“Frankly, I don’t know,” Robinson answered. “But if those things could easily get rid of us, they would. My conclusion is that they can’t. But I don’t know whether we can get rid of them, either. And they have Judy, so we can’t just blast their ship, assuming we can even find it.”
“Well, you’re going to do something, aren’t you?” his wife insisted.
“Yes—but what? If we could just find some advanced weapons here, something that could give us an edge . . . I have a feeling we’ll hear from them pretty soon. In the meantime . . . ” He shrugged, his face as miserable as his feelings inside. “Well, all I can say is—spread out again, and let’s see what we can find.”
“Hey, what about Smith?” There was a deep note of suspicion in Don’s voice. “What was he doing up here that made them come here in the first place? In fact, where did he go?”
“Did they get him too?”
“I didn’t see anything.”
“Did I hear my name?” It was Smith.
“Where did you go?” demanded Don. “When the action started, I mean.”
“ ‘The better part of valor is discretion,’ the immortal Bard has stated. My weapon having been purloined by one of those disreputable and smelly beasts, I sought a vantage point of safety in the confusion.”
“Ok, ok,” said Don. “Catch you with your excuses down, I suppose that’d be the day. I don’t suppose you have any worthwhile ideas on what we should do to find Judy?”
Smith looked pious. “I was learning a few things about the computer system here when I was so rudely interrupted. My feeling is that I can continue to serve at my most useful by remaining here pursuing the lines I had been working on . . . ”
“Fine,” said Robinson, cutting him off. “Let us know if you get anything from these panels here. They look pretty fancy. I hope they didn’t get too badly banged up in the fracas, but they look pretty sturdy. You’re the computer expert, Dr. Smith, make like an expert— and fast. We want Judy back, and quickly.”
“Very well,” Smith answered, drawing himself up. “Never fear, Smith is here. I shall endeavor to exert my fullest intellectual—”
“Action, not talk, Smith,” said Don harshly. “Just figure these panels out and help find a way to get her back.”
“Hmph,” said Smith, and reseated himself at one of the consoles with an air of disdain, ignoring the others.
“Oh, John, what if we can’t get her back?” said Maureen, and she clung to his chest for a moment, her tears warm and wet on his shirt. “What . . . if we’ve lost her . . . forever? Those horrible rat-faced monsters! . . . ”
Robinson patted her on the back and tried to comfort her.
“Now, Maureen, it’s going to be all right. Let’s leave Dr. Smith here to do what he can, and go back down to that information panel on the ground floor. If we work at it, maybe we can locate a weapons depot, or something . . . ”
Smith turned to watch them as they stepped one by one onto the down-plate of the anti-gravity beam, and as soon as Don, the last, disappeared, he jumped up and rubbed his hands with glee.
“Ah, yes,” he chuckled to himself, “Smith is here. Among a whole new world of goodies. Now for that other room. How fortunate I fell against it and begged— er, asked, for it to open. I don’t think I would have suspected it was here . . . ”
He crossed the room to a bare wall panel, and waved a hand at it. Obeying his silent thought, it opened into a door, and he walked into the second room.
“Hmmm, now let’s see. Yes, these machines are different from the other room,” he mused aloud. “Perhaps it will take me a little more time than I had anticipated, to penetrate these mysteries.
“Now what’s this thing?”
A transparent panel was inset into the largest panel board in the room. Inside was what looked like nothing so much as a lady’s hair-net, but made out of silvery-gleaming lustrous wires.
He fiddled with the transparent panel a moment, till it slid aside; then he reached in and drew out the silvery net.
“Not attached to anything else; what in heaven’s name can this thing be for?”
He ran his hands over the wires and studied the points at which the silvery wires intersected each other.
“Curious,” he said. “Little weight to the thing, but a feeling of strength. And it’s hard to focus my eyes on the intersections . . . ”
He hefted it again, and then on impulse opened it out and placed it on his head.
Absolutely nothing happened.
Smith shrugged, and looked about for something to plug the net into—when there was a thud on the floor behind him.
He turned instantly—to face a seven-foot-tall ha-Grebst warrior crouched under the hole he had obviously just burned in the roof.
“Left one behind up there, eh?” Smith said, surprised at his own coolness.
The ha-Grebst crouched lower and growled. “One by one, Earthman,” the voder translator said. “You cannot escape.”
And with that the rat-faced alien lunged for Smith.
But the ha-Grebst was slow and clumsy by Earth standards, and Smith evaded his first attack easily. As the ha-Grebst brushed by him, Smith gagged on the rank stench, and wondered why the filthy beast didn’t just blast him with his ray gun.
“Ha!” Smith said, and tugged for the spare laser Robinson had handed him before the others had left. “Sometimes I forget myself.”
The alien growled hideously, and one claw-like hand swept the laser from Smith’s smaller hand.
“No weapons,” the ha-Grebst snarled. “Feel you die under my own fangs.” And the ha-Grebst lunged again.
As Smith evaded him again, his back bumped against a chair, and, knocked off-balance, he fell to the floor heavily. Instantly the ha-Grebst whirled about and prepared to pounce on the helpless Earthman.
“Stop!” shrieked Smith, in terror of his life. “Oh, please, stay back—stay there—don’t come any closer!”
He squeezed his eyes shut in anticipation of the awful end that was fast approaching him, and his mind gibbered on and on, begging, pleading, ordering the ha-Grebst not to kill him. His breath ran out and he sucked in fresh oxygen—and Grebst-stink— greedily and fearfully.A moment passed; another moment Seconds now, five, ten . . .
Fearfully, Smith opened one eye.
The ha-Grebst was poised above him, mouth agape, fangs dripping a foul slime.
“No, no,” Smith shrieked aloud. “Go away—get away from me!”
Before he could close his eyes again, the astonished Smith saw the ha-Grebst abruptly begin backpedalling as fast as he could, directly away from the prostrate man, until his back fetched up against the far wall, whereupon the ha-Grebst stopped with one foot still up in the air, motionless.
“Wha—” Smith began, then stopped.
He peered at the motionless alien more closely.
The ha-Grebst was in a rigid, almost catatonically quiet state, his arms and legs frozen in what, even to the Earthman’s uncertain, ignorant eye, were obviously unnatural positions.
Smith was a coward first, perhaps, but a scientist second, and as his fear slowly left him, his mind began searching for answers.
“Why . . . why are you standing like that?” he said slowly to the rigid ha-Grebst.
“You told me to get away from you. I can go no further without further directions.” The snarls were bitten off, clipped; the voder was as toneless as ever.
“1 told you? But—”
Smith fell silent, then realized that the ha-Grebst might come out of his strange inactive state at any moment. Frantically he scrabbled around on the floor for his laser pistol, and found it just in time to turn around—and see the ha-Grebst slowly lowering one hairy leg and begin to move forward even more slowly.
“Oh, no, you foul-smelling rodent,” Smith said triumphantly, waving the laser in the air with a grand gesture. “You just stay where you are and answer my questions.”
The ha-Grebst froze once more.
“Um,” said Smith, indecisive about what to ask.
The ha-Grebst remained motionless.
Absently, Smith started to scratch his head—and felt the silvery network of thin wires, still in place over his thin hair.
“Aha!” Smith shouted. “So that’s it! Are you obeying me because of this thing on my head?”
“I do not know,” the ha-Grebst voder said.
“No, no, no, it must be the network, you ignoramus. It’s some sort of headset, a control unit, something to do with the computers . . . ”
Experimentally, Smith slowly began to lift the headset from his skull.
Nothing happened—until it was completely away from his head.
With a fierce growl that overrode the voder’s futile attempt at translation, the ha-Grebst charged toward Smith from the far wall.
“Woops!” Smith said, and clapped the headset firmly back on his head once more. “Stop right there, fellow! This is Smith speaking, and don’t you forget it!”
The ha-Grebst froze once more.
Smith smiled.
Smith grinned.
Smith chuckled, laughed aloud, then broke into hysterical giggles . . .
“I’ve found it!” he choked out finally, almost hysterical with glee, and he did a little skip-step.
“Why, I can’t believe it! All my life I’ve searched for the key, the key to conquest, to power, to glory, the key by which I could attain all my deepest dreams—and now . . .” His voice fell to a hush. “And now . . . I’ve found it!”
His manic laughter increased again.
Helpless with laughter at last, he stumbled over to a seat and eased himself into it, then relaxed and let the wild feeling of elation and joy surge through him, touching every nerve in his body with sheer anticipatory delight...
There was a movement from the ha-Grebst. Toward Smith. The motion caught his eye.
“Oh, no, my fine fellow,” Smith said imperiously. “You just forget about ever thinking for yourself, my boy. You’re mine now. You, my incredibly ugly friend, you . . . “
He struggled to express all his feelings at once, then found one paramount emotion surging outwards. “Yes!” he shouted with delight.
“You—kneel before me, first of my subjects. For I shall become King Zachary-no. No, grander than that—Emperor Zachary the First. The only! Ruler of the world-ruler of the galaxy! Power-power in my hands at last! Power to rule . . . “
“Power to rule . . . the universe!” His voice had sunk to a whisper, as his mind drifted off to thoughts of the adamantine throne he would have constructed to his precise directions—it would be chased with the rarest diamonds embedded in purest gold. His palace would be constructed of one block of stone each from every planet under his iron sway, with every precious gem and metal represented in his dominions studded into the walls, an endless gleaming tribute to his power and sway . . .
Emperor Zachary! Tears of gratitude for his immeasurable luck—and great skill—coursed down his cheeks as he contemplated that which was to be. . .
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER TEN
“Warning! Warning!” the Robot intoned, as he rolled along beside Will through the corridors under the Central Tower. “My sensors indicate we are approaching a source of immense, perhaps virtually immeasurable power. Warning! I cannot assist you against such strength! Will Robinson, you should return at once to your parents—”
“Shush,” said Will firmly. “If we all don’t take a few chances we’re all going to end up like Judy. Besides, power is just what we want now, you know that. We’ve got to get her back from those awful rat-men!”
“The ha-Grebst are a race of great power,” said the Robot. “Perhaps it would be wisest to do as they say...
Will stopped in his tracks and stared at the Robot. “Why—why, I never knew you were a coward, Robot!” he said, almost breathlessly.
“No, Will Robinson, I am not a coward. But I am a realist. There is danger here in these corridors, I am certain of it—great danger. Even the ha-Grebst are almost certainly less dangerous. Hence: perhaps the ha-Grebst are our only chance of surviving.”
Will shook his head firmly. “No, Robot. We must keep going. We must have hope. Without hope . . . ”
He choked, and thought of that last glimpse of Judy, her face contorted with fear and loathing as one of the ha-Grebst hauled her up through the hole in the ceiling . . .
“Hope,” said the Robot, whirring and clicking. “Hope does not compute. But—good luck, Will Robinson. I will stay with you and do what I can.”
Will smiled at the Robot and patted him on the arm. “Thanks, Robot. I knew you were ok. You always have come through in the pinch. You’re swell, you know that?”
“Swell does not compute, Will Robinson. But thank you anyway.”
Will grinned to himself. That darned Robot was always pretending he didn’t understand what human beings were all about—but he was more human than most people he’d ever known!
They were nine levels down from the surface now, and he could see no indication that any of the levels so far had differed from any of the others.
“How come they need so many levels for their maintenance machines, like Dad said this was all for?” he asked the Robot, not really expecting an answer.
“Perhaps this city has had other uses for them after all. I cannot say. As your mother said, aliens are . . . alien. Without the aliens to tell us, therefore, it is doubtful that we will ever learn more than a fraction of the secrets hidden in this city. And would they tell us, even if we asked?”
“Yeah,” said Will. “I see what you mean, I guess. Well, here’s another ramp. Come on, Robot, we gotta keep on going. Is that feeling of danger getting any stronger?”
“Yes, Will Robinson,” said the Robot, as its foottrack motors whined momentarily at the strain of keeping him down to the boy’s pace on the ramp’s slope.
“Among other things, I can tell you at this point that this ramp is steeper than the ones we have been traversing. I suspect this may be an older section of the city that we are now visiting.”
“Yes,” said Will excitedly, as they reached the foot of the ramp. “The walls are brown, here! And the corridor is narrower, and the ceiling’s not as high! Come on, let’s see if there’s another ramp!”
They doubled back past the bulk of the ramp, looking for the next one directly underneath it, just as with the nine levels above this one.
But there was no ramp.
“Warning! Danger!” said the Robot. “Manifestations of great power are closer than ever! But,” the Robot added unexpectedly, “I suppose that does not make any difference. I suggest, therefore, that we take the corridor to the left. That is where I receive the strongest impression of power.”
They walked in silence for several minutes, until Will spoke suddenly.
“Hey! Hey, I hear my footsteps echoing! They aren’t using that absorbent field down here along these corridors. We must be close to finding something out!”
“Affirmative. Strong fields of power on this level have negated the protective field that extends throughout the rest of the city.”
“There is a door in the wall just ahead of us,” the Robot continued. “A solid door, I mean; not one of those dilating doors we have found elsewhere.”
“And my sensors report that behind it lies the source of great power I have been sensing for the past ten minutes.”
They approached the panel in the wall. A small square of white material, crisscrossed with thin black fines, was set at one side of the panel, well above Will’s head.
“Push that, will you, Robot,” asked Will. “I bet that’s the doorbell.”
He almost laughed at the thought, then fell silent, feeling sweat on the palms of his hands. Maybe we should go back!—the thought screamed in his mind, but he stood there resolutely, remembering Judy, as the Robot extended his arm and touched the white square.
The wall panel shimmered for a moment like
one of the matter transmitters, then vanished.
Beyond the empty doorway was a vast room, filled with giant circular vats, extending as far as Will could see into distant dimness. Low illumination showed a short ramp, which led downward from the door to the floor of the huge room some twenty feet below the level of the corridor floor.
‘It . . . it looks like a brewery,” Will said at last in a whisper. Robot, what . . . what does it mean?”
“The source of great power is within this room, Will Robinson,” said the Robot. “Apart from that, I know no more than you do.”
“Ok,” said Will, and shrugged. “Lets go on inside . . . “
His footsteps echoed as he strode manfully down the ramp, ignoring his fears.
“I got used to not hearing my footsteps,” he said to the Robot. “Their echoes, I mean. Now they make me nervous . . . ” He giggled for a moment, then fell silent again.
They reached the floor of the huge room, and looked up at the nearest vat, its top some forty feet above them. Its steel-like sides gleamed dully in the dim light of the room.
A set of hand-holds, twice as big and twice as far apart as humans would build, ran up the side of the vat to the top.
“I’m going up,” Will said decisively. “It’s the only thing to do. We’ve got to know what’s inside.”
“Very well, Will Robinson. But . . . there is great danger. I . . . I want you to know . . . that if anything happens... I will miss you very much . . . ”
The Robot fell silent, and Will could sense his embarrassment—impossible in a robot, but indisputably there.
Will choked, and patted the Robot on the arm.
Then he reached up to the first handhold, and began hoisting himself up.
By the time he had reached the rung just below rim, he was panting for breath, and the sweat was rolling down his back. He paused at the rim, looking down at the foreshortened Robot far below him.
Then he peered over the rim.
A giant, naked, sexless body twice as tall as a man floated in a dark soupy fluid.
Eyes closed, the hairless giant lay motionless, only the front of its body showing above the fluid, but with its head propped up by something so that the face seemed to be staring sightlessly, straight at ten-year-old William Robinson of Earth.
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