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only casualty and he can walk well enough with his arm in a cast."
When the officers had all assembled General Natia stepped up to Pere and saluted.
"All present, sir. Everyone is carrying extra rations and water, in case there is trouble in
the return tunnel."
"Yes, of course," Pere said, mentally berating himself for not thinking of these
simple precautions. There had been so much on his mind. It was time to leave.
"Has the mono tunnel been kept open?" he asked the adjutant.
"Two additional minor blockages have occurred, but have been cleared."
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r r
"Very good. Fall in with the others. Attention... right face... forward MARCH." As
his small company tramped out of the room General Pere turned back, goaded by some
anachronistic impulse, and saluted the command post. None of the machines paid the
slightest attention to him. The robot in his chair jabbed a quick finger at some buttons and
ignored him. Feeling slightly foolish he turned quickly and followed the others out.
They were cycling through the multiple sealed doors of the fortress when they met
the robot. It was waiting in the outer compartment and pushed past them as soon as the
door was open. It was a worker, a mechanical of some kind, scratched and covered with
mud: because it had no speech facilities Pere had to question it through the adjutant.
"Find out what has happened," he snapped.
The two robots held a voiceless communion, their radio waves in a direct brain-to-
brain hookup carried thoughts far faster than could any speech.
"The exit tunnel has been blocked," the adjutant said. "The roof is down in many
places and it is beginning to fill with water. The decision has been reached that it cannot
be opened. New falls are occurring all the time."
"Challenge the decision. It is not possible," Pere said. There was a note of
desperation in his voice.
They were through the last door now and in the exit bay. The heat was
overpowering and made intelligent thought almost impossible. Through a red haze Pere
saw bulky digging robots streaming out of the mouth of the exit tunnel, going towards the
entrance valve behind them.
"No change is possible," the adjutant said, a metallic voice of doom. "The tunnel can
not be opened now. It has been found that small machines, very like the heat units, have
penetrated the earth and are collapsing the tunnel. It will be opened after they -"
"Another way! There must be another way out!" Pere's voice was as heat-strained as
his thoughts, yet the robot understood and took it for a command.
"There are emergency exits here that once led to higher levels. My information is
incomplete. I do not know if they have been sealed."
"Show us - we can't stay here."
They were all wearing gloves, so the metal bars of the ladder didn't char their
hands, just burned them. The robot adjutant went first and only his mechanical strength
could have turned the time-sealed wheel that locked the entrance to the older levels. The
humans groped their way behind the adjutant, some falling and failing to rise again.
Colonel Zen must have been the first to be left behind because he only bad the use of one
arm. The heat in the stifling darkness was so great that even the doctor didn't notice when
his patient dropped out. The doctor himself must have gone soon after, because he was no
longer a young man.
General Pere tried to issue orders, and when they were not obeyed he made an
attempt to help the laggards himself. He could not do this and keep up with the others.
When he saw the lights winking out of sight in the dust filled passage ahead, he made the
only decision possible under the circumstances. Not that he was aware of making it, he
was barely conscious at the time and only the will to survive drove him forward. Passing
the straggling survivors he shouldered General Natia aside and took his place behind the
guiding robot.
Pain fought a battle with fatigue and kept them going until they were out of the zone
of terrible heat. Pere had strength enough only to utter the one word command to stop,
drink from his canteen, then fall unconscious to the floor. The others dropped in huddled
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r r
lumps of pain about him. The adjutant stood with untiring machine-patience, waiting for
them to rise.
Moans of agony roused Pere at last and he forced his charred fingers to fumble out
the first aid packs. Burn ointment brought some relief to the five survivors and stimulants
gave them the illusion of strength needed to carry on. General Natia had somehow
managed to stay close behind him through the ordeal, as well as three others. They were
all young and strong, though one was not strong enough. He simply vanished during the
next climb.
Above HQ was a maze of tunnels and rooms, occupied by the base at various times
before the unremitting pressures of the war had driven the controllers even deeper into the
ground. Most of it was collapsed and choked with rubble and no progress was possible. If
the robot had not been with them they would have died. Every detail of the various layers
was impressed in his electronical cortex, since his brain contained the memory of every
other adjutant back to the beginning of the war. They retraced their steps whenever their
way was blocked and found a different direction. Bit by bit they progressed towards the
surface. There was no way to measure time in the darkness; they slept when exhaustion
was too great, then woke up to stumble on. Their food was gone and the water almost [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]