“Do you know the trouble with you, Professor Robinson,” Smith said acidly, and paused while Robinson prepared a sarcastic response.
Just as Robinson started to answer, Smith interposed, “The trouble with you, Professor Robinson, is that you’re wishy-washy.”
Pleased with his sally, Smith turned away and studied the skyline of the incredible city.
Robinson looked at Smith and shook his head.
Then a thought struck him. “Look, if they did have individual matter transmitters here, they wouldn’t need doors. They’d just zot into their office and be done with it. No need for doors, elevators, stairs . . . yes, I’ll bet that’s what it is.”
Smith refused to answer, but once more he approached the absolutely smooth metallic side of the tower.
Suddenly he dropped to his knees and in a moment was stretched out almost flat on the smooth white stone.
“Smith!” said Robinson with alarm. “Is anything wrong? Are you sick?”
“No, my dear Professor Robinson,” said Smith, smirking as he stood up and dusted away nonexistant dust. “I was never better. Never better in my life!”
And he strode imperiously to the center of the blank wall.
“Open sesame!” he shouted, then added, “or words to that effect.”
Silently a gap appeared in the smooth and previously unbroken surface, and quickly widened to slightly more than Smith’s width and height.
“Professor, do come here and stand beside me. This may prove interesting!”
Robinson stood beside Smith; the gap in the wall widened.
“Now,” said Smith imperiously. “Stand behind me.”
Shrugging, Robinson complied.
The gap narrowed to Smith’s dimensions, then widened a trifle as if taking into consideration the fact that Robinson, behind Smith, was built on a larger scale.
“Isn’t it lovely?” asked Smith, turning away from the gap and making a gesture with his arm including the whole city.
“They’re all like that, I wager.”
Silently, swiftly, the gap shut.
Robinson moved toward the blank wall. ,”Why, it— it’s absolutely unbroken again! That’s . . . impossible.”
“Oh, my dear Professor, surely you know better than to say a thing like that? After all our experiences? In this case, for instance, there is obviously a telepathic control monitoring those who might approach, seeking entrance here at the ground level. Perhaps not everyone always carries the matter transmitters. There may be tourists. Perhaps some are simply old fashioned. Were. Were. I must remember there can’t have been anyone here for . . . aeons. Hm. Ah, but the surface is unbroken? No doubt some form of submolecular rearrangement. With their obvious abilities,”—again the sweeping inclusive gesture over the city—such a detail would be relatively simple to engineer. Wonder why they let the surface of the plaza show wear in front of the openings, though? Oh, well, not doubt I could work out a machine to do such things, if I chose to put my mind to it. No need to now, of course, when we can simply take one of their machines and modify it, or whatever may be necessary. Oh, what a positively glorious treasure trove this city is going to be! What marvels will we find to take with us!”
Smith rubbed his hands in complete glee.
Robinson looked at him disgustedly.
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER SEVEN
“All bight,” said Robinson, as everyone was preparing to leave the Jupiter, now standing in the huge central plaza. “You’ve all been through this before, but I’m going to warn you again to stay together, never less than two-at-a-time, stay armed with laser pistols, keep a communicator handy at all times.”
“We seem to be the only people here, but let’s not count on that. We may be up against a whole city in the flick of an eye. So be careful.”
“Gee, Dad,” Penny said, “can’t we ever just land and have a little fun?”
“Time for fun when we’re sure we can afford it. Right now, we want to find out who belongs to this city, how it stays alive, why this planet looks like a billiard ball with grass, is there food, is there a level of scientific development high enough to perhaps find us a way to get back home? There are far too many questions for relaxing today, Penny.”
“Yeah, well, I never thought being on adventures all the time could be such a drag some times.” Penny picked a laser pistol off the rack, checked it expertly, and tucked it away.
Robinson grinned when she was safely past him on her way down the ramp, and Maureen caught his eye. She was grinning too.
“Our daughter is getting tired of adventure,” she said, moving towards him. They watched their children and the others outside the ship, making preparations for the exploration of the city.
He nodded. “And if I felt we had the time to spare, I’d give her a good taste of not having anything to do. A couple of weeks of being shut out on all the projects, here or on shipboard, and she’d be happy to work, just for something worthwhile to occupy her . . . “
“But we don’t have the time,” he added with a sigh. “So she’s going to have to work like the rest of us, and learn as fast as she can. Just like Will and Judy. And the rest of us, for that matter, including you.”
He smiled reaching out and taking her chin lightly in his hand. “Have you been keeping up with your lessons?”
Maureen smiled demurely and did a half-curtsey, one index finger touching her chin from below. “Yes, master,” she said in a small-girl voice. She continued in her normal voice, “And let me tell you, ballistic trigonometry, it ain’t easy. I know you want me to learn everything you know about running the ship, but your wife is going to end up with scrambled brains one morning, instead of scrambled eggs . . . ”
Robinson leaned over and kissed his wife gently, then turned to go down the ramp.
When she did not follow him, he stopped and turned back to her. “What’s the matter? Don’t you want to explore the city?”
Flustered, she stepped forward and laughed uncertainly. “Of course—I guess. I don’t know, I guess I was thinking ‘maybe I should stay home with the textbooks’!”
He put his arm about her, and together they walked down the ramp from the ship. “No, I really prefer scrambled eggs, I think . . . ”
The others were waiting at the bottom of the ramp.
“Now,” said Don, “you say you didn’t find anything that looked dangerous, right?”
“Well, you saw the scout tapes of the city—it’s pretty big. Anything might be tucked away in a corner where we might not see it for a year. But when we got inside the Central Tower, what little we could make immediate sense out of looked to both Dr. Smith and myself like monitoring equipment that had not been utilized for a long time. Some extremely interesting stuff, too.”
“Interesting? What?”
Robinson looked at Smith, and they both shrugged. “Well, it’s simpler if you see it.”
“What does the Robot think?” Judy asked.
“Insufficient data,” answered the Robot. “Probability of great age of city. Danger level small, but city is large. Hence: caution at all times.”
“All right, gang, let’s get started,” said Robinson, and they all proceeded across the plaza to the Central Tower.
At the supposedly impenetrable wall, Dr. Smith did his “Open sesame” trick again, at which Will laughed; then they went inside, one after the other.
The ground floor of the Central Tower—or floors, since it included all four stories covered by the smooth outside metal wall—echoed oddly to the Earthmen’s footsteps, as they walked without speaking across the vast open space.
“Stop!” said Don suddenly.
Everyone froze, and he kept walking.
“Ok, come on, I’ve just discovered why the echo here is so funny—there isn’t any echo. We weren’t hearing our own footsteps echoing, but the irregular sound of everyone else’s actual steps. These walls must be fantastically absorbent. Yet they don’t look like soundproofing . . . ”
&
nbsp; “It is not the walls, Dr. West,” said the Robot. “I have observed a strange effect within the city, which has intensified inside this building. I have now analyzed it—a highly complex forcefield designed simply to keep things clean and quiet. It may have other purposes, however; risk therefor is now seventh level. Increase caution.”
“Shush, you chittering typewriter with vocal cords. We are exercising maximum caution at this point, and I assure you that at this point we could not be further from any danger—owaaaooooooo!”
Smith had stepped onto a square whose silvery surface was a distinct contrast to the transparent blackness of most of the rest of the floor on which they gingerly walked.
Abruptly he was jerked upwards by an invisible force towards one of several round openings in the ceiling, and at what looked like a rate of a floor a second, he quickly sped upwards away from them.
The Robinsons and Don looked at each other in silent horror as Smith’s hoarse screams of terror faded away above them swiftly.
Then Will nudged his father. “Look over there—its another one of those silvery squares. I bet its some kind of an elevator. It goes up, here, and it probably goes down, over there. Or down to there.”
“Affirmative. Will Robinson,” stated the Robot. “There is 99.9997 certainly that such is the case.”
“But—but how does he get down” shrieked Judy. “How does he make it stop and bring him back down?”
Abruptly Don chuckled, then laughed aloud. “Why, he’ll have to go all the way to the top. Two miles! It’ll probably kick him off, gently, so as to make way for someone who might be right behind him, though no one’s probably been in here for a hundred years. Then he’ll have to walk over and take the ‘down’ elevator.”
“Except he’ll be too scared to! He’ll be up there until one of us comes up to get him! Haw!” Don continued laughing.
“Why,” he said, almost choking with laughter at the thought, “I bet that thing’ll just kick him off at the top floor, and I bet he’ll figure he’s being thrown off to fall all the way back down to the ground!”
“Now, Don,” said Judy, “that’s not fair. How would you feel, if that thing took off and didn’t give you a moment to think about it?”
“Aw, Judy,” Don said, still chuckling, while he extended one hand over the silver plate and watched it slowly waft upwards without his conscious control, “for a man of intelligence, like Dr. Smith, it would be a gas. The trouble is he’s also a coward!”
“Huh!” said Judy, and pushed Don forward over the plate. “On your way back, bring Dr. Smith, big mouth!” Don’s shout of surprise zipped upwards with him as he took off like a shot.
“Judy!” gasped her mother. “That wasn’t—”
“Dr. West’s hypothesis is within a few tenths of probable accuracy,” said the Robot. “He should be back down within five minutes, if the rate of ascent as I observed it remains relatively constant throughout the entire two miles. Presumably he will bring Dr. Smith, as I fear Dr. Smith will hesitate to adventure upon trying the ‘down’ side by himself.”
And the Robot allowed his tapes to hiss. Will had always told him that sounded most like a human sigh, and the Robot was proud of it.
Three minutes later, the Robot said, “If you will look directly above the second plate, you should just be able to make out Drs. Smith and West descending.”
Judy peered up over the second plate.
“Gee,” she said, withdrawing her head, “they’re coming, all right, way up there. But this thing sure didn’t want me to get in the way. It was like a big strong hand, gently but firmly pushing me away and saying ‘no.’ ”
“Safety device, I’d imagine, or maybe just the way the thing works,” said her father. “It would be dangerous, after all, if everyone coming down were just to pile up on inconsiderate people standing on the plate. Like not letting you run up on the down escalator, I’d say.”
Two minutes later Don and Dr. Smith appeared through the second hole in the ceiling, deaccelerating slightly as they neared the ground, then stopping on the plate without any apparent inertial shock*
Immediately the others could see them being forced gently off the plate by the invisible force, Don quietly, Smith squawking indignant protests.
“These people were not civilized,” said Smith as he once more dusted nonexistant dust off himself. No civilized race would treat a Smith in such a cavalier fashion.”
“What was it like up there?” asked Judy of Don, who glowered at her. .
“You! See if I ever trust you again,” he said firmly.
“You were so sure of yourself, and laughing at poor Dr. Smith,” she retorted. “I figured you ought to get a taste of your own medicine. So did it work out the way you said?”
“Yes,” he said, then turned slightly as if no longer answering her but reporting directly to Robinson. “When I got there, Smith was nowhere to be seen, and I wondered if I was wrong after all. But the moment I called his name, he came through a doorway. Said he was looking for the stairwell!”
Don chuckled and continued. “So I looked for the other elevator tube, and I couldn’t find it. But there was another one of those large silver squares on the floor, so I persuaded Smith to stand on it with me. The moment our feet were resting squarely on it, ‘zittt’-we couldn’t see it any longer and we were on our way down! Whoever these people were, they were pretty good.”
“Good? Good?” shouted Smith. “Of what earthly use is an elevator device with no way to stop off at the floor you want?”
“What floor did you want?” asked Don.
“I didn’t want any floor!” howled Smith. “I wanted it to stop!”
The Robot whirred and clicked. “As a machine myself, Dr. Smith, I can assure you that the nature of the device was such that it could not simply stop. It runs all the time. Judging from the door device, the machine is either telepathic or an instant translator. And as you know from the planet of the Ambroline, it is not impossible to construct a machine that can communicate telepathically. Probably all you needed to do was to think of the floor you wished.”
“All right,” Robinson broke in, “now we know how to get up and down in the buildings here. What I want to know is how we can get from place to place. If we re going to explore this city, we can’t be taking the scoutcraft everywhere; it’s too much trouble, and there’s only one craft for all of us anyway. And of course this city’s too big to explore on foot.”
“I think we should look for food,” said Judy. “How did these people, whatever they were, eat? There isn’t a single farm on this planet, from what we saw out there.”
“You’re right,” Don said reluctantly. “I’ll bet they synthesized it, like the Voyd’azh. Thing we should do, is find their main synthesizing plant.”
“1 myself would prefer to examine this building we are now in,” Smith said imperiously. “One must really be systematic about such things, and who is more systematic than Smith?”
“Can the Robot and I stay with Dr. Smith, Dad?” asked Will, and his father nodded.
“I’ll go with Don and Judy for food,” said Penny.
“Well, I’ll stay with you, dear,” Maureen stated firmly. “You always get to go off with somebody else! I demand equal time!” She smiled warmly.
“First,” Robinson said, raising his voice unconsciously, “we have to get some idea what’s going on in this city. Now, when Dr. Smith and I were in here briefly before, we found that the walls in here have another curious trait.”
He walked over to one of the four-story interior walls, which glistened blackly. He looked at it with concentration.
Suddenly the entire wall became alive with countless lines and dots of many different colors.
Robinson half-turned, back to the others. “Dr. Smith had stood about this far from one of the walls, and said something like, ‘what we could really use is a map of the city,’ and poof, this thing came on.”
The Robot wheeled forward and began to scan
the wall, his “head” moving back and forth and up and down to the rather limited extent possible.
“It is indeed a map of this city,” agreed the Robot. “The symbiology is, however, obscure to me, and does not easily compute. Perhaps you could prod it with an order to tell you telepathically what the map means.”
“Right,” said Robinson, and faced the wall again. Long moments passed while everyone studied the brilliantly colored map.
The first thing about it was that it was stylized; from the first scoutcraft survey they knew that the boundaries of the city were quite irregular, like most Earth cities, though it was larger than any city on Earth. This basic familiar thing was as responsible as anything for keeping the party calm.
The map was a stylized irregular circle. A fine network of blue-black lines was almost entirely overlaid by networks of light-blue, orange, and red lines, extremely difficult for the Earthmen to study because of the thinness of the lines. Small star-shaped dots of green studded the map at almost every square surrounded by the blue-black lines.
The central plaza seemed clearly indicated by a much larger and more irregularly bounded group of blue-black lines, and several larger dots of green.
Superimposed helter-skelter over the whole map were a multiplicity of what looked like printing in an alien tongue, done in very light yellow.
“It’s those squiggly words in yellow that are the key, I bet,” observed Will in a whisper.
“Shush,” said Maureen, also whispering. “Your father’s got to concentrate.”
“It’s all right, Maureen,” said Robinson, with a sigh. “The goodgie doesn’t seem to want to tell me what it means.”
“What did you ask it?” she asked.
“Oh, to translate the yellow words, to explain the colored lines, you know. I’m sure it understood me.”
“Ask for food,” said the Robot.
Robinson snapped his fingers. “Of course! It’s only a machine—it can only answer the questions it’s programmed for. My questions were too complicated.”
He fell silent and scowled at the map.
“Hey!” shouted Will, “That yellow word by the central plaza here! It’s gotten brighter!”
Lost In Space Page 9
