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Title: Slaves to the Metal Horde

Author: Stephen Marlowe

Illustrator: W. E. Terry

Release date: September 20, 2021 [eBook #66351]

Language: English

Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SLAVES TO THE METAL HORDE ***




                 Johnny Hope knew the robot armies had
            been created to serve Man. But war and a plague
            had destroyed civilization, leaving humans as--

                       Slaves To The Metal Horde

                           By Milton Lesser

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
              Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
                               June 1954
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


Johnny Hope backed off warily, retreating toward the sun-dried creek
bed, a jagged brown scar across the parched grassland. He carried
no weapon and as the others closed in about him in a tightening
semi-circle his eyes darted furtively in all directions. But all the
faces were stamped, as from a mold, with uncompromising hostility.

Johnny licked his lips and said, "I want to bury them. Let me bury them
and then I'll go. I promise."

DeReggio, the mayor, brandished his club--which was an old rifle stock
with half the jagged, corroded barrel forming a handle. "Go," he said.
He took a long stride toward Johnny, then changed his mind when the
youth held his ground. "They cannot be buried, Johnny Hope. You know
your parents must be burned as the law dictates."

Blinking sweat from his eyes, Johnny felt the sun scorching down
through the glaring midsummer heat-haze. "It was the last wish of my
father," he said softly, his voice hardly more than a whisper. "That I
should take them forth from the village and bury them with a prayer for
their Christian souls."

"No!" DeReggio bellowed. He was a great-chested man with sloping
shoulders and almost no neck. "We cannot deliver their bodies to you.
We cannot let you come back into Hamilton Village and take them, for
you comforted them in their last hours and are therefore a victim of
the Plague yourself." He pointed with the rifle stock toward the far
hills, purple with distance. "Go."

Johnny shook his head, planting his feet firmly, wiping sweat-dampened
hands on the worn fabric of his denim trousers. Then he held his palms
up and said, "Where? Where is the Plague?"

"You've been contaminated."

Nearly the entire village had gathered behind their mayor now, and the
mutterings were angry. When Johnny began to walk toward them, his
hands outstretched to show no plague scars marked their skin, someone
hurled a stone. Instinctively, Johnny hunched his shoulder and caught
the missile on his collar bone. It jarred him and left an angry red
mark where the capillaries had burst beneath the skin.

Staggering back toward the creek bed, Johnny was felled by a fusillade
of stones. He crouched on all fours at the edge of the dry brown earth,
head spinning, vision blurring with pain. He expected more stones to
usher in the final blackness, but when he could again see clearly,
DeReggio's muscle-corded legs straddled him and the mayor cried,
"Enough! Let Johnny Hope depart with his life." It was a brave gesture
DeReggio had made, approaching within inches of Johnny, whose parents
had been slain by the Plague. But DeReggio and Johnny's father had been
close friends all their lives and had fought together in the last days
of World War III before the Plague brought warfare--and civilization to
an abrupt halt.

Johnny forced himself upright on trembling legs. "I thank you for my
life," he said, "but not for how you treat your dead companion-in-arms."

The color drained from DeReggio's olive-skinned face. "Think what you
will, Johnny. Think it but go while you still can. And remember that
our first concern is with the living. The dead are beyond recall and
the Plague victims can spread carnage in their wake. You know I loved
your father like a brother, and your mother...."

DeReggio and Johnny's dead mother were cousins, had been raised
together under the same roof in the long-gone days before the War.
Except for Johnny himself, the death of his parents could have
disturbed no one more than DeReggio.

"All right," said Johnny. "I'll go." There was a loud sucking in of
breaths--relief--from the crowd. "But first I have this to say. I have
visited the old, ruined cities. I have seen Philadelphia on its river
and once I went north as far as New York, the great stumps of its
buildings coming right down to the water's edge on the island called
Manhattan. I have seen these things and although I am young I tell you
this: we will not return to our greatness unless we strike out boldly
instead of sitting, huddled in fear, at the thought of the Plague."

"It is what his father always said," someone whispered from the edge of
the crowd.

"The Robots will cure the Plague," someone else, a woman, declared.

Johnny laughed and had never heard such a sound before, from his lips
or any others. "The Robots will cure nothing," he said. "Has anyone
here ever seen the Robots?"

The faltering wave of sound from the crowd was in the negative.

"I have seen them," Johnny told his people, with whom he could no
longer live. "My father wanted it that way. He sent me to the cities
and to the mysterious places between the cities, the gleaming,
white-surfaced roads which we use no longer, to see the Robots. And
I tell you this: they will not cure the Plague. If anything they'll
spread it."

       *       *       *       *       *

A hushed silence fell, like a pall, on the assembly. None of them had
ever seen the Robots, but that was because it is not proper for a
mortal to see a deity. "This was the truth my father could not tell you
in his lifetime," Johnny went on. "He knew you would have laughed and
mocked--or worse. In his death I tell it to you for him. Along with his
wish to be interred in the ground, it was his final thought."

DeReggio did not look Johnny squarely in the eye. "I think you had
better go, lad. You have no right to talk like that."

Johnny shrugged, feeling the weight of a knowledge and wisdom beyond
his years. "I am twenty-three," he said. "I was an infant when the War
ended. Yet my father could teach me certain things and other things
I could see for myself because he taught me to be curious and take
nothing for granted. You could learn the same. Someday, perhaps...."

"By the Robots!" DeReggio swore softly, hissing the words almost in
Johnny's ears. "Go before you antagonize them. If they start throwing
things again, I won't be able to save you."

Johnny turned his back and squared his shoulders in a gesture
compounded as much of defiance as contempt. He told DeReggio, "At least
do one thing for me."

"If I can."

"When they are burned, say a prayer. One of the old prayers, if you
remember." Johnny did not wait for an answer. He set forth in long
strides, his sandal-shod feet powdering the sun-baked ridges on the dry
creek bed. He did not once look back over his shoulder, but now, with
the people gone and his pride no longer a barrier, he sobbed softly,
thinking of his parents who had died because they had to venture forth
from Hamilton Village to learn some of the truths which were hidden
from their people, and so had come down with the Plague. Hours later,
as the sun sank toward the western horizon and the heat of the day
became less intense, Johnny heard the distant baying of dogs as the
village hounds picked up his spoor and followed it. As prescribed by
law, Mayor DeReggio was making certain Johnny did not double back to
Hamilton Village.

He was alone in a hostile world which, in twenty years, had seen
civilization come tumbling down like a house of cards in a hurricane.

       *       *       *       *       *

That night, he slept uneasily on the bare ground, the soft-footed
padding of foraging animals all around him under the dark moonless sky.
He awoke with a tremendous hunger and a parching thirst. The latter he
slaked in a swift-gushing stream which flowed clean and cool even in
the heat of midsummer. Presently he came upon a huge black hawk, its
pinions flapping, its talons sunk into the flesh of a dead cottontail
rabbit as it prepared to fly off. Johnny waved his arms and shouted,
frightening the bird of prey which rose without its breakfast, circled
uncertainly, and then wheeled off to the east, a soaring black ghost
graceful as a feather.

Johnny built a fire with brush and dry twigs and ate his meal in
silence, feeling like a scavenger. He drank again from the stream and
began to fashion himself a spear by uprooting a sapling and ripping
off its branches and rubbing its tapering top to a fine point on the
edge of a small flat boulder. He hardened the point in the embers of
his dying fire, hefted the makeshift weapon experimentally, and headed
north in the general direction of New York.

Two days later the joints of his knees and elbows began to stiffen. It
came upon him slowly and he thought it was from too much walking and
not enough food, but when the stiffness spread to ankles, wrist and
neck and giddiness struck him suddenly, he began to suspect the Plague.

It was early afternoon and he sat down at the base of a thick-trunked
oak tree, propping himself against the bole. He hurled his useless
spear away and wondered how long it would take before he sank into
the final coma and death. He ran swollen fingers across his knees and
realized they had puffed to twice their normal size. He could now feel
nothing from his knees down, and it was an effort to move his hands.
A faint purple color suffused his limbs and any doubt he may have
harbored about the Plague vanished.

DeReggio was right. Johnny tried to rise and failed, rolling over
helplessly to lie half in and half out of the cooling shade shed by
the oak. The chills rushed up from his feet, and engulfed him, followed
at once by fever. By the time he began mumbling in delirium, the sun
was going down in the west, casting long red cloud fingers into the
darkening sky.




                              CHAPTER II


Diane darted from the stream with a glad little cry, shaking the water
from her long, tawny hair, the droplets of water sparkling on her
bronzed skin like diamonds, the long, lithe lines of her body clothed
only in the moisture until she found her buckskin shorts and halter
and dressed. Life was comparatively simple and uncomplicated among the
Shining Ones, and she, of all their encampment, remembered no other
way. The others might look back with bitter longing or curse softly and
futilely at the silver patches of skin at elbow and knee which marked
them as survivors of the Plague, but not Diane.

So what if they were shunned by others, by the non-afflicted people
who clung so doggedly to their mean existence in the small villages?
She had but to hunt and fish and evade the bands of roving Robots lest
they conscript her in their services. The only other bane in her life
was Harry Starbuck and she could take care of herself where he was
concerned. She could....

Something stirred in the undergrowth to her left and Diane could barely
make out the flash of skin which said it was a man and not an animal.
She finished fastening her halter as if she had seen or heard nothing,
then abruptly picked up her hunting knife and said, "I hear you in
there. I'll count three and then come in after you."

She did not have to count. The bushes parted and Harry Starbuck
emerged, his skin scratched by brambles, his boyish face ridiculously
out of place atop an over-muscled body, his knees and elbows covered by
buckskin guards, an affectation common among the Shining Ones but which
Diane had always thought as silly as wearing eye patches because you
did not like the color of your eyes.

"You were watching me," Diane said angrily. "I warned you before,
Harry."

"There's no law," he boomed sullenly, his deep voice belonging to the
over-developed body and not the boyish face. "I can go where I want to."

Diane slapped the flat of her knife against her palm slowly. "Someday,"
she predicted, "this blade is going to feast on Starbuck. I mean that."

Starbuck roared his laughter. "Then I'll be careful," he promised.
"But meanwhile, you realize you can't marry anyone but a Shining One,
and who of our people suits you more than...."

"None of them suit me."

"You're young. You have no family, no close friends to protect you. I
should take you...."

Diane shrugged, then regretted it as Starbuck's small eyes feasted
hungrily on the smooth play of muscle beneath the taut, bronzed skin.
"Then go ahead, Harry. But you won't sleep nights, because I'll be
waiting and if you do sleep you can forget all about waking up. I mean
that, too."

Starbuck was still laughing. "I've half a mind to turn you over to the
Robots and let them tame you a little before I claim what I want."

Diane let her voice do the shrugging. "You can always try."

"Must we always argue?" Starbuck demanded abruptly, petulance drawing
down the corners of his lips. "I don't want to fight with you. I want
to...."

"I know what you want. You can forget it. I'm going to take a walk and
maybe do some hunting. If you'll excuse me."

"With a knife."

"I'm not hunting for wild horses."

"I think I'll go with you."

Diane scowled at him, then girdled her knife. "As you wish, but be
quiet."

Grinning, Starbuck shortened his strides and matched her pace as she
cut away from the stream and the undergrowth and headed toward the
foothills of the Pocono Mountains in the distance, where plump, juicy
rabbits hid behind every blade of grass.

       *       *       *       *       *

They walked in silence, the man's steps ponderous, the girl's so quick
and lithe her bare feet hardly seemed to touch the ground. In an hour
they had reached another stream, wider than the first and running deep
with swift, cool water. Diane immediately dived in and swam, then
continued walking on the other side while Starbuck carefully searched
out a ford and splashed across with the water up to his waist. By the
time he overtook Diane she was crouching, sitting on her bare heels,
the line of her back, damp under the buckskins, a long, graceful curve.

"Take a look at this," she said, and pointed.

Starbuck looked and saw the remains of a camp fire at her feet. "Warm?"
he asked.

Diane shook her head. "But not completely cold. Several hours old.
Probably made this morning. Probably there's someone nearby."

"So what?"

"So if he's alone he's probably a Shining One and...."

"We have enough people in our camp now."

"You always think competitively, Harry. One more man won't hurt your
position in our tribe."

"Well, if he's young and if he ... well, if you...."

"I'm not promised to you or anyone, and don't forget that. Besides, it
doesn't have a thing to do with this." Diane peered expertly at the
ground and soon picked up the stranger's spoor where he had come out
of the stream himself--probably after bathing--and started out on his
day's journey.

"Come on," she said and Starbuck could either forgo her company or
follow her.

He followed.

The spoor became erratic. It wandered in circles, doubled back on
itself, seemed either headed for no goal or incapable of reaching one.
"He must have been hurt somehow," Diane mused. "He can't be very far."

"What are you so curious about?"

"Curious? I don't know. I'm just interested. I--Hello! Up there."

Diane sprinted up a short rise, leaving a surprised Starbuck pounding
along several paces behind her. She found the man lying, face down near
a large oak tree. Although it was comparatively cool, his body was
drenched with perspiration. Diane shook her head sadly at the swollen
joints and purple discolorations.

"They say it's a terrible thing," she told Starbuck as he panted up. "I
don't remember; I was a baby."

Starbuck shuddered. "I remember. Watch out, don't go near him."

"What's the matter with you? We're immune."

Starbuck nodded morosely. "Yes. Immune. But he'll die anyway, so why
don't we...."

"Why don't we take him back with us, that's what. Don't kid me, Harry
Starbuck. You're acting sympathetic only because you think I'll like
that. Well, I happen to feel sorry for this man. I think we'll feel
better if we help him."

"Help him? He's as good as dead."

"Are you dead? You had the Plague. Am I?"

"No, but maybe one out of a hundred live. That isn't much of a chance
for him."

"It's a chance, though. Here, carry him."

"What? Who, me? Now listen, Diane...."

Maybe a moon-struck Starbuck had his advantages. "Suit yourself, but
don't expect me to speak to you again, ever."

Starbuck considered this, then mumbled something under his breath which
Diane could not hear. "All right," he said finally. "But I'm telling
you it's a waste of time."

"I'll be the judge of that."

       *       *       *       *       *

Still grumbling, Starbuck picked the man up by one arm and one leg,
staggered until he balanced his burden across one shoulder, then
started back down toward the stream.

"That's right," said Diane. "We could reach camp in a few hours if we
hurry."

"He'll never live through the day," said Starbuck. "I only had the
Plague a few years ago. I lived in the villages, so I know. He'll never
live through the day."

"Just keep walking. If he dies, we can bury him."

By the time they reached the stream again, Starbuck was covered with
sweat. He forded the water carefully, Diane behind him to keep the
stricken man's head above water. Despite its fever-flush, she liked the
man's face. He was young, not much older than Diane herself, with dark
hair and regular features, neither too boyish like Starbuck's, nor too
craggy like most of the older men she knew.

Occasionally the man would mutter something unintelligible, and when
they got to the other side of the stream he opened his eyes, stared at
Diane without seeing her and said in a croaking whisper, "Water."

They stopped. Starbuck dropped his burden thankfully. "I can't carry
him all the way back," he said.

"Then don't. Go ahead. I'll stay here." Diane cupped some water in
her hand, trickled it between the dry lips. She was not even aware of
Starbuck when he left.

She made a bed of leaves for the man's head and studied him. The denim
trousers suggested village life, but she never suspected otherwise. The
face still appealed to her, strong in appearance despite the fever,
yet not overbearing. She hoped the youth would recover. "This is
fantastic," Diane said aloud. "It may take days before he recovers ...
or dies." She thought of calling to Starbuck before he retreated beyond
earshot, but her pride forbade that.

Shrugging and making herself as comfortable as she could, she bathed
the man's flushed face with water.

       *       *       *       *       *

Day and night, the touch of the ground, the cool water which bathed
him, the patient hands which kept the blood flowing through his swollen
joints--all became as unreal to Johnny Hope as the shadowy remembrance
of some half-forgotten nightmare. His lucid moments were few: there
was this person, face unseen but comforting; there was a little food
and all the water he wanted; and there was the fever which came and
departed, leaving an icy chill behind.

Once Johnny mumbled, "Go away. You'll catch it yourself." And there was
laughter, soft-murmuring, feminine, he thought. Was the woman insane to
expose herself so?

The fever retreated stubbornly, in no great hurry to depart. The lucid
moments became more frequent and of longer duration. The girl was
beautiful.

There came a time when Johnny sat up weakly, his back propped against
the bole of a tree. The face smiled at him. He willed the toes of his
left foot to move and watched them wiggle. He could just barely feel
them.

With long, easy strokes, the girl massaged his legs. Acutely conscious
of her now, Johnny was embarrassed. "I'm all right," he said. He
struggled to sit up but as yet had no real control over his limbs.

The girl placed the flat of her palm against his chest and pushed
gently, easing him back against the tree. "You stay still," she told
him. "You'll be up and around in a day or so, but don't hurry things."

"I ought to thank you. You're crazy. Why did you expose yourself like
this? Why...."

He watched her as she sat before him and drew her legs up, knees thrust
up. He saw the slim bronzed line of her calves and the metallic silver
of knees.

"A Shining One!" he cried, recoiling involuntarily. The Shining Ones
had survived the Plague, but remained carriers of it for all their days.

The girl smiled at him. "As are you. You're a very lucky young man to
live through this."

The silver coated his own knees, Johnny saw, and his elbows. It would
take some adjustment. All his life he had been told to walk in fear of
the Shining Ones, who often swept down on the villages, forcing the
townsfolk to flee or face the Plague, and taking what they wanted of
the stores of food and supplies.

"I see you're a little afraid of yourself. It's common enough. I was
lucky to have the Plague as an infant. I remember no other life, you
see. When you're well and strong enough to walk, I'll take you back to
our encampment."

"I don't know," Johnny said doubtfully.

"Just be patient with yourself. Adjustment will come."

"All my life they said the Shining Ones were monsters. When I was
a little boy I had to be good because my mother said otherwise the
Shining Ones would come and get me, carrying me off to kill me with the
Plague."

"You've had the Plague yourself. You've got to remember that. Besides,"
the girl laughed easily, "you're a big boy now to believe in bogey men."

"Well," Johnny continued stubbornly, "there are other things. The
Shining Ones are scavengers. They don't work themselves or grow their
own crops. Instead they invade the peaceful villages. Then the natives,
my people, have to flee or become contaminated. The Shining Ones take
all the loot they want."

"Some of us. I have been a Shining One all my life but have never
taken part in such a raid. We do not grow crops because we are not an
agricultural people. We are nomadic and hunters."

"Why?"

"The Robots," the girl told him. "Some of our people join them
voluntarily, many others are forced into bondage. If we don't keep on
the move, they'll find us. Agriculture is an impossible art when your
encampment is always on the move."

It gave Johnny food for thought, and something of the girl's own
frankness made him do his thinking aloud. "If I remain alone, I'll
be a hermit. I've seen the hermit Shining Ones wandering through the
hills, alone and friendless, wild men. If I go with you, I become
almost an enemy of my own people."

"They are no longer your people. You must realize that."

"And if I go with you, I can learn about the Robots and perhaps one
day bring the truth back to my people. Tell me, do the Robots cure the
Plague or spread it?"

"They spread it."

Johnny smiled grimly. "I will go with you."

       *       *       *       *       *

Two days and half a dozen good meals later, the girl helped him to
his feet and nursed him along for his first few uncertain steps. But
strength flowed back into his legs rapidly. He was walking without
support by the time they reached the wide stream and saw the girl's nod
of silent approval as he swam across it with her, matching swift stroke
for stroke.

An hour went by and Johnny became amazed at the speed of his recovery.
He almost wanted to return to Hamilton Village and shout, "See? I
survived. I'm back." But he was a Shining One, a carrier, forever an
exile from the people and the life he knew. And his own parents were
dead, mute testimony of the havoc he might wreak among his people if
he returned to them.

They walked from the stream and shook the water from themselves and
looked at each other, wet like that, and smiled. "I don't even know
your name," said Johnny.

"It's Diane."

"I'm Johnny Hope. I want to--"

"Johnny! Get down!"

He stood there, surprised, staring foolishly. They were on a small rise
of ground above the stream. The girl, who had fallen flat even as she
hissed the command at him, was tugging at his legs. He dropped prone
beside her, although he still failed to see the reason for her sudden
alarm. She parted the undergrowth in front of them with her hands and
said the one word, "Look."

Johnny had never seen the Robots this close before. For all their
ungainly bulk they trod the ground softly, walking as he had always
seen them at greater distances, in a long, single file column. They
were huge antenna-topped creatures, their great cylindrical head
sections bigger than a man and gleaming a polished silver-blue, their
eyes, four of them evenly spaced around the cylinder a foot or so below
the antenna, white and bulging, with neither pupil nor lid, their
limbs many-jointed and metallic, various tool-ends fastened securely
instead of hands. The legs were attached to the small body, but one
fifth the size of the head; the arms came from the head itself, just
below the unblinking eyes.

"They must be twelve feet tall," Johnny whispered.

"Shh! Softly. We're close to our encampment and I don't want them to
find us. They average twelve feet, Johnny."

       *       *       *       *       *

Johnny would never forget the sight. Many times he had watched the
robots parading in thin-lined silence down the long, silent roads
which men no longer used, but now he could have almost reached out and
touched them. The absolute quiet was unnerving. The Robots must have
weighed close to a ton each but walked with the stillness of stalking
jungle cats.

"Where are they going, Diane?"

"I don't know. Who understands the ways of Robots? Who can say...."
Abruptly, Diane was still. Her eyes went big and wide but she wasn't
watching the Robots.

Directly in front of her face and staring at her from unblinking eyes,
its body half-coiled and dappled with the sunlight which filtered down
through the foliage, was a copperhead. The tongue darted out in a
quick, blurring red streak, the head cleared the loose coils and swayed
slightly from side to side.

"Don't move," Johnny barely formed the words with his lips and hoped
Diane would retain her presence of mind and obey him. A sudden motion
would set the snake to striking.

The file of robots paraded by just in front of them, an occasional
joint creaking, metal skins polished to keen reflection. The copperhead
was fully coiled now, head cocked flat and ugly and perfectly still.
Johnny placed his hand on Diane's thigh and let it crawl upwards, as if
of its own volition, with an agonizing lack of speed. Now his fingers
had reached the edge of the buckskin shorts and now they climbed on the
smooth pelt. He could feel Diane trembling faintly, the motion unseen
but felt. And now his fingers climbed to the girdling belt, grasped the
haft of the hunting knife, slowly withdrew it, tiny fraction of an inch
at a time.

At last he had drawn the knife clear, easing it slowly toward his own
body. He balanced it on his palm, trying to judge the weight. He would
have only one chance, for the quick motion of his arm would make the
copperhead strike if he missed.

Sweat rolled down his forehead and into his eyes, half blinding him.
He cursed soundlessly, held his hand out flat, squinted, whipped it
forward. A sigh escaped Diane's lips.

There was an angry thrashing as the copperhead uncoiled. But the
blade had pinned it to the ground, piercing the body just below the
flat head. Ignoring the column of Robots now, Johnny crawled forward
swiftly, grasped the knife and drew it cleanly toward him. The head was
severed from the body. The body thrashed furiously, then lay still in
death. The Robots marched on, oblivious of the drama which had unfolded
at their metal-clawed feet.

The last Robot glided by, the long line retreated into the woodland,
vanished.

Diane stood up, still trembling. "It took me three days to save your
life," she said. "You saved mine in seconds."

Johnny handed her the knife. "Let's find your people," he said.




                              CHAPTER III


It was Harry Starbuck who met them when they emerged from a long,
winding defile overgrown with vegetation. The defile opened into a
depression, perhaps half a mile wide, surrounded on all sides by low
hills, steep-sloped and blue green with pine. Unless the Robots
happened upon the almost hidden defile, Diane's Shining Ones could not
have selected a better hiding place for their present encampment.

Starbuck greeted Diane with, "In this case you had more luck than
brains. I see he has survived."

"He's one of us now."

When she said that, Johnny looked down at his silver knees
self-consciously. In time, he hoped, he would grow accustomed to it.
But right now he felt himself somehow between two worlds, divorced from
his own people but not ready to accept the nomadic existence of the
Shining Ones.

Starbuck grinned without humor. "Well, then he's in time to help us
move, although I'm opposed to it."

"To what?" Diane demanded angrily. "To Johnny? That's just too bad."

"Will you let me finish? Not to Johnny, if that's his name. To the
move. Keleher has decided we have to move because a band of Robots
trooped through earlier today. Maybe you saw them."

"We certainly did," Diane informed him.

"Well, I don't like it. Every time the Robots pass we have to start all
over. What's so bad about the Robots anyway? They never bother us, do
they?"

"They conscript us, whether we like it or not."

"Well, what of it? Rumor has it the conscriptees live like kings
anyhow. We've got nothing to fear from the Robots."

"That's a matter of opinion, Harry."

At that moment, another man joined them. Johnny hardly had time to
realize that he did not like the man named Harry. The newcomer was a
big man, bigger than DeReggio, with huge shoulders almost three feet
across and a long mane of graying hair almost reaching them. He wore a
beard, spade-shaped and also gray, and covered his legs not with the
expected buckskin but with khaki trousers he had probably stolen from
one of the villages.

He greeted Diane briefly, then said, "Starbuck here told me how you
were going to nurse a Plague victim back to health. Is this the man?"

Diane nodded and Keleher stuck out a powerful hand which Johnny pumped
vigorously. "Glad to have you with us, son. In time you'll learn we're
not the monsters you were led to believe all your life. But mark
me--you owe your allegiance to us henceforth--provided you decide to
stay." Johnny did not have to be introduced. Starbuck had mentioned a
man named Keleher as their leader, and the newcomer spoke not with the
bluster and arrogance of a leader unsure of his position, but with
the calm self-assurance of a respected and powerful chieftain. Keleher
would make a first-rate friend but a terrible enemy.

"He'll stay," Diane spoke for Johnny. "He doesn't look like a hermit,
does he?"

"Never can tell. Where are you from, son?"

"Hamilton Village."

Keleher's smile was wry, almost rueful. "Will you put in with us?"

"I guess so."

Keleher shrugged, then took Diane aside and whispered to her. After
that the big man turned and walked away. Diane was quiet.

"What's the matter?" Johnny wanted to know. "Does he always smile like
that?"

"No, Johnny."

"Then tell me."

"We're going to leave this area because of the Robots. Starbuck already
told you that. We're going to travel light but we're still going to
restock some of our supplies for the journey."

"I still don't see--"

"I don't know how to tell you this. The nearest village is Hamilton."

"So?"

"So we're going to raid it. We're going to raid your village, Johnny."

       *       *       *       *       *

Starbuck's laughter carried through the entire encampment of conical
tents, each flying its clan-standard from the central ridge pole.

Johnny wanted to hit the man, then realized he would be striking out
at his own mixed up emotions. Diane was staring at him with genuine
sympathy, but that hardly helped. She said, "What are you going to do,
Johnny?"

"I'm not sure yet. I have to think."

"Remember, you're one of us now. Any time you doubt that, look at your
knees or elbows. You are a Shining One, make no mistake."

"Yes, a Shining One." But Hamilton Village had been his home.

"We don't harm anyone," Diane explained. "I told you I take no part in
the raids. I don't know why, for they're harmless."

"I saw one once, when I was a young boy. Before my people came to
Hamilton Village to build their homes. The Shining Ones came down from
the hills and simply walked into the village. There was no resistance.
Our sentries gave us warning, but it hardly helped. We packed what we
could and fled, leaving most of our supplies and equipment behind,
leaving an entire village which we had called home but which we could
never see again. The Shining Ones contaminate."

"Yes--we do. You do. The villagers can't fight us. We could walk down
there unarmed and take what we want. Maybe that's why I prefer to hunt
instead. I'm not sure, Johnny. What are _you_ going to do?" She took
his hand impulsively in hers and squeezed it. They hardly knew each
other but they had saved each other's life.

"I wish I knew." He withdrew his hand awkwardly. He liked Diane,
perhaps too much. But until he made up his mind she was a potential
enemy.

Soon Keleher returned to them, not alone this time. A dozen men crowded
behind him and others were leaving the tents of the various clans to
join them. "Did you tell me his name?" Keleher asked Diane.

"No. He's Johnny Hope."

"Well, Hope, get a good meal under your belt and we're off. We leave
for Hamilton Village later this afternoon. You ought to be able to tell
us exactly where to find whatever we want once we get there."

Could a man change his allegiance overnight because he now was
different physically? Johnny's heart was still in Hamilton, even if he
had been stoned from the Village and his parents had been burned, as
prescribed by law. But the rest of his life he would be a Shining One.

For a time he watched while Diane fixed his venison dinner, savoring
the rich, gamey aroma. Then he slipped silently from the encampment.

       *       *       *       *       *

Often DeReggio would come to the large boulder half a mile north of
Hamilton Village and sun himself contentedly, forgetting for the time
at least the problems of his office. This rock was no secret. Any
villager, not finding DeReggio in Hamilton itself, would know where to
look for him.

Now he had almost drifted off into slumber. He always found this
half-awake time most pleasant for dreaming. Then he could conjure
visions of the old days, of the lost cities with the beat of their
traffic pulse and the winking kaleidoscope of their electric lights,
and the driving madness of their people which kept them seething with
activity around the clock. He never traveled to the deserted cities
himself as youngsters like Johnny Hope did, because their crumbling
masonry and bomb-scarred streets saddened him. And besides, the Robots
had taken over many of the cities and since no one had ever bothered to
tabulate them, you were never sure when a city was deserted and when it
was not. Better to dream of the old days....

"DeReggio! Wake up."

It was Sheldon Hope, his old comrade-in-arms, who had fought halfway
across a world with him while civilization crumbled to ruin all about
them.

"Shel ... Shell, boy."

"Wake up, DeReggio. It's Johnny Hope."

DeReggio sat bolt-upright, circles of light floating on blackness
before his eyes from too much sun. "Johnny! Go away. They'll kill you
if they find you here. Are you crazy? Keep away from me." DeReggio
stood up and backed off, watching Johnny. "You have no business coming
here. You--"

DeReggio saw the shining knees, the silver elbows. "The Plague. You
survived it. You're a--"

"Shining One," Johnny finished for him as the mayor's voice trailed off.

"A carrier, that's even worse."

"I was hoping I would find you here. I knew I couldn't go down into
Hamilton. You haven't much time."

"What are you talking about?"

"Shining Ones," Johnny said quickly. "Hundreds of them coming to raid
Hamilton Village. They are on their way now. You'll have to leave,
but I thought if I warned you you could have some time to take your
belongings."

       *       *       *       *       *

DeReggio accepted the fact without question but with sadness. He shook
his head from side to side, thinking of the neatly laid out streets,
the small, compact bungalows, the field planted with hay for the
cattle, with grain, asparagus, beans and tall corn waving green in the
summer sun, ready for harvest.

"How much time do we have?"

"Four or five hours, I think."

"We'll have to hurry." DeReggio was already trotting back down the
trail toward Hamilton, Johnny maintaining the pace with him but hanging
back half a dozen long strides.

"I want to see the village once more, then I'll go."

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. The Shining Ones want me to stay with them, but I had to
warn you. If they find out...."

"For my people, I thank you, Johnny."

First person plural. My people. Johnny no longer was included. If the
Shining Ones discovered his treachery, he would indeed be homeless. He
wondered what Diane would think.

"Look at the Village and then go, Johnny. If they find you, I won't be
able to do a thing. And I wanted to tell you, I said the prayer."

A figure appeared on the path up ahead. As he came closer the man's
face was familiar, but his name eluded Johnny. "Mayor DeReggio!" he
called. "I wanted to tell you my wife thinks...." His voice trailed
off. He scuffed his feet in the dust of the path and squinted. "Johnny
Hope!" he cried. "By the Robots, keep away. I have a wife and children."

"I only wanted to see Hamilton once more."

"We don't care what you wanted."

"He brought a warning," Mayor DeReggio explained. "The Shining Ones are
coming."

The man held his distance, but spat on the ground in disgust. "Look at
him? You heed his warning? Look. He's a Shining One himself. It's some
kind of a trick you've fallen for."

DeReggio shrugged hopelessly. "You'll have to go, Johnny."

Already the man was sprinting back down the path toward Hamilton. "I'll
bring some of my friends," he called back over his shoulder. "We'll see
about this. We'll see if a damned Shining One can go parading around
Hamilton Village any time he wants. And you've got some explaining to
do, DeReggio."

Then the man was gone. DeReggio turned to Johnny, almost shaking hands
with him from force of habit, then drawing away in self-conscious
confusion. "Good luck, boy. We'll be moving, despite what Lawford
said. Don't try to follow us."

"I hope I haven't got you into any trouble."

"It won't be the first time."

"Thanks for the prayer. They would have liked that."

When DeReggio looked up, Johnny Hope had vanished into the woods.

       *       *       *       *       *

Starbuck led one party of Shining Ones toward Hamilton from the north
while Keleher took the main band in from the east. They never reached
the Village though. Each leader saw the black pall of smoke rising long
before he reached Hamilton. Each knew the Village had been put to the
torch.

They met on high ground north-east of the flaming town and watched the
fire, fanned by a strong summer wind, burn itself to embers and leave
the charred skeleton of a village behind it.

"They got word," Starbuck said, waiting for Keleher to draw his own
conclusions.

"It's happened before, but now--has anybody seen the new man, Johnny
Hope?"

None of their followers had even heard of him.

"Diane would know," Starbuck suggested.

"She rarely joins our raiding parties." And Keleher checked, but as
he suspected, Diane was not present. "Well, we move on empty handed.
Starbuck, you take your men back to the encampment and round up
stragglers or anyone who remained behind. We'll wait here."

"You're as bad as the people of Hamilton. Always on the run. I don't
mean to argue, but--"

"Then don't. Men who want to be conscripted by the Robots are free to
leave our encampment at any time, get that straight. But I don't want
forced conscription of all of us, Starbuck. Understand? The Robots are
around."

"Well, I was just letting you know how I felt. What about Johnny Hope?"

"Time enough to see about him later, if he's still with the encampment.
Naturally, if he's guilty he won't go unpunished."

"_If_ he's guilty?"

"That's what I said."

"You're growing soft, Keleher."

"Yes? We don't elect our leaders, Starbuck. Any time you think you want
the job, you can try to take it."

Starbuck blanched. "I didn't mean it that way. I was only giving my
opinion."

"Don't, unless you're prepared to defend it--and yourself."

"I'm sorry." But Starbuck's eyes were smouldering.

"Get back to the encampment, then. I'll expect you here with the
rest of our people day after tomorrow. Can't make up your mind where
you belong, can you?" Keleher pointed with amusement to the buckskin
kneepads.

"I know you're trying to goad me," Starbuck whined.

"Maybe."

"You don't like me."

"As a type, Starbuck. Personally, I'm indifferent."

That was goading of a more subtle sort, but it was lost on Starbuck.
Diane's indifference would irk him; Keleher's indifference was at times
preferable. "We ought to be friends," Starbuck boomed. "I'm generally
recognized as your second in command."

"Only because I want it that way. Amos Westler, for example has
forgotten more than you will ever learn."

"That's clever," declared Starbuck. "That's expert. You play us off one
against another and keep the power for yourself."

Keleher shrugged massive shoulders. "It wasn't original with me. But
you're unusually perceptive today, Starbuck. And I'll say this: you've
got more spunk than Westler, for all his brains."

"He's soft."

"You bring our people. I'll wait. Tell your men that since they have to
pack our tents and cart our belongings, they'll be able to rest when
we reach our new encampment. My group will set the place up."

"He ought to be a hermit, that Amos Westler."

Keleher shook his head. "Too scholarly. No outdoor know-how. Give him
a book and he's happy. He wouldn't last a week. But he's still a good
man, Starbuck. We need men like Amos Westler."

"And we need men like me."

Keleher grinned. "You should have let me say that. Trouble with you is
you try to ape me. I'm always a step ahead of you, though. And don't
forget it."

"Maybe someday I'll catch up."

"That would be interesting," admitted Keleher, dismissing Starbuck with
a shrug and issuing instructions as his men began to assemble their
bivouac.

Starbuck sensed he had been bested in the verbal battle, but was too
petulantly egotistical to admit it even to himself. Instead, he made
plans for his return to the encampment. He hoped the new Shining One,
that Johnny Hope kid who Diane had nursed back to health, would be
foolish enough to return. Without Keleher around to steal the show,
Starbuck might make himself a hero.

       *       *       *       *       *

If it weren't for the tawny-haired girl who had saved his life, Johnny
Hope never would have returned to the encampment of the Shining Ones.
He left DeReggio with the intention of again heading north toward New
York, but his way led him close by the encampment and he remembered the
sudden touch of the girl's hand and before that the vision of her face,
lovely and comforting, while he burned with the fever. Calling himself
a fool, he entered the encampment warily, half-expecting a dozen men to
leap at him with the word traitor on their lips.

But the camp was almost deserted and no one paid him any heed. He found
Diane returning from the hunt with a small deer, its antlers not yet
branching, slung across her shoulders. She dropped the dead animal with
a happy shout and ran to Johnny.

"I'm so glad you're back."

"I'm glad to see you, too."

Then the smile left her face. "Did you--warn them?"

Johnny considered his answer. Well, he had returned because he wanted
to see the girl. It would be senseless if he were not honest with her.
"I had to," he said.

She nodded slowly. "It isn't hard for me to understand. They were your
people. But tell me, does anyone know?"

"I'm not sure. When they find the village deserted and probably burned,
though, they'll know."

"Yes," Diane agreed with him, then snapped her fingers. "But not if I
say you were with me all the time. See, you even went out hunting with
me. We caught this fawn together."

"You'd be lying to protect me. You may get yourself into trouble."

"How? It's my word against a lot of guessing."

"I can't let you take the chance."

"It's no chance at all. I want to do it. I want you to be one of us,
Johnny. We all don't raid the villages. I don't raid them, do I?"

"No, but I--"

"But nothing. You came back here, didn't you? No one forced you."

"I came back to see you, I guess."

"Well, you're going to stay with us. A man wasn't meant to live alone
like a hermit. Here." Diane took his hand and led him forward, "you can
stay in my tent for now. It would be silly to build yourself one since
we're going to move the encampment as soon as Keleher returns from the
raid."

"I can't--I mean--"

"Can't, nothing. I'm a good girl, Johnny Hope. Make no mistakes. Touch
me at night and I'll scream. But I trust you. I like you."

Her frankness was both charming and unnerving. He wanted to say he
liked her too, but could not bring himself to utter the words. Instead
he slipped his arm about her waist and walked with her to the tent,
where she skinned the fawn expertly and prepared it for cooking. By
then Johnny was sound asleep and did not wake up until Diane stirred
him and offered him a platter of tender young venison.

       *       *       *       *       *

Shortly after noon the next day, Starbuck returned with his men. Those
who had remained behind were disappointed because the raiding party
had come back empty-handed. Starbuck wasted no time adding fuel to the
fire. "Has anyone seen that traitor, Johnny Hope?" he demanded.

"You mean the new man, the one Diane brought?" someone asked him. "He's
here."

"The ingrate, the dirty ingrate," Starbuck boomed so all the encampment
heard him. "One of us saved his life and first chance he gets he turns
traitor. Next thing you know he'll want us to be conscripted by the
Robots."

"You should talk," Diane cried as she and Johnny emerged from her tent.
"You're always talking about how nice it would be to live with the
Robots. Johnny Hope isn't like that at all."

Starbuck raised a finger to his lips and whispered, "Keep it quiet. If
they hear about this, they'll lynch Johnny."

"All of a sudden you want to keep it quiet," Diane hissed at him.

"That's right, softly."

"Well, for your information, Johnny was with me all along. We went
hunting yesterday, just the two of us. Didn't we, Johnny?"

Johnny mumbled something under his breath and waited for Starbuck to
speak. Suddenly the man was shouting again. He slapped Diane on the
shoulder, smiled, roared: "Thank you, Diane, thank you. I thought so.
Did you all hear her? Diane told me she saw this man sneak off to warn
Hamilton Village yesterday."

"That's a rotten lie!" Diane cried.

But Starbuck smiled blandly. "That's all right. I know you didn't want
him to know you told me, but there's nothing to worry about. You all
heard her, didn't you?"

"We heard her whispering something to you," one of the men admitted.

"She whispered because she didn't want the traitor to hear. She was
afraid. She should have known we'd protect her. I'm surprised at you,
Diane."

For answer, she flew at him with her knife. He laughed softly, so
softly that only she heard it. A shocked look appeared on his face as
he parried the blow, twisted her arm up, spun her around and held her
that way while she writhed helplessly and dropped the knife to the
ground. "I don't know what's the matter with you," he said. He still
looked shocked.

"That should be proof enough," she panted. "I never told Starbuck what
he claims."

"If you're covering up I can only assume you went with him. I am deeply
shocked."

"I did not go with him. I was hunting."

"Then you admit he went!"

"I didn't admit anything. You are hurting me."

Starbuck's big hand had twisted her wrist painfully. He gave no
indication of letting her go.

"She said you're hurting her," Johnny snarled. "Let her go!"

"I'm all right," Diane said.

Starbuck was going to let her go, but Johnny did not wait. He circled
Starbuck's arm with his hand and wrenched until the bigger man bellowed
and released Diane.

"Good," Johnny said. "I have no fight with you, but--" He had turned to
look at Diane when Starbuck's balled fist slammed against the side of
his jaw, knocking him down.

       *       *       *       *       *

He sat there dazed, uncomprehending because he had not seen the blow
coming. But Starbuck stood above him, fists clenched, and that was
enough to tell him. "I still have no fight with you," Johnny said
softly. He thought he could have taken the bigger man and at this
moment could think of nothing he would rather do, but Starbuck had
already accused Diane of being his accomplice and he did not want to
involve the girl further. He hoped Starbuck would be content to boast
about this one-punch victory instead.

"Scared?" Starbuck leered down at him, prodding his ribs with one foot.

"Get up and punch his teeth in," Diane pleaded.

But Johnny remained sitting on the ground, and shook his head. He
explored his jaw gingerly with the fingers of one hand as if the
thought of rising to take more of the same frightened him. His time of
reckoning with Starbuck would come, he promised himself but now wasn't
the time, not when it might involve Diane.

"You're not going to sit there?" Diane insisted. "Don't just sit there!"

Johnny shrugged. "Fighting him won't prove anything." He climbed to
his feet and retreated out of Starbuck's range. He was the picture of
abject cowardice and hoped it would inflate Starbuck's ego sufficiently
to make him forget the charges he had brought against Diane. Starbuck
was smiling smugly and booming something about letting Keleher decide
what to do about Johnny Hope after they moved the encampment. But
when Johnny stalked away from him toward Diane, calling her name,
she presented him only with a stiff, haughty back and by the time he
reached the tent the flap was down and tied securely. Johnny heard
sobbing from within.

A few moments later Starbuck and another man came and led him to a
different tent where he remained under guard until the encampment had
been broken, the tents and equipment packed and ready to move, the
people assembled in the square clearing which now was dotted with
folded tents and bedding rolls.

"Let's move it!" Starbuck roared in his booming voice. The men stooped
for their burdens, the few horses carried three and four times their
normal loads. Starbuck waved the group forward dramatically, aware of
his moment and making the most of it. They marched double-file into
the narrow ravine and were soon well on their way toward where Keleher
waited.




                              CHAPTER IV


63-17-B was twenty years old, but a trip to the repair bays every time
he returned to New York City kept his beryl-steel body gleaming as if
it had rolled but yesterday from the assembly lines. Now 63-17-B could
sense a stiffness in the second joint of his left leg and suspected
corrosion. He was looking forward with keen anticipation to the time,
in the near future, when he would stretch out in the repair bay and
have his worn parts exchanged.

That, however, was not on his primary level of thought. While not
unique with 63-17-B, the secondary level was not universal among
the robots, for the idea of individual sentience had crept into the
original plans only accidentally. On his primary level of thought,
63-17-B was in closer rapport with Central Intelligence than the
three-hundred robots stretched out in a long, sun-reflecting line
behind him. Like Central Intelligence itself, and unlike the few humans
who thought of such things, 63-17-B believed that matter and energy are
not merely components of one another but are actually the same thing.
Thus he explained his greater primary level of thought by saying that
the energy-matter bridge connecting him with Central Intelligence,
invisible but measurable in quanta as was his body, was stronger
than most. On the social level, this gave 63-17-B leadership of the
three-hundred.

Thought-quanta crackled back and forth between 63-17-B and Central
Intelligence in New York and, as on all such occasions, 63-17-B was not
sure how much of the conversation reached the other Robots. "Hamilton
Village is aflame," 63-17-B thought.

"Did you fire it?" The answer was immediate--and angry.

"Certainly not. We arrived too late to prevent it."

"Yet your scouts reported the Village was going to move out. You know
a moving Village may or may not remain together. As often as not, it
separates into small bands, which will spread out and find their way to
distant communities. An ideal means of spreading the Plague, although I
need not remind you of that."

"I am aware--"

"The error is unpardonable, unless the Villagers have not yet fled."

"Unfortunately, they have."

"Then another opportunity slips through our fingers. 63-17-B, upon your
return you are to report to the Intelligence bays for a re-examination
of your rapport synapses."

"But--"

"But nothing." The thought-communication crackled to silence.

63-17-B made the mental equivalent of a sigh. Such re-examinations, he
knew from bitter experience, were shams. Re-shuffling was more like
it. At a whim of Central Intelligence he might become nothing but a
second-class Robot. On the surface, Intelligence would discover a flaw
in his synapses. Actually, Intelligence would produce the flaw and pass
his mantle of leadership down the line to some other Robot.

Sullenly, 63-17-B called a halt. Like all Robots, he was vindictive.
Constructed originally as machines of war, the Robots had had
revenge built into their mind-patterns as a strong factor. Actually,
second-class Robots were not aware of this. The feelings merely existed
and they acted accordingly. But 63-17-B was only too acutely aware: it
pained him. The Robots had never actually functioned as machines of
war, for the War had taken a bacteriological turn before the mechanical
infantry could march off to battle.

The Robots had been stored as useless while disease swept Earth--with
the development of the Plague itself making all further fighting
impossible on an international scale. But the Plague got out of hand,
63-17-B remembered dimly. The slightest contact meant almost certain
contamination and mankind prepared grimly for the end of its brief
dominion over the Earth--until someone thought of the Robots. Let them
cure the Plague; the antidote was known, they merely had to apply it.
63-17-B's memory coils tightened angrily. Until that time, the Robots
had been slighted, although they had waited patiently to serve their
masters. Masters, indeed. 63-17-B recognized the vindictive pattern of
his thoughts for what it was: mankind had had its chance, had failed.
After man, the Robots. It was as simple as that.

But now 63-17-B was seething. He'd been advancing steadily in the
Robot-hierarchy and had even expected himself to be assigned to Central
Intelligence itself before too long. Because the impetuous people
of Hamilton Village had set their city to the torch before he could
arrive, all was lost.

He scanned the surrounding countryside with photo-retinal cells.
Far below, just leaving the edge of the burning town, were a pair
of stragglers--man and woman, he thought, but couldn't be sure at
this distance. Well, revenge on two individuals would be better than
nothing....

Strong hauling ropes were prepared, and now 63-17-B could see the
figures were not two, but three. Since his photo-retinal cells could
not perceive color except as shades of black and white, he had no way
of telling the three figures were not Villagers but Shining Ones.

       *       *       *       *       *

"We're approaching Hamilton Village," said Starbuck over his shoulder
as Diane overtook him at the head of the column to get her first look
at the place. "You can see the flames."

"I thought you said the fire was almost out when you left Keleher and
the others."

"I did, but you can't predict those things. Apparently it has started
again. See?"

They had reached a rise of ground and could see what was left of the
village in a broad valley below them, a great pall of black smoke
rising from it sluggishly. Starbuck saw something else a few miles off
to the north, but said nothing. It was a long, thin column, gleaming
metallically. At this distance he could not be sure, but it looked like
a line of Robots.

"Keleher and the others are close by," Starbuck said mechanically. He
was not thinking of Keleher. The trouble with this group of Shining
Ones was, no one understood Starbuck. Not only were his talents for
leadership unappreciated, he was actually made fun of. He'd been sullen
ever since his mental rebuff at the hands of Keleher. He'd acted
inconsistently. His anger had been a free-floating thing, and he'd very
nearly got Diane in trouble for it.

That was ridiculous. The answer seemed obvious enough: if one is not
appreciated in a particular place, one should go elsewhere. There was
Thomas Burwood, a youngster whose father had been chief before Keleher
and who had been killed by Keleher. Burwood almost certainly would join
Starbuck. And Diane could be taken by force if necessary.

Starbuck put the stocky man named Gilbert in charge of the column and
sought out Burwood. He found the younger man on a fringe of the column,
plodding listlessly along.

"Listen, Tom," said Starbuck in a confidential voice. "We've often
talked about life among the Robots, but we're letting our years fritter
away. What would you do if the opportunity presented itself?"

Like Starbuck himself, Burwood was an over-sized young man given to
fits of temperament. "What's the use?" he said. "You can't just walk
into the Robot Citadel. They would kill you first and ask questions
afterwards."

"No, but you could join Robots in the field. It's done that way most of
the time, since the Robots venture forth either to spread the Plague or
gain conscripts among the Shining Ones." Starbuck whispered in his best
confidential voice, "And, Tom, there's a group of Robots two or three
miles from here right now. What do you say to that?"

"Let me think." Burwood frowned. "I don't know. It's one thing to talk
about it but another to--"

"Keleher didn't give your father a chance to think, did he? Not when
your father was growing old and Keleher knew he could take him. He
killed him, struck him down like an animal, don't forget that, Tom."

"That's true, but--"

"You're worrying about life among the Robots, are you? From every rumor
I've heard, you can live like a king, like the days before World War
III ruined our civilization. What do you say, Tom? An opportunity like
this doesn't often come."

"Well--"

"Of course, if you're afraid ... but I thought you were made of
the same stuff as your father, the only leader I have ever served
faithfully."

"That's enough, Harry!" Young Burwood's voice broke. "I'll go with you."

"I knew you would. You're just like your father, Tom. There's one
thing I want to do first...." The two whispered together for a time,
then Starbuck drifted back toward the rear of the column and permitted
himself to straggle until he was out of sight of the rear guard, first
making arrangements for the prisoner, Johnny Hope, to be taken off the
trail into the woods. Tom Burwood, meanwhile, double-timed up toward
the head of the column.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Diane, I was looking for you."

"Hello, Tom. What is it?"

"Some one wants to see you. Rear of the column."

"Who?" All through their march, Diane had wanted to make her peace with
Johnny Hope, but the opportunity had never presented itself.

"I'm not at liberty to say," Burwood told her slyly, and winked.

"Is it Johnny Hope?"

Burwood smiled affably. "I can't say. Please, Diane. I was only told
to fetch you. It's been arranged temporarily, but he can't remain back
there indefinitely."

"I'm coming. Lead the way," Diane said eagerly, and fell into step
with Burwood. Johnny Hope must have had his reasons for not fighting
with Starbuck. He was not the cowardly type, unless Diane had suddenly
become a bad judge of people. Perhaps he thought, in some strange way,
he was protecting her....

"Where is he, Tom? I don't see anyone."

"A little further."

"But we've already left the column."

"Just around that clump of trees, I think."

Something rustled in the undergrowth. "Johnny?" Diane called
expectantly.

He stepped out into the trail and faced her. It was Harry Starbuck.

"What kind of a joke is this?" Diane demanded angrily, turning to
rejoin the column. "I thought I was coming back here to meet Johnny
Hope."

Burwood laughed easily. "I never said that."

"Well, whatever you're planning you can count me out. Of all the nerve,
bringing me back here like this--"

"Would you like to see Johnny Hope alive?" Starbuck asked in a
conversational tone.

"What do you mean by that?"

"That you had better cooperate with me, Diane. The three of us are
leaving the column now, you, Tom and I. If you don't, I can't guarantee
anything about Johnny Hope."

Diane did not know whether to believe him or not, but would hardly
endanger Johnny Hope's life on a notion. "I'll go with you," she said.

Less than an hour later, they approached the vanguard of the file of
Robots. Burwood and Diane saw them at the same time, contempt filling
Diane's eyes as she began to understand what had been on Starbuck's
mind. Fear was there too, threatening to unnerve her at any moment, but
the scorn she felt for Starbuck prevented it from overpowering her. "Of
all the cheap tricks," she said. "You--you wanted to join the Robots,
but you also wanted me. Johnny Hope was never in any danger. It was all
a lie, to get me here. Well, if you think I'm going with you--" Diane
crouched abruptly, came up with a handful of dry earth and flung it at
Starbuck's face, blinding him. Then she began to run.

"Get her, Burwood!" Starbuck roared. "Don't let her escape."

It wasn't Burwood's fight, but if he had thrown in with Starbuck he
wanted to remain in the man's good graces, at least until he could
figure things out for himself. Besides, his first sight of the Robots
had almost choked him with fear. Chasing Diane would take his mind off
them. He set out after her, aware that a still half-blinded Starbuck
was circling around in another direction.

Diane guessed her best chance for escape would lie along the very edge
of the file of Robots. She did not relish the idea, but she had seen
the look on Burwood's face when the creatures of metal had appeared and
figured he would be loathe to follow her in that direction.

Did the Robots see her? She ran in their direction, her clothing
catching and tearing on the undergrowth. She neared the head of the
file, could hear Burwood stumbling along behind her. The metal figures
stood there, unmoving--watching her? Each one twelve feet tall, they
could have stamped her to death.

       *       *       *       *       *

Behind her, Diane heard a hoarse scream. She whirled instinctively,
lost her footing, fell. One of the Robots had taken Burwood, who was
thrashing and kicking helplessly as it bore him aloft and held him feet
pounding on air, two yards off the ground.

She didn't like Burwood, but she had nothing against him. He screamed
again, his voice breaking.

"Put him down," Diane shouted. She might as well have been talking
to the ingots from which the Robots had been fashioned for all the
heed they paid her. She whirled again, sought Starbuck, couldn't find
him. Starbuck always talked of the Robots, perhaps he knew how to
communicate with them.

Now the Robot had set a trembling Burwood down on the ground. Now a
great noose of rope was drawn about his neck, its other end slung over
the branch of a huge, bare-limbed tree. Now....

Something neither warm nor cold touched Diane, grasped her about the
middle, lifted her. It was a nightmare. It was unreal, not happening
to her. The ground spun giddily, all vision receded behind a wave of
vertigo, then returned, still spinning.

Diane clawed at the metal head, at the hard, unblinking eyes, scraping
uselessly. She might as well try to scrape down the side of a mountain
with her fingernails.

Burwood was hanging.

Feet dangling, arms bound behind him, he twisted and writhed in his
last death agony. Diane shuddered, turning away, striking her head
sharply against the hard metal of the Robot. When her vision cleared
again, she was on the ground, another Robot stalking soundlessly toward
her for all its great bulk, a noose identical to the one from which
Burwood dangled suspended from its metal hand.

But the scene had changed, Diane realized wildly. A great air-ship, a
rocket, had landed midway between the file of Robots and the burning
village. Vaguely, she remembered that Starbuck had once said only
Robots from the Citadel itself used the rockets, since only a few
remained from man's last great War.

Starbuck was nearby, shaking but holding his ground, shouting at
the Robots as if his very life depended on it. And, Diane thought
despairingly, it did.

"Leave her be!" Starbuck cried. "You're making a terrible mistake.
We're not from the village. We're Shining Ones. We're Shining Ones, I
tell you. We came here to join you, to be conscripted. We want to work
for the Robots. See, we're Shining Ones!"

Did they understand? Diane couldn't tell. The Robots with the noose
reached down and grabbed her, drawing her aloft again. She wanted to
scream, but all her energy could bring forth only a whimper. She wanted
to shut her eyes tightly and wake up, trembling but otherwise all
right, in her tent. She could feel a lurching motion as the Robot began
to move.

Burwood hung slackly now, twisting gently from side to side, like a rag
doll, with the motion of the rope. Diane fainted.

Within half an hour, all the Robots had filed into their waiting ship.
It blasted skyward on a jet of flame which was all but lost against the
fires which consumed Hamilton Village.




                               CHAPTER V


"Will Harry Starbuck please step forth and make his report?" One of
Keleher's assistants brought the command to the Shining Ones who had
joined the larger group near Hamilton Village.

There was a silence.

"Where is Starbuck?"

No one knew. The assistant shook his head and returned to Keleher for
further instructions. Had anyone seen Starbuck? A short while ago, yes.
Not for the past hour, though. Keleher next called for Diane, who had
found Johnny Hope, the alleged traitor, along with Starbuck.

Some of them had seen her marching toward the rear of the column with
Tom Burwood not long since. She did not answer the summons. And Burwood
could not be found anywhere.

"Is everyone going crazy?" Keleher stormed. "Fetch the prisoner
himself. We'll see what's going on."

Moments later: "Hope, charges have been brought against you concerning
our raid on Hamilton Village."

"I know all about the charges. I refuse to discuss them now."

Keleher smiled without mirth. "You--refuse?"

"They were looking for Diane. They couldn't find her. They were looking
for Starbuck too, and couldn't find him. It is Starbuck who has made
the accusation, so we'll have to wait until he's found. I don't care
one way or the other about Starbuck, but I want to find Diane."

Plump Gilbert came forward, said, "I may be able to shed some light on
this. After Starbuck gave me charge of the column he conferred with Tom
Burwood for a time, then disappeared. But Burwood whispered something
to Diane and she joined him, heading for the rear of the column."

"You see?" Johnny demanded. "Starbuck went someplace with Diane. From
the looks of it, she was tricked into going with him."

"Mere supposition," said Keleher, "although I wouldn't trust Starbuck
particularly."

"Listen," Johnny went on, "that girl saved my life. I want to find her.
Since you can't try my case until Starbuck is found, let me look for
them and--"

"How do we know you will return?"

"My word," said Johnny, but the look on Keleher's face said that would
never satisfy him.

"If the lad promises and if meanwhile he cannot be tried ..." began
Gilbert.

"When I want your advice, I'll ask for it," Keleher said curtly. "The
boy stays here."

"But he merely wants to find Diane," persisted Gilbert.

"Enough. If someone thinks to depose me, let him try. Meanwhile, I
command here. The boy stays. He will be considered innocent until
we can bring him to trial, but he will not be permitted to leave the
encampment."

"Her life may be in danger," Johnny said grimly.

"I doubt it. I have given my orders."

"They don't satisfy me," Johnny told Keleher bluntly. "Am I to be
regarded as prisoner or member of the community until my trial?"

"You are one of us, a Shining One, until proven guilty. It is the way
of our law."

"In that case," Johnny informed him, "I challenge your right to rule.
_I_ would depose you." Even as he spoke the words, Johnny doubted their
wisdom. Keleher was large and powerful; Johnny had recently recovered
from the Plague and did not feel fully himself. Still, he had to find
Diane, and if there was no other way....

Keleher was grinning. "Perhaps you do not know what that entails.
I'll admit, it's primitive. Upon your challenge we fight. Not with
weapons, Johnny Hope. With our bare hands. Call it a peculiarity of
mine, but I prefer brute strength. It is as if civilization, in closing
its book for mankind, has put men like me in its stead. The ballot,
the tribunal, the town meeting--all these are sophistications leading
ultimately back along the road to civilization. If that means another
war and a worse one, I want no part of it. Small communities, living by
mean strength, fighting for their existence tooth and nail, can't start
a civilization growing.

"The level I want to maintain is physical, brutal, elemental. Knowing
that, do you still challenge my right?" Keleher folded huge-muscled
arms across his massive chest and stared with scorn at Johnny. "Well?"

"I was aware of that. The answer is yes."

"Then we can start making arrangements for the time and place.
Would you prefer it on our journey before we reach a new permanent
encampment, or after we have arrived to set up camp? You still look
pale from your time with the Plague, my young friend."

"I prefer it right here," Johnny said. "I can't wait. Right here, and
right now."

The sudden complete silence was broken by Keleher's explosive laughter
as he unbuckled his weapon-belt and let it fall with knife and club to
the ground.

       *       *       *       *       *

"What do you think, Diane?"

"Don't speak to me. I think it was a dirty trick, but I should have
expected it from you. And you let Tom Burwood die, too."

"I couldn't do anything about that," Starbuck protested. "I tried. By
the time I got through to them, Burwood was already dead. As it is, I
saved your life."

"For this?" Diane gestured around her scornfully, to take in the tiny
cubicle aboard the rocket which they occupied. After depositing them
within it ten minutes before, the Robots had ignored them.

"I'm surprised at you. Have some patience, Diane. Someday you'll be
grateful I took you along. You're young, you have no idea what life
could be like in a civilized place."

"Do you? How do you know how the Robots treat people?"

"I have heard rumors. We all have. But I'm older than I look. I was
a small boy before the war, Diane. But I remember, I remember. The
luxuries, the comforts. You'll see."

"I ought to kill you," Diane said coldly. Starbuck blanched. "I might,
too, first chance I get. You're so self-centered, you're almost
inhuman. But maybe I'm dumb enough to think you'll realize your mistake
someday and two of us will have a better chance of getting away than
one. I don't know. I ought to kill you, though."

"I did it for you. I wanted you with me. I couldn't enjoy the life
we're going to lead without you."

"You're a fool, Harry ... I can't even hate you. I feel sorry for you.
What do the Robots do from day to day? You don't even know that. You
haven't the slightest idea what you've let us in for. You don't even
know for sure where we're going."

Starbuck shook his head. "You're wrong about that. We're going to the
Citadel in New York. We should be arriving in a few minutes. You'll
change your mind, Diane. Wait until you see the Citadel. Wait until--"

"You've never seen it. You're just guessing."

"It's more than a guess. Every rumor I have ever heard. Diane, I want
you to share it with me, to learn to love it with me. You're beautiful.
You weren't meant for buckskins," Starbuck fingered the tattered
clothing barely covering her torso.

"Keep away from me."

"Don't you realize it's just the two of us now--and the Robots?"

"I'm warning you."

Starbuck shrugged and sat down at the other side of the small cubicle.
"You're frightened now," he said. "I've got patience, if you haven't.
Wait and see how the Robots will provide for us."

Diane shuddered and tried to hide it. Trapped aboard a ship full of
Robots, she was companion to a madman. Strangely, no thought could
comfort her but the image of Johnny Hope, somewhere many miles behind
them, a prisoner of Keleher and the band of Shining Ones. Perhaps, she
thought grimly, the madman had for company a madwoman....

       *       *       *       *       *

The Shining Ones were bivouacing not two miles above the gutted ruins
of Hamilton Village. Wood had been stacked for the cook-fires, but as
yet no spark had been coaxed into flame. Half the tents had been raised
tautly about their ridge poles, others were still to be unpacked.
Five-hundred strong, the whole group gathered around a natural clearing
in the woods, where deft-fingered girls were applying grease to Keleher
and Johnny Hope.

They had stripped to shorts, Keleher with his thick-thewed limbs
glistening in the fading sunlight, arms folded like some immobile,
heroic statue, all muscle and sinew, carved from granite, Johnny
fidgeting, waiting for the fight to start. He was surprised at his own
objective lack of fear; he wanted only to start out after Diane.

"You probably wonder why they grease you," Amos Westler declared.
Westler was a small, slim man with close-cropped graying hair and eyes
that would twinkle, Johnny thought, even in darkness. He had come to
Johnny's corner as a sort of unexpected second, to ready him for
battle. "It's a concession on the part of Keleher, Johnny Hope. He has
declared openly your strength is no match for his. The slicking will
make speed and dexterity count for more."

"Am I supposed to be grateful? The only reason I'm fighting him is
because he won't let me seek Diane any other way. She could be in
danger right now, her life might be at stake. Keleher is a fool."

"And life among the Shining Ones has always been an expendable item.
Diane's life, your life, even Keleher's."

"What happens if I win?"

Westler sighed wistfully. "You won't. This won't be the first fight for
Keleher, nor the last. Actually, I hope you do win."

"Why? And you haven't answered my question."

"Because I've always wanted to leave the encampment. But I'm not a
man for the outdoors, Johnny. I wouldn't survive a week. With your
companionship, I might. Should you win the fight, and should you decide
to seek Diane, I would like to join you."

Johnny grasped his hand, shook it. "Done," he said.

Westler smiled, wiping grease on his trousers. "To answer your
question, if you win you're the chief of this encampment."

Now Johnny was smiling. "A job I'm not particularly interested in. I
only want to--"

"I know. Look for the girl. During the excitement, something went
entirely unnoticed. A rocket ship took off, near the ruins of the
Village. Rockets mean Robots--and from the Citadel. Tell me, Johnny
Hope, if the trail leads there, will you follow?"

Johnny shrugged. "I hadn't thought of that, I didn't realize the Robots
were near."

"Then you're going to back down?" Disappointment was in Westler's
expressive eyes.

"Never. I saw New York once. I stood on the Jersey cliffs at sunset and
gazed across the broad river at the Citadel with its winking lights and
beacons. It is not a place of fear, but a place that men built, long
ago. I will go."

Again Amos Westler sighed. "I wish you win this fight, Johnny Hope. I
never wished for anything as much in my life. I was a college professor
before the war and I learned this: the search for knowledge is a
strange thing and knows no fear. But I am no young man, and this may be
my last opportunity."

"Ready?" Keleher's voice roared across the clearing. "If the girls are
finished caressing you with their oils...?"

       *       *       *       *       *

The girls stepped back, looked at Johnny, tall and lithe but so small
compared to Keleher, and shook their heads.

"Ready," Johnny said, moving out toward Keleher warily.

"His legs," Amos Westler confided. "He uses them like another pair of
arms. Watch them."

The grease on his face had been applied too close to his eyes and
Johnny found he had to blink to clear his vision. Keleher came
lumbering across the clearing, gathering momentum. By the time he
neared Johnny he was fairly rocketing down upon him. The muttering
of the assembled encampment had been stilled as if by some unspoken
command. There was the sound of Keleher's thundering feet and nothing
else.

Juggernaut thundered close, was almost upon him, great arms
outstretched, huge body shining red in the last light of the sun. At
the last moment, Johnny sidestepped, thrust out his leg, added momentum
to Keleher with his arms as he pounded by. Something struck his leg,
there was a loud, bull-bellowing cry. Keleher flipped completely over
and sprawled in the dust a dozen feet away.

He came up roaring his rage as Johnny waited, balancing on the balls
of his feet, fists up and ready. Keleher parried Johnny's left hand
when the blow was too long in coming, struck with his own great right
fist. Johnny went over on his back and felt Keleher at his throat
almost before he had hit the ground. Now the crowd was churning with
excitement and Johnny found himself thinking they must have smelled
blood on the air.

Their heavily greased bodies prevented Keleher from applying a
stranglehold. Johnny squirmed out from under, straddled the bigger
man's back and felt himself borne aloft, still clinging there, as
Keleher climbed to his feet and charged about the clearing. Johnny held
grimly, his forearm circling the thick throat, choking off Keleher's
breath. But the shaggy head twisted, broke free. The legs drummed
backwards and Johnny whirled in time to fathom Keleher's plan.

He was going to crush Johnny against the bole of an oak tree, cracking
his ribs and ending the battle at once. Without mirth, Johnny smiled.
So intent was Keleher upon his plan, he did not bother to hold Johnny
on his back. Possibly he thought that was Johnny's intention, anyway.
Johnny leaped away, rolling clear, as Keleher backed into the tree
trunk with all the strength of his huge muscles.

There was a terrible crunching sound as Keleher hit the tree and went
down as if axed. Groggily, he began to rise, but Johnny was waiting for
him, waiting to see if there was any fight left in the half-conscious
man. The eyes were watery, the lips slack, the arms twitching. Johnny
waited....

"Stop!" someone cried. "I bring news."

At first the encampment shouted him off, but presently Johnny became
aware of loud talking, of angry shouts, of a buzzing, as from a
sundered hornets' nest, which swept the clearing. He whirled to face
the newcomer as Keleher slumped at his feet, clawing the ground and
gasping, "I don't ... surrender ... Johnny Hope. Only give ... me ...
time to catch my wind ... and...."

       *       *       *       *       *

They turned to Johnny Hope, all of them, their new leader. For Keleher
had spoken those words, then fell forward on his face. Three men
carried him off to a tent, where two women brought vessels of water.

"They went looking for the three missing ones, Hope."

"What can we do?"

"The Robots."

"Tell us, Hope."

"What they did once they might do again."

Johnny laughed as reaction from his ordeal set in. They crowded around
him, flies swarming for honey. They hadn't given him a chance in the
fight, but now because Keleher had cracked his own ribs instead of
Johnny's, Johnny was their leader. It was a job he neither wanted nor
would tolerate.

"What they're trying to say," Amos Westler told him, "is that they
found Tom Burwood not far from here."

"What about Diane?" Johnny demanded eagerly.

"No Diane, no Starbuck. They found Burwood, hanging by his neck, dead."

"Dead?" Johnny said, dazed. "Diane?"

"You're not listening to me, young man. Diane they didn't find." Then,
as if he suddenly realized he was addressing their new, if bewildered,
leader, Westler apologized. "I'm sorry. While Burwood's corpse was the
only one they found, there were shreds of clothing in the undergrowth.
There--"

"Diane?"

"Possibly, they're not sure. I would say all indications point to the
Robot Citadel. You said you would go, but now that you are our leader,
perhaps you've changed your mind. When leadership is thrust upon a
man--"

"When an old leader is vanquished," plump Gilbert bubbled effusively,
"there is a celebration, sir. And there is an edict to be handed down
by the new leader. Do we banish Keleher from the encampment when his
condition permits? Do we slay him for you? Do we--"

"Do whatever you want," Johnny said irritably. "I'm not staying."

"This is some joke!"

"I have nothing against Keleher. I still have nothing against him. I'm
leaving. When Keleher regains consciousness, when his body heals, you
may tell him for me I did not depose him. He is still your leader."

"That is clearly impossible."

"Is it? I command you in this. Keleher remains on as chief. But tell
him this for me: some day I may call upon him and his people for help,
and when I do...."

"You have vision," said Amos Westler, admiration in his voice.

"When I do, I want no delays. That is my message to your ruler, to
Keleher. Is it understood?"

Gilbert and some of the others nodded. A small, intense man, Westler
fidgeted about impatiently while the girls returned with thick strips
of cloth and scrubbed the grease from Johnny Hope.

"I'm now a celebrity," he said to Westler, feeling himself briefly as
one with these wild people as they gathered around for his advice,
preparing a victory banquet over roaring fires as darkness covered the
bivouac area. He munched a savory leg of fowl, slaked his thirst from a
moist leather wine bag, the claret stream gushing into his mouth from
the spout.

"You see," Westler could not hide his disappointment. "It is even as I
said. You will stay."

Johnny grinned at him. "Are you tired?"

"Why, no."

Tossing a chicken bone into the fire, Johnny went on: "And do you know
the way to New York in the darkness?"

"No--o."

"I think I do. Are you ready to start?"

"Are you serious?" Westler cried. "Do you mean that, Johnny Hope?"

"Let's go." And not waiting for an answer, Johnny clapped Gilbert on
the back, told him to take charge until Keleher had recovered, and left
the clearing with Westler trailing at his heels.

The night closed in about them, not quiet, but alive with the sounds of
insects and the occasional soft-pad-padding of small hunting animals.
Johnny set a quick, mile-eating pace which made Westler's breath wheeze
in and out of his lungs asthmatically, but the older man did not
complain once.




                              CHAPTER VI


"We have openings in the repair bays or for servants among the inner
circle of Shining Ones who work hand in hand with our masters," the old
woman told Starbuck and Diane after they had been taken from the rocket
ship in New York and shunted underground where the subways had been
converted into living quarters for humans without being given a chance
to see the city. "Which will it be?"

"We're not cut out to be menials," Starbuck said coldly, "but the
repair bays don't appeal to me, either. You say servants to the leaders
themselves?"

"To the top echelon of Shining Ones, yes. You will find the
socio-economic hierarchy rigidly enforced here. Well, which will it be?"

Starbuck had heard about palace revolutions. It would be servants to
the leaders, naturally. Let them bide their time, let them learn what
they could of the Citadel and its Robots. "Servants," he said.

"Are you married?" The old woman, shamelessly bare to the waist on this
hot day, smiled at them with a perfect set of false teeth which seemed
laughably incongruous in her gaunt, seamed face. Her bare breasts were
dry as parchment and hung, flat but pendulant, almost to her waist.
From a distance she looked almost like a manikin, a leathery, humanoid
robot.

"We are," Starbuck beamed.

But Diane said, "Certainly not."

The old woman cackled. "I believe the woman. In that case, you will
live in these underground dormitories."

"Not in the City upstairs?" Starbuck demanded, disappointed.

"Not in the City, that is correct. Do not ask why, it is merely so.
We work for the Robots and obey them, is that clear? Some day the
only humans left on Earth will be Shining Ones, or so the Robots tell
us. Then we will climb up into the light of day and take our rightful
place, side by side with them. Meanwhile, we do as we are told."

"Are you satisfied, Harry?" Diane wanted to know. "The Robots make
promises--and destroy our brothers."

"Our brothers?" Starbuck laughed. "You mean the people of the villages?
Those, our brothers?"

"The Plague makes brother hate brother, but you're a fool, Starbuck.
The Robots want that, this playing of human against human."

"Yes? How do you know? You've never...."

"I don't know. But Amos Westler always said so."

"Westler!" Starbuck spat contemptuously. "A reader of books. We go out
to hunt or raid, Westler seeks his books and grows soft looking through
them."

"With more Westlers and less Starbucks in the world," Diane began, "we
probably wouldn't have had to fight three World Wars and never would
have--"

"That's enough," said Starbuck, his eyes darting suspiciously to the
old woman, who was taking in their conversation with an amused look on
her face.

"It is quite enough," agreed the old woman. "If you want to last here
more than a few days."

"Can the Robots actually understand us?" Starbuck asked.

The old woman shrugged thin shoulders. "Some say they can read our
minds. It is not important. Those of us who rule can understand. Since
they can somehow communicate with the Robots, it is the same thing."

"We will conform," promised Starbuck.

"Like robots of robots," said Diane bitterly.

       *       *       *       *       *

Johnny Hope rubbed the stubble of beard on his face and frowned at
Westler. "I'm not sure, but I think I know this place. We should reach
the New York River this afternoon."

They stood in a forest glade not a hundred yards from one of the
overgrown concrete highways upon which the Robots were known to tread.
A path paralleled the highway through the woods, and upon this they
made their way.

"Sometimes I wonder if you know what you're letting yourself in for,"
Westler mused.

"I want to find Diane. I'll take whatever goes with it."

"Do you mind if I ask why?"

"I'm not sure I know myself. All I know is I think of her all the time.
Nothing matters as much as finding her--and freeing her."

"We could be wrong. Perhaps she is not with the Robots at all."

"What do you think?"

"I think she is. Everything points to it. I was only pointing out that
we're not sure. Johnny, not many years ago I met a man, another Shining
One, who had fled from New York. He was old and he didn't last long,
but he told me things which--"

"About the Robots, you mean?"

"Yes. You know, of course, they can help cure the Plague. Instead, they
spread it."

"I never could figure out why."

"Who knows what sort of thinking the Robots can do? We're not even sure
if they possess sentience at all, although I suspect they do. But in
the last days of the War, man made a frantic mistake. The Robots were
conceived as fighters, were constructed as fighters, were built to
hate man and to kill man. When we gave the Robots a different mission
entirely, it failed. They've simply strengthened the Plague toxoid and
made it lethal. I don't think they'll rest until every man on Earth is
destroyed.

"We're weak now, disorganized. We've left civilization behind us. You'd
think the Robots could do the job overnight, but the only thing that
prevents them, actually, is their lack of numbers."

"Most of my people--I mean the villagers, not my people any
longer--most of them believe the Robots somehow _will_ cure the Plague."

"And most of my people," said Westler, "believe their destiny is hand
in glove with the destiny of the Robots. They put it this way: we
are hated by the rest of mankind, we are apparently not hated by the
Robots. Why not cooperate with them, then? Actually, a free band of
Shining Ones as large as Keleher's is the exception, not the rule.
Every day, more and more Shining Ones go to the Citadel in New York or
elsewhere to work for the Robots. Not a pretty picture, is it?"

"What can we do about it?"

"At present, I don't have the slightest notion. We've got to do
something, though. Someone's got to do something, unless nature's ready
to write off mankind as a bad experiment. Perhaps I am a pedant,
Johnny. I do not know. But I will tell you this: when all the great
strides in human history were made, the pedants, the scholars paved
the way. I want to see the Citadel not only to learn but to see if
there is something, some way, to end the reign of the Robots. It seems
incredible that men, their makers, lacked the foresight to equip them
with an Achilles Heel, if the need ever arose."

       *       *       *       *       *

Abruptly, Johnny motioned Westler down with a wave of his hand. "It
looks like you're going to find out soon enough. Take a look."

Johnny parted the bushes in front of them. Here the dirt path had
angled sharply toward the highway so that not more than thirty yards
separated them. Marching silently along the concrete in the direction
of New York, quiet but for the clanking of their joints, was a long
file of Robots.

"Spongey metal foot-pads," whispered Westler, staring eagerly at the
Robots. "We built fine fighting machines, Johnny, and now find we have
to suffer the consequences."

Johnny nodded impatiently, hardly feeling philosophical. "This is what
we came here for, Amos," he said. "Afraid?"

"To tell you the truth, I'm not sure yet."

Johnny was not sure, either, but did not want to brood about it. He
stood up recklessly, forcing his way through the undergrowth toward the
highway. By the time he reached it, Westler trailing uncertainly at his
heels, he was shouting. It worked magically. The long line of Robots,
extending as far as they could see to the left and several hundred
yards to the right, stopped its steady advance. The great metal heads,
each bigger than a man, swiveled on the sockets which joined them with
the tiny bodies. The unblinking eyes which now faced them--another set
for each Robot surveyed the rear, Johnny knew--were lined up row on row.

"We want to join you," Johnny called out. "We want employment in the
Citadel." Did a human ask a Robot for employment? Johnny hardly knew,
for nothing had been further from his mind until recently.

The leading Robot came back down the line toward them. Johnny could
read nothing in the artificial eyes and had to check a wild impulse to
run.

"Sometimes I prefer the uncomplicated life of an unimaginative man of
action," Westler moaned softly.

It was, Johnny knew, a good point. He did not bother telling Westler
that both traits had merged in him, which might have been better or
worse, depending upon the circumstances.

Then the Robot was upon them.

       *       *       *       *       *

"63-17-B?"

"Yes, sir?" All Robots, even those with a primary level of thought as
high as 63-17-B and an existing secondary level, addressed Central
Intelligence as sir.

"After exhaustive tests, it has been adjudged that an over-estimation
has been made regarding your mental ability. Since that is the case, it
will mechanically be necessary to change your position."

Sullenly, plotting shapeless revenge at a Central Intelligence which
would never consider the possibility of an outside factor intervening
unexpectedly and hence altering or spoiling what had been planned,
63-17-B listened to his fate.

"A position currently is vacant as supervisor of the Shining Ones in a
section of the repair bays. Do you have any objections to assuming this
new duty in place of the old?"

To object was disastrous. To object was to admit you needed not merely
a lesser job commensurate with your lesser skill but also complete
readjustment of your thinking process. "No objections at all, sir,"
thought 63-17-B, all the while smouldering with resentment. His time
would come. What was the old human expression about every dog having
his day?

"Then you will report at once to repair bay 151. Do you know its
location?"

"I will find it." That was the prescribed answer. One rarely asked
questions. One found out for oneself from Central Information. 63-17-B
half thought he was still being tested in some less-obvious and hence
all the more deadly fashion. But to be placed in charge of a gang of
humans! It was degrading.

"In time, 63-17-B, you shall be tested again. If it is our opinion you
have gained back what we thought you once possessed, you will again be
elevated to a higher station."

63-17-B cursed Central Intelligence on a private wavelength. Central
Intelligence was the creator of perfect plans. If a plan misfired,
Central Intelligence could not be held responsible. Since accidents of
nature had never been considered valid excuses, blame always fell on
the executing Robot. Until recently, 63-17-B had managed to beat the
system, largely through luck. Now while he realized it was the most
mechanical thing in the world to do as you were told, he could not
hide his bitter disappointment. But he pushed it from his mind all at
once when he felt another mind nibbling at his private wavelength.
No one could be trusted, not when each Robot tried to outdo every
other Robot in the eyes of Central Intelligence, not when private
thoughts could be intercepted by monitors, not when communal thinking
was considered preferable to individual thinking.... That thought
made 63-17-B shudder, his joints clanking as a sudden surge of power,
the electrical equivalent of adrenal secretions, coursed through his
frame. He was indeed thinking not along the prescribed lines. Probably
something _was_ wrong with him.

       *       *       *       *       *

"This is ironical," said Amos Westler as the first inert Robot came
sliding down the conveyor belt to stop, a rusted man-shaped creature
twice man's size with huge conical head and withdrawn antenna, in front
of his bench. "We'll never learn anything this way. You won't learn the
whereabouts of Diane at this bench, and I won't learn what I've come to
find out."

"We're not on duty twenty-four hours a day," Johnny reminded him,
unfastening leg-joints with a large, wrench-like instrument and wiping
the parts with an oily rag before he reassembled them. "If Diane is
here, I'll find her."

"Well, we've learned nothing so far. They took us into the Citadel
through a tile-walled tunnel--"

"Surely one of the wonders of the world!" Johnny cried, remembering.

"The world has many wonders, natural and man-made, if we could but see
them. Anyway, they then deposited us in those underground quarters
where all the humans seem to live here. The old hag interviewed us--"

"Yes. She wouldn't say if she'd seen Starbuck and Diane or not when I
described them, but it sure made her smile. I think they're here in the
Citadel, Amos."

"--then assigned us to this repair bay for work. Do you realize that
except for the brief time it took to go from the tunnel exit to the
underground quarters, we haven't seen the light of day. Try learning
something in these, these caves!"

Without warning, the conveyor belts were stilled. Hidden lighting in
the walls flared brighter as a group of Robots entered the large vault.

"ATTENTION!" A voice blared at them, oddly metallic. Johnny could not
tell where it came from. "Robot 63-17-B is now entering the vault.
As your supervisor, 63-17-B is to be obeyed as if he were Central
Intelligence itself. He is to be addressed not directly, but through
your human supervisor."

The Robot numbered 63-17-B (but the numbers were hidden under the
central face plate and you hardly could tell the machines apart) made a
brief inspection of the vault, then climbed to his niche in the wall,
where he sat completely without motion while the other Robots filed
from the chamber.

"Although we can't address the Robot, our supervisor can," Westler said
eagerly. "That means, at least, communication of some sort is possible."

"I guess so. Why don't you get to know the supervisor?"

"You're much better at that sort of thing than I am, Johnny."

"We came here for different reasons, don't forget. There's an old hag
I'd like to answer more questions when I find her."

"Here comes our supervisor now," Westler whispered. Then, aloud: "My
name is Amos Westler."

"I don't care what it is. It's recorded. Keep working, friend." The
supervisor was a brutal-faced man who snarled out his words. His jaw,
cheekbones and forehead were silver-sheened with Plague scar, with the
Plague silver remaining there as well as on his limbs. His face seemed
metallic as a Robot's.

"See?" Westler whispered in despair as another damaged Robot slid to a
stop in front of them.

Johnny offered a wan grin. "Take it easy," he said, but hardly felt
more than the last remaining shreds of patience within himself. If the
old hag wouldn't talk when he saw her tonight....

       *       *       *       *       *

"Don't bother calling me names, young man," cackled the hag. "I'm
virtually immune. It is against existing regulations to give you that
information since it is felt all ties with the past and the outside
world must be broken, not gradually but at once."

"Listen," Johnny said desperately, "you must remember your own youth."
He had tried every other verbal assault he could think of. Now he
hardly thought flattery would work on the ancient bag of bones in front
of him, but it seemed his last hope. "You must have had your lovers in
your day, were you as attractive for your years as a younger woman...."

Something melted in the hag's eyes. She scrubbed her breastbone with
the knuckles of one parchment hand, as if preening. "Why, yes," she
admitted.

"I'm in love with the girl. You must know how I feel. He--he took her."
At least in part, it was the truth. In love with Diane? He'd never
thought of it, yet what had impelled him to battle Keleher in an uneven
fight, to set out for New York when he could have ruled the encampment
instead, to surrender himself to the Robots of the Citadel? Johnny
smiled. Trying to awaken something in the hag, he had succeeded in
awakening something, all right, but in himself.

"Such information I cannot give you, young man--"

"And I thought you remembered your youth!"

"--but they say the view from the corridor 13 exit is magnificent. To
reach it, one travels along corridor 14, which is a dormitory for some
of our young, unmarried women." The hag cackled. "Don't get caught."

"I won't. Thank you."

"Good luck, my boy." The hag patted his shoulder, crowed something
which he failed to hear, disappeared from the room.

Outside at a forking of four corridors, Johnny found a map and studied
it. Lights recessed high on the walls showed him his direction, and
soon he was pounding down the corridors and praying silently that the
hag knew what she was talking about. By the time he reached corridor
14 he was breathless.

Several young women stood in the corridor talking. Their chatter was
stilled when they saw Johnny, and those who had been in various stages
of undress hastened to cover themselves. Clearly, it was not common for
a man to venture this way, particularly at night.

"Are you lost, man?"

"No. I'm looking for someone. A girl named Diane."

They were smiling, and Johnny began to wonder. He suspected that
corridor trysts were not particularly uncommon.

"Is she expecting you?" demanded the boldest of the women, who had
stepped to the fore while her more timid companions drew back, ready to
dart into the surrounding cubicles.

"I cannot truthfully say," Johnny admitted. "If she knew I was in the
Citadel, I think she would be expecting me." But even that was with
tongue in cheek, for ever since he had refused to fight with Starbuck,
Diane had said not a word to him.

"This Diane, what does she look like?"

Johnny described her. When he finished, the woman chuckled. "Could you
perhaps be trysting? From your description, I would say you love the
girl, for no woman could be so beautiful. I think I know who you mean,
though."

Still chuckling, the tall woman entered one of the cubicles while her
companions melted away into the others. Soon Johnny stood alone in the
corridor, waiting as nervously as a youth in Hamilton Village might
wait while the village matchmaker entered a house to fetch him his
bride. Someone appeared in the doorway. Not the tall woman. Diane!

"Johnny.... Johnny Hope...."

"Diane, I never thought I would see you again. I thought Starbuck...."

"I was so afraid for you, because you couldn't adjust to your new life,
because I thought you might do something desperate. I was a fool, I
should have known why you refused to fight with Starbuck. Johnny,
Johnny ... let me look at you."

"Look later," he said, his eyes suddenly, unexpectedly misty. He drew
her to him and for a long time stood there with her, feeling the
beat of her heart tight against him, the warmth of her body and long
smoothness of limbs. She was trembling, the warmth of her all a-flutter
against him. She was murmuring something softly against his shoulder.
He was whispering in her ear, "I love you. I love you, Diane...."

       *       *       *       *       *

Her lips were perfumed and yielding, her arms went behind him, hands
joining behind his neck, then playing with his hair. The Plague, his
exile from Hamilton Village, the fight with Keleher, the long trek,
even captivity in the Citadel--all were a small price to pay, he
thought dreamily, then abruptly drew back.

"We don't want to stay here all our lives," he said.

"I'll go anywhere with you, Johnny."

"Save that for later, darling--but I love to hear it. I don't think
we'd have much trouble leaving the Citadel."

"Not if we go tonight, we wouldn't. Every day I work with Starbuck, but
if we left at once, now, tonight!"

Her new-found enthusiasm not only matched his, but added wings to it.
He was on the point of saying yes, of leading her through the corridors
in a dash for freedom, when he remembered. "We can't," he said. "Not
tonight. We've got to include Amos Westler in our plans."

"Westler is here?"

Johnny explained the situation to her, then added, "Tonight Westler
went looking for some information about the Robots. He feels certain
they have an Achilles Heel someplace, if only he can find it. Actually,
it won't be easy dragging him away from the Citadel, even tomorrow
night."

"We can wait one night longer, sweetheart. You convince him tomorrow."

"I don't like the thought of leaving you alone again until tomorrow
night."

Diane stilled his words by placing cool fingers to his lips. "We have
no choice. I can take care of myself one night more."

"Starbuck?"

"I can take care of myself in that respect, too. Go back to your
dormitory and get some sleep."

"Tomorrow night. Same time, same place. Westler will be with me."

They came close and drank of each other again. They parted, Johnny
edging down the corridor backwards until the last shaft of light
disappeared from the entrance to Diane's cubicle. His head was whirling
in a giddy new delight, in a rapture which clouded his mind with a
buoyant optimism which almost made him forget the Citadel, the Robots,
and men like Harry Starbuck....

Footsteps pounding down the hall, heavy, too heavy for a woman's.
Quickly, Johnny flattened himself in the darkness of a niche which
served some nameless purpose. With the light behind it, a shadow
loomed, reared up toward him.

It was Harry Starbuck.

Johnny held his breath until the big man with the smug boy's face
strode past. Heading for Diane? In all probability, yes. Follow him?
Stop him? Attack him? Wild thoughts ran their course through Johnny's
head. And lose everything, all they were looking forward to, for his
impulsiveness? Footsteps receded. The shadow vanished. Even if he could
follow Starbuck, overpower him and escape with Diane, their secret
would be secret no longer, which would leave Amos Westler to fare for
himself.

Wait for tomorrow, Johnny Hope. His course seemed clear, yet he had to
fight himself all the way back down the corridor until he had reached
the male dormitories.

For many hours--which seemed like days--he waited up for Amos Westler,
but his thoughts were all with Diane. If Starbuck so much as touched
her....




                              CHAPTER VII


"I found it, Johnny! It was so obvious, it seems incredible no one has
tried to end the Robot's reign before. We can do it. One man could do
it, alone. One man, with careful planning--"

"Diane is here, Amos. I saw her tonight. We're going to try to break
out tomorrow night, the three of us."

"You see," Westler went on, "there are two items of importance to
consider. The first is Central Intelligence, the mind, the _elan
vital_, the sentience which motivates the Robots. Did you know, could
you ever imagine, that there was but one Central Intelligence for the
entire western hemisphere, Johnny? It seems incredible, but it is not.
That was the Achilles Heel we sought, the seed of destruction which
some pessimistic scientist had sown into the Robots in case man had
created a Frankenstein."

"Can you believe it? Tomorrow night, the three of us will be on our way
out of here. I think we stand a good chance, Amos. If we--"

"The second item--why, what in the world are you talking about? Escape?
Now? Never! Within our grasp is the chance to free humanity from a
thraldom which it does not yet fully recognize. Would you give up the
chance to render the Robots harmless in exchange for your own personal
safety?"

"Not mine. Diane's. We love each other, Amos. I wouldn't expose her to
any danger. We're leaving tomorrow and we want you to come with us."

Westler paced back and forth, caged in spirit more than in body. "Look
at you," he said bitterly. "You call yourself a man. But have you the
right to a woman's love when you think only of tomorrow, of one day out
of thousands, of one small life out of all that humanity has to offer?
You want to hold the girl and kiss her and show her your virility, eh?
While the rest of the race goes to pot."

"That's enough, Amos!" Johnny cried. "My motives are my own. We leave
here tomorrow."

"You're weak, Johnny Hope. You're a coward."

Johnny said, "Shut up, damn you." He couldn't deny all that Amos was
saying, but his parents had perished at the hands of a man-made Plague,
he had been driven from his home, rejected by the Shining Ones, even,
until he proved himself in battle. What did he owe to humanity, to that
big, sprawling concept which took in all kinds of men and their women,
children, good people, bad ones, big and small, with every type of mind
and every type of body...?

"All right, marry the girl. Will you raise a family? You're Shining
Ones, Johnny, both of you. The rest of humanity fears you, and
rightfully. Your children will be stoned away if they venture near
normal people. Perhaps life with the Robots would be best for them
after all.

"Here you have the chance to stop all that. Not only could we negate
the power of the Robots, but we could destroy the Plague as well. Did
you hear me, we could destroy the Plague? Before you give me your final
answer, let me tell you what I found."

"I'm listening. But--"

"But nothing. Only listen. This Central Intelligence is a vast
cybernetics machine occupying an entire building--ironically, it is the
United Nations building where once were housed the dreams of mankind.
Now, understand this, Johnny. Every Robot in North and South America
has its own particular wavelength, although the master intelligence is
in tune with all of them. Each individual Robot sentience is dependent
for its existence upon the great cybernetics machines in Central
Intelligence. In other words, if you were to destroy them, at one blow
you would 'kill' every Robot in the hemisphere!"

"How did you find all that out?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Westler smiled. "There was one thing the Robots did not bargain for--an
ex-college professor! The information was available in, of all places,
the main library for humans here in the city. It took some finding, but
as an old hand at research I had an edge even on the Robots with their
mechanical minds. Anyway, all you'd have to do is destroy this Central
Intelligence, and--"

"Might as well say destroy the moon, Amos. It's probably so well
guarded a whole Army of men couldn't break through, let alone two of
us."

"That's right," Westler said eagerly, "men could never hope to get
through, but Robots could."

"What are you talking about?"

"The second thing I learned tonight. Once again, it was so deeply
cross-referenced, so thoroughly hidden away that although it was
available if one knew where to look, the science of research is
such a dead thing that no one knew of its existence, probably not
even the Robots. Johnny, the earliest model Robots were built to
function in a double fashion. They were Robots, yes--but they are also
compartments in which a man can fit for manual control. They were
originally designed, you might say, as glorified suits of armor. While
the research material is naturally old, all I could gather seems to
indicate that no changes have ever been made structurally in those
early models. In other words, a man could climb inside a Robot today,
right now, and no one would know the difference."

"You're forgetting one thing," Johnny pointed out. "Are you going to
walk up to a Robot and tell him, 'Pardon me, old fellow, I'd like to
borrow you and use you for a disguise for a while'?"

"I'm not forgetting anything. We work in the repair bays, remember? We
have access to partially dismantled Robots. We could find ourselves
two dismantled old ones, somehow manage to get inside, make our way to
Central Intelligence...."

"I still haven't said I'm going to do it. I'd like to help you, Amos.
I'll take your word about the plan. It has possibilities. But that
still has nothing to do with my own problems. Right now Diane is the
most important thing."

"Diane's future, your future, all our futures ultimately depend on
this. What's the matter with you? You fail to see the forest for the
trees. Tomorrow, what's tomorrow, with all mankind's days ahead of
us--slave or free? Perhaps one man could do the job alone, although two
would have a better chance. But I think you know I'm not the man for
the job. I don't await your answer, Johnny Hope. I've no one else to
turn to. Humanity awaits your answer."

"Let me think," said Johnny, waving Westler away when he would have
continued talking. More quickly than he dared hope, he had found Diane.
With equal swiftness, Westler had discovered what he sought. That left
Johnny in the middle of a tug-of-war which wouldn't wait indefinitely
for his answer.

       *       *       *       *       *

As the closing gong sounded, 63-17-B watched the Shining Ones shuffle
away from their benches and make their way down the corridor toward the
cafeteria which would serve them an unimaginative but well-balanced
evening meal. But two humans remained behind, talking avidly over the
gleaming bodies of two stripped-down Robots. Strange, thought 63-17-B,
who was now confronted with the first even mildly unusual event since
taking over the dull routine of his new job that they should continue
working after the closing gong had sounded. He could summon Hartness,
the scarred human supervisor, and have him talk with the two, or ...
Hartness, his metal-jointed foot! He would do no such thing. If perhaps
the humans were up to some mischief, and if it did not endanger
63-17-B's own position still further, then let them play. If it gave a
few Robots and even Central Intelligence a hard time for a while, it
served them right. Of course, nothing really serious could come from
the tampering of two helpless humans....

"What about that guy up there?" Johnny raised an eyebrow in the
direction of the supervising Robot, motionless on his stone perch. "Is
he watching us?"

"It appears that he is. Unfortunately, we can't do a thing about it. At
least not until we find out if these gadgets will work with us inside
them. Here, Johnny--you see these tiny items? These are transistors,
using germanium instead of a vacuum grid to activate electrons,
smaller, more compact, more powerful, of longer life. Without them
the whole science of cybernetics which ultimately made the Robots
possible would never have advanced beyond the rudimentary stage. For
with transistors replacing vacuum tubes you still need the entire U.N.
building to house Central Intelligence. Under the older system, all New
York City would not have been enough."

"Tell me later," Johnny pleaded. "I want to get started. The longer we
delay here the longer it will take until we're finished. And I still
have that appointment with Diane tonight. I couldn't contact her during
the day because she said she works with Starbuck. We've got to hurry."

Westler's hands, guiding the complex tools, moved with swift
efficiency, as if, indeed, he had worked with the Robots all his life.
Wires were crossed, insulated, re-arranged. Gaps and relays were tested
and retested, gears changed, long-unused parts oiled, cleaned, checked
for defects. Surface plates were clamped into place over layers of
insulation. At last the two Robots lay there, supine but--Westler
hoped--ready for human use.

"He's still watching," said Johnny.

"Let him. We couldn't prevent him. Only hope he suddenly doesn't decide
to come down here for a closer look or send for help. It seems amazing
he's done neither so far."

"Maybe he's asleep."

"Robots do not sleep. I assure you. Well, it's ready." Westler reached
into the Robots' interior before clamping on the final head plates.
Each Robot stood up in ponderous silence.

"You first, Johnny. I can clamp my plate from the inside. Are you sure
my explanations on how to work this were satisfactory? Once inside
we'll have to contact each other by signals only."

"What about the radio sets inside? I don't know much about radio, but
you said they worked."

"They do, but the wavelength might be too close to a Robot wavelength
and we'd give ourselves away. Remember, we are to be nothing more or
less than two Robots once we climb inside. That way, there shouldn't be
any trouble. All ready? Up you go."

Johnny was boosted up, pulled himself within the cramped interior
of the Robot. There was barely room for him to stand upright, his
shoulders hunched, arms tight in front of him. A dizzying mass of dials
and levers confronted him suddenly, and although Westler had explained
them and diagrammed them and made Johnny memorize them, he was still
bewildered by direct contact. He was almost afraid to try his first
movement, lest the Robot remain immobile.

The face plate slammed home. Johnny could see through the one-way
plastic of the Robot's eyes as Westler climbed into his own machine.

Johnny pulled the starting lever and felt his Robot lurch forward. Must
learn to control the motion ... so ... he was now aware of a lumbering
gait, of a steady advance toward the farther wall....

Something made him whirl and peer through the rear eyes. The Robot
supervisor was coming toward them at a rate of speed they couldn't
match.

       *       *       *       *       *

"You see?" said Starbuck proudly. "I am no longer a servant. I suppose
you would call me a junior executive now. But I'm on the way up.
Definitely on the way up. In a while there is no telling how far I can
go."

"I'm sure of it," Diane nodded agreement. She didn't want to be
bothered by Starbuck today, not when her thoughts were all on the night
and Johnny. She was so nervous she couldn't keep from looking anxious.
If only Starbuck, all wrapped up in himself the way he was, would fail
to see it for a few hours longer.

"I suppose you wonder how I can advance so rapidly. It is quite simple,
Diane. I look around me. I make contacts. I miss nothing. As an
example, I even know of your meeting with Johnny Hope last night."

"What!"

"I wouldn't really mind it, except that my informant said you are
considering escape from the Citadel. That, of course, is out of the
question."

In his short time at the Citadel, Diane realized, Starbuck had
affected a way of speaking which hardly fit his booming voice or
boyish face. It was as if he had decided to ape the Shining Ones who
stood highest in the Robots' confidence. To Diane it was contemptuous,
although now her mind was awhirl with the thought that she and Johnny
had been discovered.

"What are you going to do?" she asked in a small, helpless voice.

"Hope will be arrested. Naturally, he will never be permitted to see
you again."

Diane stared at Starbuck in horror. Johnny must be found and warned.
There was still time. They could alter their plans, this time in
secrecy, without any women around who could spy on them for Starbuck.
But she had to find Johnny before it was too late.

In sudden despair, she realized she didn't even know where to look.




                             CHAPTER VIII


_Stop! Stand perfectly still._

The thought was unexpected, peremptory, driving into Johnny's brain
with more authority than any words. He wanted to stop, wanted to
immobilize the Robot in which he hid--but where had the thought come
from?

Westler's Robot was pointing a many-jointed metal arm at the
supervising Robot which rushed toward them. Then, did the thought
originate there? Could the Robot somehow send a soundless message to
them?

_Stop! Let me dismantle you._

The urge to render his own Robot motionless became stronger within
Johnny. It was as if the unbidden thought originated outside his head
but tried to direct his own muscles, as surely as his own mind.

Something made soft beeping noises in his ear and it took a while
before he realized Westler wanted to break their radio silence, so soon
after they had started. The other Robot was almost upon them.

Awkward and uncomfortable in his cramped quarters, Johnny found the
radio switch and pulled it.

"We've got to destroy that Robot, Johnny. Now, at once, or we're
finished."

"But how--"

The Robot was upon them, its unbidden thoughts stronger.

_Halt_....

It was Johnny who struck the first blow--clumsily, lifting his great
right arm up and bringing it down stiffly on the other Robot's head.
Metal arms came up, swung blurringly. A clanging tumult deafened Johnny
as dents appeared inside the chamber of his own Robot's head. He
triggered the levers mechanically now, aware that they were fighting
under a tremendous disadvantage, for their fingers were still stiff on
the unfamiliar controls and their artificial reflexes could not hope to
match the Robot's.

"Look out, Johnny--"

Two metal shapes loomed, Westler and the real Robot. The three of them
came together, clashing, clanging, metal arms swinging and wrecking
metal bodies. It was Westler's Robot which went down first, slowly,
buckling at the knee joints and then collapsing. Metal feet drove down
upon it ponderously, crushing the head section. Westler's Robot was
still.

Johnny hammered with huge metal hands at the other robot hardly
knowing where he might strike a mortal blow. But the Robot slowed,
its reactions grew feeble, its blows denting Johnny's head-chamber no
longer. Finally, it sprawled across Westler's Robot, then rolled away
and was still.

Cursing to himself, Johnny climbed down from his Robot, found the
battered head plate of Westler's, forced it open.

He saw at once he could never hope to extricate the older man, for the
metal walls of his chamber had been crushed, knifing into bone and
flesh and trapping him.

"Amos, can you hear me?"

       *       *       *       *       *

The eyelids fluttered open with pain. "I never will see the end,
Johnny...."

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't ... fool me. I'm all broken, inside. I--"

"We'll get you out of there in no time."

"You'd have to melt ... the metal down to ... do it, and you know it."

"We'll do it."

"Your only hope is that the Robot did not have time to broadcast a
warning. If ... he did ... you will have to hurry, but--"

"They still don't know our plans. Maybe they think we only want to
escape, using these Robot bodies for a disguise."

"Perhaps. I hadn't thought ... of that." Westler lapsed into silence,
his face twisted with pain. "If you can do it, if you can destroy
their cybernetics center ... new start for humanity. I was going to
tell you about the Plague, Johnny. The Robots ... have been using ...
a particularly virulent form of the ... toxin which does not exist
naturally. Spreading it in the air, all over the earth. That, combined
with the ... toxin carried by a Shining One, causes illness ... and
death." Westler's words were harder to hear now, low, the barest
whisper of sound. Johnny leaned close to the glazed eyes, the barely
opening lips. "When the Robots are ... gone ... the Plague will die out
almost at once. Shining Ones even will be harmless. You see why it's so
important? You see...."

"I could never do it without you. We'll hide away somewhere, nurse you
back to health--"

"Stop fooling ... an old man. We both know I'm dying."

"That's ridiculous."

"Please ... don't interrupt me. I want to finish telling you ... the
Robots communicate with humans by telepathy. You witnessed it yourself,
a few ... minutes ago. They can make it seem like your own thoughts
and ... who can say? Thought waves are electromagnetic, like ... so
many other things. There is nothing mysterious about ... telepathy.
Give humanity a chance to study what the ... Robots have done and ...
you'll have civilization flourishing again within a generation. Give
humanity the chance...." It was a whisper, a prayer.

On that final note of hope, Westler died.

       *       *       *       *       *

"The human has emerged from the underground within his Robot and is
heading north-east across the city."

"I still think we ought to stop him now, while we know we can do it."

"Silence. Think on the primary level. In unity we will triumph. It is
our one weapon they cannot hope to match."

"But 63-17-B warned us before he perished--"

"Precisely. That the humans were attempting something other than mere
escape. We must find out what that is, what they have learned. Don't
you realize that if this man fails another might succeed in his place?
Whatever knowledge he has, perhaps it is widely disseminated. We must
find out before we kill him."

There was a silence among the conclave of motionless Robots, their
unblinking eyes intent upon a huge three-dimensional map of the city,
following a tiny pip of light in its slow progress.

"He seems to be heading straight for Central Intelligence."

"That's hardly possible, unless it is mere coincidence."

"I don't think so.... See? Not half a mile away, now."

"Have the supervisors discovered who is missing?"

"Yes. He was employed in the very repair bay where 63-17-B perished--a
defective Robot, incidentally, and no great loss. We have given his
name to the top-level Shining Ones in the hope that they can help us."

"There is a Shining One, a human, here right now. He wants an audience
concerning the rebel."

"Very well, although we'll have to make it brief."

Starbuck entered the chamber cockily, then lost his poise when he saw
the solemn, unmoving conclave of Robots. "I have outside," he began,
moistening his lips and talking rapidly, "a woman who this man, this
Johnny Hope, loves. Can you understand me? Do you know what love is? He
won't do a thing that might harm her."

_We can understand._

"I thought that--"

_We can read your thoughts. Leave your name with the Robot outside.
Take this woman within the U.N. building and hold her there until you
hear from us._

"The U.N. building?"

_No questions. Go._

Starbuck shuffled from the room, self-conscious and fearful under the
mental command.

"I doubt if we'll need the hostage, but you never can tell."

"It seems incredible that--"

"Does it? The man has almost reached the U.N. building. It will
take him perhaps half an hour, for the rubble is piled high there.
Underground he could reach it in a few moments, but apparently he is
unfamiliar with the passages."

"He has only recently arrived at the Citadel."

"Somehow, they have learned something. It is why we cannot kill the man
until we are sure. Have them alerted at Central Intelligence, but let
him enter. Watch him. If he blunders about as if he has arrived there
by accident, kill him. If he knows something, take him alive."

"Someday we must learn the secret of Central Intelligence, if we are to
survive. We must learn how to duplicate it or face the possibility of
perishing in a single accident."

"Men built it once. Men could do it again."

"Defective! Silence. Man can do nothing we cannot do."

Then they were quiet, watching the tiny, darting pip on the
three-dimensional map as it struggled through the uncleared rubble
southwest of the U.N. building.

       *       *       *       *       *

Even in ruin, the city held more wonders for Johnny Hope than he had
ever thought possible. In many ways, it was like a scar on the face of
the earth, pitted with bomb craters, strewn with the debris of toppled
towers, its streets choked with fallen, crumbling masonry and blocked
by the skeletons of buildings which once had stood, bare and rusted
now but not always so, as monuments to the greatness of man. Yet it
was a scar which could be healed, a broken, dying city which could be
made great again, with men and women roving its streets, repairing the
structures, making the living city function once more.

That was Amos Westler's dream. It was the dream of all mankind, Johnny
thought philosophically, although they did not realize it as they roved
the earth in hunter-bands of Shining Ones or tilled its soil in small
communities fearful of the Plague.

Now, directly ahead of him, he could see the monolithic slab of the
U.N. building. Like one structure in five, it stood incredibly intact,
a remembrance of the past and a promise of the future. We can build
again, Johnny thought, without the Robots and the Plague. They could
build again or they would die. Natural world or artificial world--men
or Robots--they could not survive jointly.

Battered and broken but still functioning adequately, Johnny's Robot
pushed through the debris south of the U.N. building to the edge of
the river. He stood there a moment and stared upstream at the gaunt
ruins of a bridge, now tumbled down the river and resting on the
river-bottom, thrusting its towers up beyond the surface of the water
and toward the sky. Men had used that bridge once, long ago but within
the memory of Johnny's father, to reach the country beyond. The bridge
might be rebuilt. Men might learn to use it again. It was as if, in
dying, Amos Westler had transferred his own vision to Johnny, showing
him a dream of the unborn tomorrow--its birth or stillborn death
depending entirely upon Johnny's success or failure today.

Half a dozen Robots stood about the wide terrace leading to the
building, but Johnny ignored them, for he had passed many in the broken
streets of the city and grown accustomed to them. He entered the
building through a door of glass and metal and was not aware of the
Robots entering it behind him.

His impulse was to climb down from his Robot, to stretch his cramped
arms and legs and find something to eat, then explore the wonders of
this new place. Above his head, the ceiling was high and vaulted. Ramps
led away, curving and graceful, in all directions and he longed to feel
his feet, his own feet, upon them, and to explore until he satiated
himself with this wonder and sought another.

To leave the Robot would be suicide. Had the thought been his own--or
a metal-made thought, instilled in him some unknown way, an unbidden
suicide thought? It was less specific than the commands of the Robot
that had perished in the repair bay, but Johnny guessed it came from
outside nevertheless.

He advanced mechanically, for Westler had given him careful directions.
The ramps led up, higher and higher, past the rooms in which men from
many lands once, long ago, used to debate their future--then higher
still, climbing....

There was noise behind him. He whirled in cramped quarters, peered from
the Robot's second set of eyes. A dozen Robots climbed the ramp behind
him, gaining. He let his mind drift blankly, let their thoughts reach
him.

_He is not wandering aimlessly. Somehow he learned. He learned.
Capture him._

       *       *       *       *       *

He ran now, awkwardly, his own Robot not smooth and graceful, a
flawless piece of machinery like the others. He clomped and clattered
up the ramp and prayed for time.

The ramp soared upward, curved to the left. Once he looked down at the
floor of the rotunda so far below and became giddy with the distance
and the thought of falling. He leaned over the railing and looked. His
head whirled....

At the last moment, he drew his Robot back from the edge, stabbing
half-blindly at the controls which propelled it. They had almost driven
him to suicide. He must keep his mind a perfect blank--or, better
still, think of something which would keep them at bay. Diane, his love
for her--Diane....

A Robot waited for him at the top of the ramp. Those behind him were
gaining rapidly, driving death-wishes deep within his brain.

The Robot above him abruptly swung into motion, but Johnny desperately
sidestepped the lunge which would have sent him hurtling to the floor
of the rotunda. The other Robot checked its own inertia and came for
Johnny again, huge arms swinging, trying to crush him within the metal
chamber as Amos Westler had been crushed. Johnny parried the blows with
his own metal arms, then reached out and heard machinery groan within
his metal frame as he lifted the other Robot and hurled it in the path
of his pursuers.

There was a grinding, clattering crash of metal. Johnny saw three
forms detach themselves from the arcing ramp and tumble, swinging
and twisting in air grotesquely, to the floor, where they struck
resoundingly and broke apart, the metal arms and legs flying.

Then he was climbing again, the remaining Robots far below him and
disorganized now. But soon, he knew, they would be capable of following.

It was as Amos Westler had predicted. After a time, the ramp grew
smaller. It no longer climbed now--it had soared high and now was just
below the girdered ceiling. It was hardly wide enough for Johnny's
Robot, it shook dangerously with the tread of metal feet. Here, Johnny
knew, was the sanctuary. This was the Achilles Heel. This was the
entrance, this ramp which no Robot could traverse. Here the way led to
self-functioning, self-repairing machinery, to Central Intelligence.
Here was man's final hope in the eyes of the original inventor. Here
was the guarantee that the Robots, if they became some Frankenstein
monster, could be met and conquered.

For no Robot could guard the final portal to Central Intelligence.
No Robot could even draw close enough to alter the thin ramp. Johnny
smiled grimly as comprehension grew. If Robots could become neurotic,
this was the place for it. They could have employed their human
servants, the Shining Ones, to alter the place, but would have divulged
their secret in the process.

Still smiling, Johnny halted his Robot, opened the face plate clumsily
from the inside, and climbed out. He sat on the ramp and flexed stiff
arms and legs, then stood up and heard the Robots below him. He could
see them now, no longer advancing, milling about in confusion. Their
weight would destroy the ramp, and they knew it. They could never hope
to reach him.

It was all so incredibly simple.

Was it?

_One Robot had been above him._

Then they knew he was coming. What had they prepared for him beyond the
point where the Robots could not climb? Shrugging, he advanced warily.

Soon he could see where the ramp reached a small doorway, much too low
and narrow to admit a Robot, even if one of the machines could have
climbed the ramp this far.

"Hold it,--Johnny Hope. Don't come any closer."

       *       *       *       *       *

Startled, he looked up. Harry Starbuck stood in the doorway, holding
Diane in front of him.

"I'm not fooling, Hope. If you come any closer I'll throw her off. It's
a long way down."

"You're crazy, Starbuck. You'll never leave this place alive." But
even as he spoke, he knew he could never reason with the man. "The
Robots can't let you carry their secret from here. Your only hope is to
cooperate with me."

"Is that so? They're sending some more men up to get you. All I have
to do is hold the fort until ... cut it out, Hope! Stay right there."
Starbuck edged out of the doorway, dragging Diane along with him to the
railing at one side of the ramp. "I'll do it if you make me."

"Don't listen to him, Johnny! I'm not afraid." Hair disheveled,
clothing torn, face bruised, she still looked beautiful to him. All at
once she stood for everything Westler had mentioned; for the future of
man, for the dreams of tomorrow, for a free world with no Plague and no
Robots. But for Westler the choice would have been easy. The girl--or
humanity.

Westler had not been in love.

Now Starbuck had forced Diane, back arched, breasts thrust forward, out
over the railing. She struggled in his grip, but futilely. He could
hurl her out over the edge and into space or not, as he wished.

"Back up, Hope. I want you to go back down the ramp and surrender to
the Robots. You're only delaying things. More men will be here soon.
You're licked and you know it."

Wearily, Johnny retreated. "Don't hurt her," he said. "Promise me that."

"You crazy? I want her for myself."

The thought numbed Johnny. He hadn't considered it that way. A live
Diane or a dead one was one thing. But a Diane forced to submit to
Starbuck....

He reached his own immobile Robot, saw the others, not twenty yards
below him, waiting, thought he heard shouts somewhere behind them.
He must do what he had come to do as if Diane did not exist. It was
Starbuck who had made the choice for him.

But there was a wild possibility....

Quickly, he climbed within his Robot, activated it, lumbered forward.
He could feel the ramp shaking with each step he took. At any moment,
its struts might collapse and send him hurtling to his death, trapped
in his man-shaped metal coffin, far below.

Soon he could see Starbuck again, on the ramp outside the doorway,
holding Diane. Starbuck's eyes went wide. Starbuck frowned, then began
to lick his lips anxiously.

"You can't come up here!" he cried. "It won't hold you. I sent the man
down to surrender, anyway. Do you have him? Is he dead? What do you
want, anyway? I can come down myself. Don't come any closer, not unless
you want the ramp to collapse. Keep away, you hear me?"

Johnny advanced slowly, the ramp shaking with each stride no longer,
but dipping and rocking constantly now, almost ready to go. Starbuck
retreated, taking Diane with him. Through the doorway they went--

Out fell the faceplate of Johnny's Robot. He tumbled after it as the
ramp shook, metal grinding against metal, then snapped. He leaped
forward as the ramp caved in. He felt his feet shoot out from under
him, saw metal dropping away, twisting, to his left. He clawed out with
his hands, gripped a jagged edge, pulled himself up slowly as blood
made his hands slip.

He stood in what was left of the doorway, trembling as reaction set in,
his heels on the brink of nothing, his bloodied hands aching.

Starbuck roared and charged at him, attempting to drive him back a few
inches to his death. But Johnny caught him, met him halfway with no
room to evade the charge, and they grappled there, teetering on the
edge.

"You tricked me," Starbuck moaned. "That Robot ... was you."

       *       *       *       *       *

A knee blurred up at Johnny, exploding in violent pain. He felt himself
falling and managed to twist away from the edge of the sundered ramp.
He hit the floor with waves of nausea boiling up from his stomach. He
lay there, blinking his eyes.

Starbuck came for him.

He drew his legs up instinctively, the knees bent, then straightened as
Starbuck leaned over him. His feet caught the big man squarely on the
chest, lifted him, pushed--

Starbuck went over the edge of the ramp, screaming all the way down.

Inside, Johnny found Diane, dazed, on the floor. He ignored her. She
could wait, for now he was a man possessed. The machinery which he
could never hope to understand was all about him, bank on bank of it
lining the walls, humming with its strange, sentient energy, glowing
and flickering with a million lights.

_Kill yourself._

Two words, clamoring, insistent, inside his skull. Their final hope....
He felt himself edging back toward the doorway, and the death which
awaited him just outside. He looked at Diane, huddled on the floor, her
lips parted--"Johnny...."

_I love you_, he thought. The words of death and those of life and
hope fought inside his skull, twisting his brain, battling there for
mastery....

He found something, a length of metal rod. He ripped it loose and began
to attack the machinery he would never understand. He was a wild man.
The strength flowed in from elsewhere, raising his arm, swinging it
high over his head and down. Sparks flew as his metal club battered
the crystaline tubes, the delicate wiring, the metal cases. Glass
shattered, sprinkled him, brought blood from a dozen cuts on his face.
Electricity hummed, then shrieked, then wailed off distantly on a
register too high for his ears.

Raise his arm and plunge ... lift it and bring it down, battering, the
metal club part of him....

It was Diane who eased the twisted rod from his fingers, soothed him
with her words. "It's finished. Easy, Johnny. You've done it."

The place was a shambles. Bank on bank of gutted machinery lay silent
there, on a floor strewn with glass, with wire, with filaments, with
nameless things which were the brains for a million Robots.

"There's another way out, Johnny. Starbuck took me here. Behind that
wall, you--"

She took his hand and they went. The passage was dark and cool and
smelled musty, as if air did not circulate very well within it. It
was a place for thinking and dreaming of tomorrow. It was a place for
realizing you could go back to the hills and find Keleher and his
Shining Ones and convince them they should at least look at the City,
the City which belonged to them now, to them and DeReggio and his
villagers--and all the others. And there must be a coming together of
Keleher and DeReggio, with Johnny as mediator, and a realization that
the last Plague victim had been smitten and humanity had a long path to
travel but could set foot upon it right now, at once.

Outside, it was growing dark, but Johnny could make out the still
forms of the Robots, gleaming red with final sunlight, sprawled upon
the broken streets. The Shining Ones within the City stalked about
furtively in small groups, not yet knowing what it meant to live
without their masters. Perhaps in time Keleher and all the others could
teach them.

"Hungry?" said Johnny. "We could stop and eat."

"No. You?"

"In a different way."

They followed the last slanting rays of the sun to the western river
and the mainland beyond it.



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