Golden Age of Science Fiction Vol X

by Various

  This was the storeroom, all right. It was piled with boxes mostly unopened. Nelson read the labels on the boxes and opened those which contained food he needed and supplies. He found another pack in an opened box in one corner and began outfitting it like his own. Or as nearly like his own as possible; he know that he could never duplicate or replace the gadgets Gardner had designed, and in a way he was bitter about it. He found the ammunition stores and took as many capsules for the furnace beamers as he could carry. He went to the door but slipped the furnace beamer out of his holster before opening the door.

  The corridor was still dark. He stepped into it, alert for any sound or movement that might mean danger or herald discovery. His nervousness had given way to cool, detached determination. He almost made it to the door before he heard the footsteps.

  * * * * *

  His reaction was unconscious and reflexive. He turned, leveling his gun. He had passed the two doors light had shown under. One of them was opening and Nelson saw the shadow of the man who had opened it; then the man. The man saw Nelson at about the same time and stood gaping at him. Without realizing that he had fired, Nelson felt the recoil of the gun; the roar of the beam against the close walls hurt his ears, parts of the wall blistered and buckled, other parts of it charred black, some parts vaporizing in thin patches. The patrolman had flared instantly, never really knowing what had hit him. Smoke and heavy odors filled the corridor as Nelson slid out into the open. The patrol depots were fireproof, but the area Nelson had blasted would be far to hot to pass through for the rest of the night.

  Nelson toned down the volume of his beamer and fired at a fence post. The tough plastic burst into splinters with a sudden explosion. A snapping wire whipped to within inches of Nelson's face but he didn't have to think about it. He was running up the hillside a short while later--he had lost track of time as such--hoping that Glynnis would use her gun if any patrolmen were following him.

  He reached the hilltop in darkness, afraid to use his flashlight. Suddenly, he stumbled; was falling over something soft, like an animal or a man. Cursing low and involuntarily, he managed to roll over so that he fell on his back. He saw the form, a patch of irregular blackness in the darkness around him and knew it for a body. He got to his feet glancing around, not knowing what this meant. He bent over the form, keeping the furnace beam's muzzle only a few inches from it, but too far back to be grabbed suddenly. He couldn't see the man's clothing very plainly but he could tell it was a patrolman's uniform. Nelson reached down to feel for a heartbeat and drew his hand away sticky with what he knew must be blood. Nelson was shaken for a moment; but he put aside the strange kinship he so often felt for patrolmen because they were also wakers and drew back, peering round into the darkness, pretty certain that he knew what had happened to this patrolman.

  He pushed himself erect and turned to see Glynnis, a dark figure but obviously her, standing near a clump of trees a few feet off.

  "You move quiet as a cat," he said. "You do this?"

  "Uh-huh." She came forward and stared down at the corpse. Nelson was glad he couldn't see her face in the darkness. "There were two of them. They split up and I followed after this one and came up behind him. I slit his throat. Then I went and got the other one the same way."

  And it had been so simple, thought Nelson. He handed Glynnis the extra pack. "Take this." She accepted it wordlessly and slipped her arms into the straps. "Oh," he added, as an afterthought. "Let me show you something." He reached into the pack and drew out a knife. A good one with a long plasteel blade that would not chip or corrode like hers. He handed it to her and imagined her smiling face in the darkness.

  "It doesn't feel like metal," she said, after she had taken the knife from its scabbard.

  "It isn't. It's a kind of plastic, stronger than most metals. Do you like it?" He was wasting time, he knew, and he cursed himself for it. But it didn't matter.

  "It's real nice," she answered.

  "I'm glad you like it," he said, taking her elbow in his hand. "We'd better go now. They'll be after us."

  They ran most of the night, although it wasn't always running. Nelson picked a lot of terrain that was too uneven or too thickly covered with growth for running. They kept to rocks and creekbeds as much as they could, and they stopped only a few hours before dawn to get a few hours sleep they were too exhausted to postpone any longer.

  When Nelson awoke the sun was a little higher than he had wanted it to be. He got to his feet and scanned the morning sky but saw nothing to indicate sky patrol robots. He felt uneasy about not having made more territory; but the way had been erratic and uneven. A thorough search pattern could find him easily; the further away he got from the depot the better chance he stood of not being discovered by a robot. He wondered, briefly, just how many would be called out, but there was no reason to wonder. Three patrolmen dead meant a lot of searching to find the killers. He and Glynnis couldn't waste much time.

  He nudged the still sleeping girl with his foot to wake her. She awoke suddenly, her hand darting toward her new knife and a low but startled cry came from her.

  "Quiet." He had dug two cans out of his pack and handed one to her. "We overslept. Eat in a hurry."

  She opened her breakfast. "We'll be traveling most of the day?" she asked. When he nodded, "yes," she said, "I can take it."

  "I know you can; but they'll have a search out for us by now and a thorough one. If we hadn't met when we had they'd have picked you up for sure after I raided that depot--if I could have pulled it off alone."

  She smiled.

  "You ever see an air robot?" he asked.

  "No."

  "I hope you never do. They'll fly out a search pattern, and they have equipment that can detect a human being. They can send back signals to tell where we are if they spot us. Our only hope is to get away before the search pattern gets this far. If we can get far enough away, we stand a better chance, because they'll have to spread out more thinly. We'll have to run for a long time, but eventually they'll give up. Until then--Well--" He let it hang. But Glynnis caught on.

  * * * * *

  The rest of the day they traveled, stopping only briefly to eat and once during the afternoon when they came to a small river. Nelson's admiration for Glynnis increased. She responded intelligently to his commands, and learned quickly. She was strong and athletic, with the reflexes of an animal.

  They made good time. When darkness came Nelson estimated they had made almost fifty miles since the raid, even over rough terrain. He hoped that that would be enough. He was tired, and though the girl attempted to hide her own fatigue, her attempts were becoming more and more exaggerated. He searched out a camp site.

  He found one on a hill, overlooking a river. There was protection from the wind. The moon was up and there was plenty of light from it; but Nelson didn't think the searchers would be out at night.

  After they had eaten, Nelson leaned back against the thick bole of a tree and found himself studying the girl. Her features were even enough, but she was not a classically beautiful girl. Nor an unattractive one. It was her eyes, he decided. She was staring off into the sky and forest. Her eyes were large, dark, enigmatic eyes that expressed much; expressed it eloquently. But he had the feeling there was much in the girl that those eyes hid. Her body was lean, but whether from exercise or undernourishment he couldn't be sure. Her figure was full, for all the leanness, and ample. She was strong, though she hardly looked muscular. She had been toughened by her environment. Edna had not been as tough as Glynnis.

  With sudden embarrassment, he realized he had been comparing Glynnis and Edna frequently. He didn't want to do that--but he couldn't help himself.

  "Something wrong?" Glynnis asked anxiously.

  She was returning his stare. "No," he said. "I was ... looking at you." For a long moment, neither spoke. Then he said, "We'll be together for a long time."

  "I know. We'll have to be."

  "I'm glad I found you. I lost my wife to the pa
trol some time back."

  "I've never been anyone's wife before. There was Frank, but I was never really what you could call his wife, exactly."

  "Many people ever stay with your folks?"

  "Not many. Frank only stayed a few days. I liked him. I wanted to go with him."

  "Why didn't you?"

  She broke off a blade of grass and slowly began tearing it into strips, intently gazing at it. "He just left suddenly without taking me. I guess he thought I was just a stupid brat. That was maybe two or three years ago." Her voice sounded as if she were smiling a little. Nelson thought that strange.

  "You ever think much about the sleepers?" he asked suddenly.

  "Sometimes. I wonder what it's like in their dreams."

  "They like it in their dreams. Those dreams are built for them. They get along happily in their world, grateful for it. That's the word, grateful." He listened for a moment to nightsounds. "But they're helpless. If anything happens, they're asleep and unable to act. If they wake up, they're in a world they don't know how to live in."

  "If you were a sleeper, what kind of world would you want to dream about?"

  "I don't want to be a sleeper."

  "Yes, but if you were. Would you live in a castle?"

  He thought on it for the first time. "I don't know," he said finally. "I don't think so. I think I'd travel. Go out to the stars. There's a whole universe out there. Men went out there; they're still out there. I guess they've forgotten us."

  "You think they'll ever come back?"

  "Some day I think somebody from out there will come back and land on Earth to see what it's like. Maybe they'll try to invade us. We'd be pretty helpless with most of us asleep in our pipe-dream utopias."

  "I wouldn't like to be caught and put in a dream," she said. "But I'd like to live in a castle." Nelson gazed at her. She had never known a commune, he realized. If she had, she would have bred when told to and then docilely filed away to her coffin. But she had never been indoctrinated. If she went into the dreams, it would be against her will. But he had to admit that he had some reservations....

  He moved close to her.

  "Maybe some day we can live in a castle. Or go into space to some planet where men live in castles." He stared at the stars. "Out there they must be like gods," he said and his voice sounded strange, even to him.

  He looked down at Glynnis. The moonlight was full on her face; she looked fit to be a goddess to those gods, he thought. She was staring off and around at the wilderness; she was saying, "Out here there's trees. And air. I like to look at the trees." He reached over and pulled her face around to him and kissed her. She was startled, but returned the kiss warmly.

  She pulled away just far enough to look into his face. She was smiling. "I think I like you better than I did Frank," she said.

  * * * * *

  Nelson lay awake for a few moments, trying to identify the noise. It was a low humming sound off in the distance. He could feel Glynnis, breathing evenly with sleep beside him. The sky was just beginning to color with sunrise in the east. As quietly as possible, Nelson eased himself erect, still trying to place the noise. He placed it, and realized that he had not really wanted to identify it.

  "Quiet," he said as he roused the girl. She opened her eyes wide, and stared at him, confused and uncomprehending.

  "What's wrong?"

  "Hear that noise?"

  "Yes," she said after a second.

  "One of their search machines. Probably they've adopted a loose search pattern, or maybe we left some kind of sign somewhere. It's not coming closer, but we'd better get out of here."

  They ate hastily, in the awakening light of sunrise. They ran away from the sound of the machine, and it lessened in the distance.

  It was the middle of the morning when they heard it again. Nelson judged it to be roughly a mile away and to the west. He waited a minute, listening. It seemed to be describing a search pattern curve that swung in front of their path. He decided to double back and around to miss it.

  The undergrowth was thick in this part of the forest. They made their way through the bushes and waist-high grasses, being as careful as possible not to leave too many signs of their passing. Glynnis' shorts and thin blouse weren't much protection against the thorns or the recoiling limbs of bushes but she didn't complain. Gradually the forest became mostly trees again. They found a path some animal had made and followed it.

  When they came to the clearing, Nelson almost didn't see the thing in the air. He heard Glynnis gasp behind him, and with a start, glanced around. She was staring at something in front of them, and in the air. He looked where she was staring and saw the air robot hovering near the edge of the clearing. It was about two feet long, slender, metallic and smooth. Nelson knew though that it was alert and that receptors built into its skin were registering their presence. It hovered about ten feet above the ground, some twenty feet from them, making no noise. Sky robots made noise only when they were moving at a fairly good speed. They had fled the noise of one only to be trapped in the silence of another.

  Suddenly, Glynnis was shouting, "It's one of them!" Nelson turned to see her level her gun, and before he could stop her a white hot streamer lashed out at the robot and engulfed it.

  "No," he shouted, too late. The machine took the blast turning cherry red and bobbing lightly in the air for a moment before energy compensators and stabilizers adjusted to the effects of the blast. The machine turned back to its lustrous silver color and there was a low hum as it righted itself gracefully then swung around, into the center of the clearing to get a better focus on them.

  "It doesn't even have a mark on it," Glynnis said, in a low tone, moving closer to Nelson and laying one hand on his shoulder.

  "No. But don't worry; it can't hurt us. We've got to figure some way to get out of here and leave it behind." He turned and gently guided her toward the trees. When they were in the dubious shelter of the trees, Nelson stopped and tried to figure a way out. He could see the machine hanging in the center of the clearing on invisible lines of force, turning slightly to find them in the dense growth, then, with one end pointed at them, bobbing slightly with the low breeze.

  "What's it doing?" Glynnis asked. There was superstitious awe in her voice that annoyed Nelson.

  "Sending a signal to the patrol. We don't have much time before they get here."

  "But if the machine can't be shot down what can we do?"

  "Hand me your gun." He took her gun and pointed to a vernier control set into the side of the weapon. "This is the intensity control; it's on low." He turned it up. "Now it's on full."

  "Will that stop the machine?"

  "Not by itself. But if we both move in, blasting together, again and again we might do it some damage."

  "All right," she said, taking the gun.

  Nelson led the way into the clearing. The machine moved back a little and bobbed to keep them in alignment. Nelson felt the dryness of his throat as he raised his gun to aim at the incurious machine. "All set?" he asked. From the corner of his eye he could see that Glynnis had raised her gun and was sighting.

  "All set," she answered.

  "O.K." Nelson fired. His blast hit the robot head on. It was absorbed, but almost as soon as it had died down, Glynnis fired. Nelson fired again, catching the machine in an almost steady stream of white hot energy. The machine suddenly caught on to what they were doing. It tried to escape their range by going up, but they followed it. By this time the compensators were already beginning to fail. Haywire instruments jerked the machine back down and then side to side, then into a tree trunk, blindly. It rebounded and dipped low, almost touching the ground before it curved back up. Some of Glynnis' shots were missing, but Nelson made every shot count, even while the robot was darting about wildly.

  The machine was glowing cherry red, now, some twelve feet off the ground, unable to rise further, one end pointed sharply upward. Something inside it began screaming, loudly, shrilly, with a vibration that h
urt Nelson's teeth. Nelson was firing mechanically. The machine's loud screaming stopped suddenly. Nelson checked his fire. Glynnis fired once more, missing as the machine suddenly dropped about a foot. For perhaps a second the machine remained motionless. Then it died without sound, and fell to the ground, landing with a dull noise and setting fire to the grass under and around it.

  For that matter, they had started a major forest fire with their blastings. The trees across the clearing from them were already roaring with flames. Nelson didn't wait to check on the machine. He grabbed Glynnis and pulled her around toward the way they had come. She stumbled, staring back at the machine.

  "Come on!" he said, in agitation. She came to life, mechanically, and let him propel her along. The wind was away from them, but the fire growing. They ran madly until they had to stop and fall exhausted to the ground. When he could breathe again without torturing his lungs, Nelson looked back and saw the smoke from the fire in the distance behind them. They were safe from the fire, but their escape was cut off by it. It would, he knew with dull certainty, attract attention.

  When he had rested as long as he dared, he said, "We'd better get going."

  "I'm not sure I can," she said.

  "Well, you've got to. If we stay here, we'll be caught."

  * * * * *

  They did not pause to eat. It was about midday when they encountered the robot and they walked well into the afternoon, their only purpose being to put as much distance between them and the place where they had shot the robot down as possible. Nelson found himself moving numbly, blindly uncaring of anything by making progress forward. He listened to the humming of an approaching robot for a long while before it registered on his consciousness.

  He whirled, drawing his gun, momentarily giving way to the panic that had been threatening to engulf him all afternoon. He saw the machine, high above the trees behind them, safely out of range, he knew. Bitterly, he fought down the urge to fire the gun anyway. It took a tremendous exertion of will to make his arm return the gun to its holster.