolts that clamped the robotic operators at their stations. As each small operator was lifted free, an accountant would lift her gently and carry her to the far side of the room where the other liberated operators sat motionless. Then one of Mrs. Broadvine’s operators would slip onto the flange where the operator had been sitting.
They were running out of human operators, though.
“Nola, I wonder if you…”
Nola’s first reaction was to do what Mrs. Broadvine wanted, even if Mrs. Broadvine wasn’t her supervisor anymore. But she stopped herself.
“I’d be happy to, Mrs. Broadvine, but I’m afraid there’s something else going on. Howard Pitt is about to finish some very large project—I mean, it’s big—and we left Dash there. Dash is … he’s very capable, as you know, but I think he might need some help.”
Mrs. Broadvine’s right eyebrow began a familiar descent toward her cheek, and a part of Nola wanted to do anything, anything at all, to keep that eyebrow from dipping any farther. All of the time she’d spent at the switchboard had taught her to keep that eyebrow from going any lower. But she stood her ground.
The eyebrow wavered for a moment. Mrs. Broadvine seemed to be thinking. Then she said, “Yes, Nola, you’re perfectly right. Of course you should go help Mr. Kent.”
Then she smiled. Several operators in the room exchanged cautious glances.
Mr. King and Harry Roy were very interested in the news of another project of Pitt’s. Nola explained that, yes, there was a very large number of Pitt’s robots there; that they were laboring on a gigantic egg-shaped thing; and that Pitt himself was likely supervising the work.
“And he’s already tried to kill Dash once,” she said. “Or more, really, but once there at the site.”
So of course everyone wanted to know, all at the same time, who Dash was, where the project was, how Pitt was trying to kill Dash, and probably quite a few other things that Nola couldn’t quite comprehend, given the din.
“THAT’S ENOUGH!” yelled Maria in what Nola now thought of as her Officer Voice.
Everyone finally noticed her blue ASAA uniform. “Say, we wanted to report…”
“THAT’S ENOUGH!”
There was silence.
“Okay, point one: I can lead you to the site; point two: we’ll tell you about Mr. Kent on the way; point three: everything else is irrelevant; and point four: follow me.”
She marched out of the room and through the parting mob of robotic and human persons.
Nola went after her. “Well, I’m going.”
So it was in a hurry that Mr. King marshaled most of his army while Mr. Roy stationed his technicians and accountants at the switchboard under the command of Mrs. Broadvine.
Nola came back through the hatchway. “And, Mrs. Broadvine, when you get a chance … there’s some kind of kill-on-sight order for Dash and me in the ASAA’s Info-Slate system. Could you do something about that, please?”
Harry Roy added, “And report Pitt’s crimes to the ASAA while you’re at it.” Then he was gone, too.
* * *
They formed up in a new column outside in the road. Rusty, Maria, and Nola had taken Mrs. Broadvine’s place in the lead. “The problem is,” Maria said, “we’re not all going to fit in my cruiser.”
Mr. King made a shrill whistling sound that echoed back through the deserted streets. In a moment Nola could see a fleet of hover sleds coming their way from the direction of the Perisquare.
“Yep,” Maria allowed. “That should do it.”
So it was in a big flying column that the newly reformed Howard Pitt Expeditionary and Containment Force set out for the power station site. Robots stood in formation on the rectangular decks of the hover sleds; Harry Roy and Albert King, with Nola, Rusty, and Harry’s man Davies, led them on a hover sled all their own—with Nola trying to explain what had been going on for the past few days—while Maria, alone again in the cockpit of her rocket, soared ahead of them.
Finally, Nola said to herself. Finally, somebody’s listening.
“So why haven’t you told anybody about this before?” asked Harry Roy.
“We didn’t have any proof,” Nola told him, with great patience, “and then people were shooting at us.”
Mr. Roy digested that. “We didn’t have any proof, either, until today,” he said, casting a sideways glance at Mr. King. “No shooting yet, on our end.”
Nola could see the Hogben Canal in the distance. Hang on, Dash, she thought. Just hang on ’til we get there.
SATURDAY, 7:10 PM
Everyone had fled the construction site. Bathed in the light of a few working lamps, the Projectile had cast off all its scaffolds and all but the last four of its restraining chains. Daylight spilled down from cracks above to light the arc of its hull; the flickering work lights below cast crazy shadows along its massive sides.
Since everyone had gone, Dash—where he stood immobile in the doorway—was the only eyewitness to the Projectile’s launch.
A gigantic hinged platform eased up from the floor below. It actually cocked itself, like the hammer of an antique pistol, and paused.
The thin stone of the roof erupted into dust when an array of shaped charges exploded all across its surface. The last four chains released their hold on the Projectile.
Then the immense hammer of the hinged platform struck the Projectile from beneath. It rose—not quickly, but with great force—and, aimed by the hammer’s impact, the inertrium throughout the structure of the Projectile pulled it upward into the sky; not straight up, but in the arc that the hammer had followed.
Dash watched the Projectile fly through the sky, toward … what?
Pitt’s force of robots started to flow out of the tunnels and cubbyholes where they’d taken shelter.
“What have you done?” Dash asked them. “What for Pete’s sake have you done?”
18
RETURN OF THE PLUMBER OF PROPHECY
SATURDAY, 7:12 PM
Pitt breathed out. He felt relaxed, for the first time in … he didn’t even know how long. It was as though once the great egg of the Projectile had lifted from the Earth a weight had also been lifted from his shoulders.
“Finally,” he said aloud. “Finally this city will work the way it’s meant to work.”
He wanted to go out, immediately, to observe the monorail going about its stately business on a timetable that would never, ever, vary; to see the streets empty of their untidy mob of people, constantly bumping into one another, never sure where they were going, but certain that their going there was more important than the going there of anybody else; where automated barges and hover sleds and airships could pass freely and gracefully, effortless as particles, following their predestined routes.
Where all his life’s work could work smoothly and certainly, predictably. Where nothing existed unless it was necessary.
Finally, Howard Pitt was home.
Oh, he knew that there were stragglers. He’d rushed the evacuation. He would have to detail his security robots to gather those last people up and contain them, someplace, until Pitt could decide how to get rid of them. For a moment he considered putting all of them into Tube Transport Pods, whooshing through their endless cycles across the city … and then just forgetting about them.…
But no. That would be messy.
Best to start the round up now, anyway. He reached for his Info-Slate and started to query the whereabouts of the security robots.
But he saw at once that something was wrong.
There was a lot of traffic in the system; much more than he had expected. And most of that traffic was coming from his hidden switchboard. Pitt scanned the active queries.
Pitt noted several efforts to contact the ASAA offices, first with an actual countermand of his shoot-on-site orders, and then … with information about Pitt himself. There were all sorts of exploratory inquiries, efforts to locate other active Info-Slate users. Little chimes must be going off all over the city and—Pitt smiled—on their way out of Earth’s atmosphere.
Not much was coming back. But Pitt made note of the locations.
So Pitt’s Adversary had taken over the switchboard. To what end? The Adversary must not have understood Pitt’s plan after all: the switchboard was irrelevant now.
He tapped on his Info-Slate’s controls for a list of his security robots. Almost immediately his Slate chimed softly. He ignored it. He began to give the robots orders to locate and detain any human beings they could find in each of their quadrants, which were …
Pitt’s Info-Slate burped at him and its screen went dark. A little red lamp on its bezel was blinking on and off. He threw the Info-Slate across the control room.
Well. He’d just have to do this the old-fashioned way, then. He slipped his slide rule back into its holster and then strode out the door.
SATURDAY, 7:16 PM
Dash recognized the robot foreman, R-54KG. The big robot was carrying a slender man under one arm.
“Hey!” called Dash. “Get on over here!”
“Plumber? Plumber!” said R-54KG. “Here you are at last! We waited for you, but in the end we managed to finish almost on time, due to radical design changes. It was…”
R-54KG looked around. He looked especially closely at the space behind Dash, which was absolutely empty of any horde of robot helpers.
“Oh. I, ah, I see your reinforcements didn’t come with you.”
A ripple of disappointment passed along the robots’ ranks.
“Well … I’m sure you tried…” said R-54KG.
Metal feet shuffled throughout the site. The construction robots eyed Dash. A couple lifted their hands to make helpless, reassuring gestures. “You shouldn’t be downhearted,” said R-54KG. “After all, getting that many robots to come and help us, it had to be quite difficult … and no one could blame you, I mean, if you couldn’t … quite…”
He looked up.
The hover sleds had started to arrive.
* * *
“It was so much bigger than I imagined,” Nola was saying. “And it just sailed right up into the sky … what was it, anyhow?”
Harry Roy and Albert King were sizing up Pitt’s robots. Harry’s man Davies was investigating the big platform that had propelled the Projectile into the air. King’s robots were lined up in front of the fleet of hover sleds; they were exchanging curious looks with the robots in the construction crew.
“You did bring them, Plumber! You really did!”
R-54KG was practically glowing. Well, of course some parts of him always glowed; but at the moment his whole face seemed lit up by happiness.
“I’m so sorry that we doubted you. Of course, now, it may be a little, ah, late.…”
He turned to his crew. They all shook their heads on swiveling necks. Oh, no: the Plumber had come through, no matter the circumstances. The Plumber had proved himself, so far as they were concerned.
One very damaged robot dragged itself forward and started to apologize for something Dash didn’t quite understand, until he realized which robot it was. “Oh, no, my fault completely,” Dash babbled. “I’m real sorry about what happened to you, really I am. It was … well, I just didn’t know.…”
Mr. King came to his rescue. “As soon as these matters are settled, friend, we’ll see that you’re repaired. To like-new condition, I promise. But can someone please explain to us what … just … happened?”
R-54KG tried to tell him, but before he could get started Abner Perkins pushed forward and screamed, “He’s thrown them all into the MOON!”
Into the silence R-54KG said, “Well, in essence, yes.”
* * *
Pitt’s projectile had been aimed not at the sky, but at a particular place in the sky: the place where, in about sixteen hours’ time, the Moon was going to be.
“Marius Crater, to be precise,” said R-54KG. “It is riddled with tunnels and ancient lava tubes. The humans should be able to find a way to survive there underground, with the help of the supplies we loaded into the Projectile.”
“Yeah,” Dash said. “I know the place. But there’s people there already.”
“Really?” R-54KG was astonished. “The Projectile’s arrival may be inconvenient for them.”
“You know, it’s already inconvenient for the I-don’t-know-how-many-million people that are locked up in that thing,” said Harry Roy. “We’ve got to get them back here.”
Dash was frowning.
R-54KG took a step back. “Get them back? But we just…”
“It can be done,” said someone in the crowd. “It’s not easy, I don’t mind saying, but it can be done.”
They all found themselves looking at Abner Perkins.
“Of course, your central problem is all that mass. And inertia. Inertrium cancels the effects of gravity, as anybody knows, but your inertia, now, that’s the problem. It’ll take quite a punch to turn that thing around before it hits the Moon, and even then you’ve got to punch in the right direction, if you take my meaning.”
Abner looked around. “Because you don’t want them just flying out into space, I mean. You want them back here.”
“But … once they get here…” Harry mumbled.
“Once they get here, we need to catch them,” Abner finished for him. “And to catch them, we need to build a really big net.”
He looked at R-54KG and Mr. King. “Does anybody know where I can find a really big construction crew?”
* * *
While Abner and R-54KG started on the plans Nola could see that Dash was still frowning.
He looked up. Then he saw Maria.
“How many big, interplanetary rockets could you find in a pinch?” he asked. “’Cause I don’t think mine is gonna do it on its lonesome.”
Maria wasn’t sure. “I mean, they’re out there”—she waved up at the city—“but where, exactly? And who’s going to pilot them? Just about everyone is … gone.”
“Yeah. It’s a problem.”
Abner directed R-54KG to something on his drawing. But he’d overheard, and he said, “We’ll need substantial thrust. I can get you the numbers in a few minutes but I’d estimate that we need at least seven large, industrial rockets … possibly as many as ten.”
“Can we get through to Mrs. Broadvine on your Info-Slate?” Dash asked Nola. “Maybe they can find us some rockets. I just don’t know about the folks who can fly ’em.”
Nola bent over her Slate.
“I can fly one,” Maria said.
She tapped on Nola’s shoulder. “See if there are any other ASAA officers left in the city. We’re trained to fly just about anything.”
“The construction site above us will be an ideal foundation,” Abner was telling the robot foreman. “We just need to place the mounts for the net in a circle around it. But then there’s all that material…”
SATURDAY, 7:35 PM
While Freda worked her way through the Vehicle Registry, Rhonda was trying to contact whatever officers of the ASAA were still on the ground or in the air. The rockets were winning, so far, at a ratio of about three to one.
“Thank you, Freda,” Mrs. Broadvine said. “Naturally we can’t be sure that all those rockets are where we think they are.”
She made a note in her Slate’s sidebar to get Mr. Roy’s team on that.
The other operators were fielding requests from the few Info-Slate users left in the city. With every contact the operators appended a sidebar note to meet at the construction site and report to Mr. Roy. Their voice contact chimes rang out over and over again. The empty city, the launch of the projectile, and the evacuation had left everyone’s nerves a bit overworked. Plenty of people were looking for answers.
Mrs. Broadvine suppressed a smile out of old habit. Then she decided to turn it loose. Why not let her ladies know just how well they were performing?
“Very fine, Vera,” she said. “That should soothe the poor thing. Don’t forget to tell her to make for the construction site.”
Then “Oh, well done, Diane! Three factory workers? Get them down to the site at once!”
Her crack team of switchboard operators kept their faces fixed on their work. But their eyes shifted back and forth in a silent conversation.
Mrs. Broadvine? Is that our Mrs. Broadvine? Did you hear that?
The incredible Mrs. Broadvine called Harry Roy. When he answered, he was holding his Info-Slate upside-down; she badly wanted to rotate her head around to bring his picture right side up.
“We think we’ve located nine large, interplanetary rockets,” she told him, “but we can’t be sure they’re all docked where they ought to be. If you could send some of your—”
Mr. Roy’s eyebrows shot up, which in a moment she understood meant that they’d gone down.
“I’m down to Davies, here,” he said. “You’ve got all the rest of my people over there.”
Mrs. Broadvine looked behind her. Sure enough, all of the Ferriss technicians and accountants were sitting against the back wall, right next to Pitt’s robotic operators.
“Oh, I do apologize,” she told him. “Would it be all right if I…”
“Do what you want with them. Within reason.”
She tried to interpret his expression. Then she slowly rotated her own Info-Slate upside-down.
Harry Roy grunted. “There, that’s better,” he said. “I don’t think you’ve worked all the kinks out of these things yet. You should get this fellow Perkins on it when we’re done here. Really seems to know his business.”
He signed off.
She called the technicians and accountants over. Each one of them got the listed address of one of the interplanetary rockets.
