by Keith Laumer
“It looks like a mole’s trail.” Reynolds handed the glasses to his companion, thumbed the send key on the car radio.
“Jim, get Eaton and tell him to divert all traffic from the Circular south of Zone Nine. Cars are already clogging the right-of-way. The dust is visible from a mile away, and when the word gets out there’s something going on, we’ll be swamped.”
“I’ll tell him, but he won’t like it!”
“This isn’t politics! This thing will be into the outer pad area in another twenty minutes!”
“It won’t last—”
“How deep does it read now?”
“One-five!” There was a moment’s silence. “Pete, if it stays on course, it’ll surface at about where you’re parked!”
“Uh-huh. It looks like you can scratch one Intermix. Better tell Eaton to get a story ready for the press.”
“Pete, talking about news hounds—” Dan said beside him. Reynolds switched off, turned to see a man in a gay-colored driving outfit coming across from a battered Monojag sportster which had pulled up behind the rock car. A big camera case was slung across his shoulder.
“Say, what’s going on down there?” he called.
“Rock slide,” Reynolds said shortly. “I’ll have to ask you to drive on. The road’s closed to all traffic—”
“Who’re you?” The man looked belligerent.
“I’m the engineer in charge. Now pull out, brother.” He turned back to the radio. “Jim, get every piece of heavy equipment we own over here, on the double.” He paused, feeling a minute trembling in the car. “The Intermix is beginning to feel it,” he went on. “I’m afraid we’re in for it. Whatever that thing is, it acts like a solid body boring its way through the ground. Maybe we can barricade it.”
“Barricade an earthquake?”
“Yeah, I know how it sounds—but it’s the only idea I’ve got.”
“Hey—what’s that about an earthquake?” The man in the colored suit was still there. “By gosh, I can feel it—the whole damned bridge is shaking!”
“Off, mister—now!” Reynolds jerked a thumb at the traffic lanes where a steady stream of cars were hurtling past. “Dan, take us over to the main track. We’ll have to warn this traffic off—”
“Hold on, fellow.” The man unlimbered his camera. “I represent the New Devon Scope. I have a few questions—”
“I don’t have the answers.” Pete cut him off as the car pulled away.
“Hah!” The man who had questioned Reynolds yelled after him. “Big shot! Think you can …” His voice was lost behind them.
4
In a modest retirees’ apartment block in the coast town of Idlebreeze, forty miles from the scene of the freak quake, an old man sat in a reclining chair, half dozing before a yammering Tri-D tank.
“…Grandpa,” a sharp-voiced young woman was saying. “It’s time for you to go in to bed.”
“Bed? Why do I want to go to bed? Can’t sleep anyway. …” He stirred, made a pretense of sitting up, showing an interest in the Tri-D. “I’m watching this show. Don’t bother me.”
“It’s not a show, it’s the news,” a fattish boy said disgustedly. “Ma, can I switch channels—”
“Leave it alone, Bennie,” the old man said. On the screen a panoramic scene spread out, a stretch of barren ground across which a furrow showed. As he watched, it lengthened.
“…up here at the Intermix we have a fine view of the whole curious business, lazangemmun,” the announcer chattered. “And in our opinion it’s some sort of publicity stunt staged by the Port Authority to publicize their controversial port project—”
“Ma, can I change channels?”
“Go ahead, Bennie—”
“Don’t touch it,” the old man said. The fattish boy reached for the control, but something in the old man’s eye stopped him. …
5
“The traffic’s still piling in here,” Reynolds said into the phone. “Damn it, Jim, we’ll have a major jam on our hands—”
“He won’t do it, Pete! You know the Circular was his baby—the super all-weather pike that nothing could shut down. He says you’ll have to handle this in the field—”
“Handle, hell! I’m talking about preventing a major disaster! And in a matter of minutes, at that!”
“I’ll try again—”
“If he says no, divert a couple of the big ten-yard graders and block it off yourself. Set up field arcs, and keep any cars from getting in from either direction.”
“Pete, that’s outside your authority!”
“You heard me!”
Ten minutes later, back at ground level, Reynolds watched the boom-mounted polyarcs swinging into position at the two roadblocks a quarter of a mile apart, cutting off the threatened section of the raised expressway. A hundred yards from where he stood on the rear cargo deck of a light grader rig, a section of rock fifty feet wide rose slowly, split, fell back with a ponderous impact. One corner of it struck the massive pier supporting the extended shelf of the lay-by above. A twenty-foot splinter fell away, exposing the reinforcing-rod core.
“How deep, Jim?” Reynolds spoke over the roaring sound coming from the disturbed area.
“Just subsurface now, Pete! It ought to break through—” His voice was drowned in a rumble as the damaged pier shivered, rose up, buckled at its midpoint, and collapsed, bringing down with it a large chunk of pavement and guard rail, and a single still-glowing light pole. A small car that had been parked on the doomed section was visible for an instant just before the immense slab struck. Reynolds saw it bounce aside, then disappear under an avalanche of broken concrete.
“My God, Pete—” Dan started. “That damned fool news hound …!”
“Look!” As the two men watched, a second pier swayed, fell backward into the shadow of the span above. The roadway sagged, and two more piers snapped. With a bellow like a burst dam, a hundred-foot stretch of the road fell into the roiling dust cloud.
“Pete!” Mayfield’s voice burst from the car radio. “Get out of there! I threw a reader on that thing and it’s chattering off the scale …!”
Among the piled fragments something stirred, heaved, rising up, lifting multi-ton pieces of the broken road, thrusting them aside like so many potato chips. A dull blue radiance broke through from the broached earth, threw an eerie light on the shattered structure above. A massive, ponderously irresistible shape thrust forward through the ruins. Reynolds saw a great blue-glowing profile emerge from the rubble like a surfacing submarine, shedding a burden of broken stone, saw immense treads ten feet wide claw for purchase, saw the mighty flank brush a still-standing pier, send it crashing aside.
“Pete, what—what is it …?”
“I don’t know.” Reynolds broke the paralysis that had gripped him. “Get us out of here, Dan, fast! Whatever it is, it’s headed straight for the city!”
6
I emerge at last from the trap into which I had fallen, and at once encounter defensive words of considerable strength. My scanners are dulled from lack of power, but lam able to perceive open ground beyond the barrier, and farther still, at a distance of 5.7 kilometers, massive walls. Once more I transmit the Brigade Rally signal; but as before, there is no reply. I am truly alone.
I scan the surrounding area for the emanations of Enemy drive units, monitor the EM spectrum for their communications. I detect nothing; either my circuitry is badly damaged, or their shielding is superb.
I must now make a decision as to possible courses of action. Since all my comrades of the Brigade have fallen, I compute that the fortress before me must be held by Enemy forces. I direct probing signals at them, discover them to be of unfamiliar construction, and less formidable than they appear. I am aware of the possibility that this may be a trick of the Enemy; but my course is clear.
I reengage my driving engines and advance on the Enemy fortress.
7
“You’re out of your mind, father,” the stout man said. “A
t your age—”
“At your age, I got my nose smashed in a brawl in a bar on Aldo,” the old man cut him off. “But I won the fight.”
“James, you can’t go out at this time of night …” an elderly woman wailed.
“Tell them to go home.” The old man walked painfully toward his bedroom door. “I’ve seen enough of them for today.” He passed out of sight.
“Mother, you won’t let him do anything foolish?”
“He’ll forget about it in a few minutes; but maybe you’d better go now and let him settle down.”
“Mother—I really think a home is the best solution.”
“Yes,” the young woman nodded agreement. “After all, he’s past ninety—and he has his veteran’s retirement. …”
Inside his room, the old man listened as they departed. He went to the closet, took out clothes, began dressing. …
8
City Engineer Eaton’s face was chalk-white on the screen.
“No one can blame me,” he said. “How could I have known—”
“Your office ran the surveys and gave the PA the green light,” Mayor Dougherty yelled.
“All the old survey charts showed was ‘Disposal Area,’” Eaton threw out his hands. “I assumed—”
“As City Engineer, you’re not paid to make assumptions! Ten minutes’ research would have told you that was a ‘Y’ category area!”
“What’s ‘Y’ category mean?” Mayfield asked Reynolds. They were standing by the field comm center, listening to the dispute. Nearby, boom-mounted Tri-D cameras hummed, recording the progress of the immense machine, its upper turret rearing forty-five feet into the air, as it ground slowly forward across smooth ground toward the city, dragging behind it a trailing festoon of twisted reinforcing iron crusted with broken concrete.
“Half-life over one hundred years,” Reynolds answered shortly. “The last skirmish of the war was fought near here. Apparently this is where they buried the radioactive equipment left over from the battle.”
“But what the hell, that was seventy years ago—”
“There’s still enough residual radiation to contaminate anything inside a quarter-mile radius.”
“They must have used some hellish stuff.” Mayfield stared at the dull shine half a mile distant.
“Reynolds, how are you going to stop this thing?” The mayor had turned on the PA engineer.
“Me stop it? You saw what it did to my heaviest rigs: flattened them like pancakes. You’ll have to call out the military on this one, Mr. Mayor.”
“Call in Federation forces? Have them meddling in civic affairs?”
“The station’s only sixty-five miles from here. I think you’d better call them fast. It’s only moving at about three miles per hour but it will reach the south edge of the Mall in another forty-five minutes.”
“Can’t you mine it? Blast a trap in its path?”
“You saw it claw its way up from six hundred feet down. I checked the specs; it followed the old excavation tunnel out. It was rubble-filled and capped with twenty-inch compressed concrete.”
“It’s incredible,” Eaton said from the screen. “The entire machine was encased in a ten-foot shell of reinforced armocrete. It had to break out of that before it could move a foot!”
“That was just a radiation shield; it wasn’t intended to restrain a Bolo Combat Unit.”
“What was, may I inquire?” The mayor glared from one face to another.
“The units were deactivated before being buried,” Eaton spoke up, as if he were eager to talk. “Their circuits were fused. It’s all in the report—”
“The report you should have read somewhat sooner,” the mayor snapped.
“What—what started it up?” Mayfield looked bewildered. “For seventy years it was down there, and nothing happened!”
“Our blasting must have jarred something,” Reynolds said shortly. “Maybe closed a relay that started up the old battle reflex circuit.”
“You know something about these machines?” The mayor beetled his brows at him.
“I’ve read a little.”
“Then speak up, man. I’ll call the station, if you feel I must. What measures should I request?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Mayor. As far as I know, nothing on New Devon can stop that machine now.”
The mayor’s mouth opened and closed. He whirled to the screen, blanked Eaton’s agonized face, punched in the code for the Federation station.
“Colonel Blane!” he blurted as a stern face came onto the screen. “We have a major emergency on our hands! I’ll need everything you’ve got! This is the situation …”
9
I encounter no resistance other than the flimsy barrier, but my progress is slow. Grievous damage has been done to my main drive sector due to overload during my escape from the trap; and the failure of my sensing circuitry has deprived me of a major portion of my external receptivity. Now my pain circuits project a continuous signal to my awareness center, but it is my duty to my Commander and to my fallen comrades of the Brigade to press forward at my best speed; but my performance is a poor shadow of my former ability.
And now at last the Enemy comes into action! I sense aerial units closing at supersonic velocities; I lock my lateral batteries to them and direct salvo fire, but I sense that the arming mechanisms clatter harmlessly. The craft sweep over me, and my impotent guns elevate, track them as they release detonants that spread out in an envelopmental pattern which I, with my reduced capabilities, am powerless to avoid. The missiles strike; I sense their detonations all about me; but I suffer only trivial damage. The Enemy has blundered if he thought to neutralize a Mark XXVIII Combat Unit with mere chemical explosives! But I weaken with each meter gained.
Now there is no doubt as to my course. I must press the charge and carry the walls before my reserve cells are exhausted.
10
From a vantage point atop a bucket rig four hundred yards from the position the great fighting machine had now reached, Pete Reynolds studied it through night glasses. A battery of beamed polyarcs pinned the giant hulk, scarred and rust-scaled, in a pool of blue-white light. A mile and a half beyond it, the walls of the Mall rose sheer from the garden setting.
“The bombers slowed it some,” he reported to Eaton via scope. “But it’s still making better than two miles per hour. I’d say another twenty-five minutes before it hits the main ringwall. How’s the evacuation going?”
“Badly! I get no cooperation! You’ll be my witness, Reynolds, I did all I could—”
“How about the mobile batteries; how long before they’ll be in position?” Reynolds cut him off.
“I’ve heard nothing from Federation Central—typical militaristic arrogance, not keeping me informed—but I have them on my screens. They’re two miles out—say three minutes.”
“I hope you made your point about N-heads.”
“That’s outside my province!” Eaton said sharply. “It’s up to Brand to carry out this portion of the operation!”
“The HE Missiles didn’t do much more than clear away the junk it was dragging.” Reynolds’ voice was sharp.
“I wash my hands of responsibility for civilian lives,” Eaton was saying when Reynolds shut him off, changed channels.
“Jim, I’m going to try to divert it,” he said crisply. “Eaton’s sitting on his political fence; the Feds are bringing artillery up, but I don’t expect much from it. Technically, Brand needs Sector okay to use nuclear stuff, and he’s not the boy to stick his neck out—”
“Divert it how? Pete, don’t take any chances—”
Reynolds laughed shortly. “I’m going to get around it and drop a shaped drilling charge in its path. Maybe I can knock a tread off. With luck, I might get its attention on me and draw it away from the Mall. There are still a few thousand people over there, glued to their Tri-D’s. They think it’s all a swell show.”
“Pete, you can’t walk up on that thing! It’s hot—” He broke
off. “Pete, there’s some kind of nut here—he claims he has to talk to you; says he knows something about that damned juggernaut. Shall I …?”
Reynolds paused with his hand on the cut-off switch. “Put him on,” he snapped. Mayfield’s face moved aside and an ancient, bleary-eyed visage stared out at him. The tip of the old man’s tongue touched his dry lips.
“Son, I tried to tell this boy here, but he wouldn’t listen—”
“What have you got, old timer?” Pete cut in. “Make it fast.”
“My name’s Sanders. James Sanders. I’m … I was with the Planetary Volunteer Scouts, back in ’71—”
“Sure, dad,” Pete said gently. “I’m sorry, I’ve got a little errand to run—”
“Wait …” The old man’s face worked. “I’m old, son—too damned old. I know. But bear with me. I’ll try to say it straight. I was with Hayle’s squadron at Toledo. Then afterwards, they shipped us—but hell, you don’t care about that! I keep wandering, son; can’t help it. What I mean to say is—I was in on that last scrap, right here at New Devon—only we didn’t call it New Devon then. Called it Heliport. Nothing but bare rock and Enemy emplacement—”
“You were talking about the battle, Mr. Sanders,” Pete said tensely. “Go on with that part.”
“Lieutenant Sanders,” the oldster said. “Sure, I was Acting Brigade Commander. See, our major was hit at Toledo—and after Tommy Chee stopped a sidewinder at Belgrave—”
“Stick to the point, Lieutenant!”
“Yessir!” The old man pulled himself together with an obvious effort. “I took the Brigade in; put out flankers, and ran the Enemy into the ground. We mopped ’em up in a thirty-three hour running fight that took us from over by Crater Bay all the way down here to Hellport. When it was over, I’d lost sixteen units, but the Enemy was done. They gave us Brigade Honors for that action. And then …”
“Then what?”
“Then the triple-dyed yellow-bottoms at Head-quarters put out the order the Brigade was to be scrapped; said they were too hot to make decon practical. Cost too much, they said! So after the final review—” he gulped, blinked—“they planted ’em deep, two hundred meters, and poured in special high-R concrete.”
