Star Soldiers (34 page)

"No one around," Kartr whispered. Why he whispered he could not have explained. But the feeling of being watched, of being followed, persisted. Beneath the shadow of these dead towers he felt it necessary to creep and crawl silently—unless he awaken—what?

They dared to leave the protection of the dark and come out to the edge of the fountain. Now, through the spray of water and light, they could see its center column. There was a statue on it—more than life size, unless the builders of the city had been giants. It was not of any stone they could recognize but some white, gleaming stuff upon which time had left no marks. And, at the full sight of it, both Kartr and Rolth stopped almost in midstride.

The figure was a girl, her arms above her head, with a mane of unbound hair flowing free below her slender waist. In her upheld hands she grasped a symbol they both knew—a star of five points. And it was from the tips of those points that the water gushed. But the girl—she was no Bemmy—she was as human as they.

"It's Ionate—the Spirit of the Spring Rain—" Kartr reached far into his mind and drew forth a legend of his blasted home.

"No—it's Xyti of the Frosts!" Rolth had memories, too, stemming from his own dusky world of cold and shadow.

For a second they stared at each other almost angrily and then both smiled.

"She is both—and neither—" Rolth suggested. "These men had their spirits of beauty, too. But it is plain by her eyes and hair she is not of Falthar. And by her ears—she is no kin of yours—"

"But why—" Kartr stared at the fountain in puzzlement. "Why does she seem as if I have known her always? And that star—"

"A common symbol—you have seen it a hundred times on a hundred different worlds. No, it is as I have said. She is the ideal of beauty and so we see her, even as he who fashioned her dreamed her into being."

They left the court of the fountain reluctantly and came into a wide avenue which stretched its green length straight toward the center of the city. Now and again colored lights formed untranslatable signs in the air or across the fronts of the buildings. They passed by what must have been shops and saw the cobwebs of ancient wares spread inside the windows. Then Kartr caught Rolth's arm and pulled him quickly into the shelter of a doorway.

"Robot!" The sergeant's lips were close to his companion's ear. "I think it is patrolling!"

"Can we circuit it?"

"Depends upon its type."

They had only their past experience to guide them. Robot patrols, they knew, were deadly danger. Those they had seen elsewhere could not be turned from duty except by the delicate and dangerous act of short-circuiting their controls. Otherwise the robot would either blast without question anything or anyone not natural to that place—or who could not answer it with the prescribed code. It was what the rangers had feared on the landing stage, and it would be even worse to face it now when they had no sled for a quick getaway.

"It will depend upon whether this is a native or—"

"Or introduced by the Ageratan?" Rolth interrupted. "Yes, if he brought it, we know how to handle it. A native—"

He stopped whispering at the faint sound of metal clinking against stone. Kartr straightened and flashed his torch above their heads. The doorway in which they crouched was not too high and a small projection overhung it. Just over that was the dark break of a window. Seeing that he began to plan.

"Inside—" he said to Rolth. "Try to reach the second floor and get out of that window upon the ledge. Then I'll attract the robot's attention and you can burn its brain case from above—"

Rolth was gone, slipping into the darkness which was no barrier to him. Kartr leaned against the side of the doorway. It would be a race, he thought, with a little sick twinge in the pit of his stomach. If the robot got here before Rolth reached that ledge—! If he, Kartr, couldn't manage to avoid the first attack of the patroller—! Luckily he didn't have too long to wait and catalogue all those dismal possibilities.

He could see the patroller now. It was at the far end of the block. The flashing lights on the buildings played across its metal body. But the sergeant was almost sure that it was unlike the ones known to galactic cities. The rounded dome of the head casing, the spider-like slenderness of the limbs, the almost graceful smoothness of its progress, were akin more to the architecture of this place.

Its pace was steady and unhurried. It paused before each doorway and shot a spy beam from its head into the entrance. Manifestly it was going about its appointed task of checking the security of each portal.

Then the sergeant sighed with relief. Rolth had crawled into place and crouched now well above the line of the robot's vision. If only this patroller was constructed on the same general pattern they knew and
could
be short-circuited through the head!

But when it reached the next doorway it hesitated. Kartr tensed. This might be worse than he had thought. The thing had some sense perception. He was sure that it suspected his presence. No spy beam flashed. Instead it stood there unmoving—as if it were puzzled, making up its mind.

Was it relaying back to some dust-covered headquarters an alarm?

But its arms were moving—

"Kartr!"

Night sight or no night sight, Kartr had not needed that shout from Rolth to warn him. He had already seen what the patroller held ready. He hurled himself backward, falling flat on the floor of the hall, letting momentum carry him in a slide some distance along it. Behind him was a burst of eye-searing flame, filling the whole entrance with an inferno. Only his trained muscles and sixth sense of preservation had saved him from cooking in the midst of that!

Shakily he crawled on his belly away from the fury. Was the robot going to follow him in and complete its mission?

Hollow sounds of feet pounding—

"Kartr! Kartr!"

He had levered himself to a sitting position when Rolth plunged around an angle in the hallway and almost fell over him.

"Are you hurt? Did he get you?"

Kartr grinned lopsidedly. To just be alive—he winced as Rolth's examining hands touched skin scraped raw.

"What about—?"

"The bag of bolts? I scragged him all right—a blast hole right through his head casing and he went down. He didn't reach you?"

"No. And at least he's told us something about the civilization they had here." The sergeant surveyed the blaze behind him with critical distaste. "Blow a hole in a city block to get someone. Wonder what they would have thought of a stun gun." With Rolth's hand under his arm Kartr got to his feet. He hoped that he had not rebroken his wrist and that the red agony in it was only from the jar of his fall.

"I have a feeling," he began and then was glad that Rolth had retained a grip on him because the hallway appeared to sway under his feet, "that we'd better get away from here—fast—"

The thought which plagued him was the memory of that momentary pause before the robot had attacked. Kartr was sure that then a message had been flashed from the patroller—where? If the timeless machine had only been performing rounds set him generations before the city had been deserted by its builder—then such a report would be no menace—unless it activated other machines in turn. On the other hand, if the mysterious Ageratan controlled the robots, then the rangers might have successfully met a first attack, only to face other and perhaps worse ones.

Rolth agreed with this when he suggested it aloud.

"We can't go back that way anyhow." The Faltharian pointed to the blazing pit of radiation which had once been the door. "And they may just be combing the streets for us, too. Listen, this city reminds me in some ways of Stiltu—"

Kartr shook his head. "Heard of it, but have never been there."

"Capital of Lydias." Rolth identified it impatiently. "They're old-fashioned there—still live in big cities. Well, they have an underground system of links—ways of traveling under the surface—"

"Hm." Kartr's mind jumped to the next point easily. "Then we might try going down and see what we can find? All right. And if that patroller did rouse out the guard before you burned him, it will be some time before they can even get in here to see if their tame hunter bagged us. Let's look for a way down."

But to their bafflement there seemed to be no way down at all. They threaded rooms and halls, pushing past the remains of furnishings and strange machinery which at other times would have set them speculating for hours, hunting some means of descent. None appeared to exist—only two stairways leading up.

In the end they discovered what they wanted in the center of a room. It was a dark well, a black hole in which the beam of Kartr's flash found no end. Although the light did not reveal much it helped them in another way because its owner dropped it. He gave an exclamation and made a futile grab—much too late. Rolth supplied an excited comment, reverting in this stress to his native dialect and only making sense when Kartr demanded harshly that he translate.

"It did not fall! It is floating down—floating!"

The sergeant sat back on his heels. "Inverse descent! Still working!" He could hardly believe that. Small articles might possibly be upborne by the gravity-dispelling rays—but something heavier—a man—say—

Before he could protest Rolth edged over the rim, to dangle by his hands.

"It's working all right! I'm treading air. Here goes!"

His hands disappeared and he was gone. But his voice came up the shaft.

"Still walking on air! Come on in, the swimming's fine!"

Fine for Rolth maybe who could see where he was going. To lower oneself into that black maw and hope that the anti-gravity was
not
going to fail—! Not for the first time in his career with the rangers Kartr silently cursed his overvivid imagination as he allowed his boots to drop into the thin air of the well. He involuntarily closed his eyes and muttered a half-plea to the Spirit of Space as he let go.

But he was floating! The air closed about his body with almost tangible support. He was descending, of course, but at the rate of a feather on a light breeze. Far below he saw the blue light of Rolth's torch. The other had reached bottom. Kartr drew his feet together and tried to aim his body toward the pinprick of light.

"Happy planeting!" Rolth greeted the sergeant as he landed lightly, his knees slightly bent, and with no shock at all. "Come and see what I have found."

What Rolth had found was a platform edging on a tunnel. Anchored to this stand by a slender chain was a small car, pointed at both ends, a single padded seat in its center. It had no drive Kartr could discern and it did not touch the floor of the tunnel, hovering about a foot above that.

A keyboard was just before the seat—controls, Kartr deduced. But how could they aim it to any place? And to go shooting off blindly into the dark, liable to crash against some cave in— The sergeant began to reconsider that—too risky by far. To face a battalion of robot patrollers was less dangerous than to be trapped underground in the dark.

"Here!"

Kartr jumped at Rolth's call. The other ranger had gone to the back of the platform and was holding his dim torch on the wall there. The sergeant could just barely see by the blue light. Rolth had found something all right! A map of black lines crossing and recrossing—it could only be of the tunnel system. Having solved much more complicated puzzles in the past they set to work—to discover that this was apparently a way leading directly into the heart of the city.

Ten minutes later they crowded together on the narrow seat. Rolth pressed two buttons as Kartr threw off the restraining chain. There was a faint puff of sound—they swept forward and the dank air of the tunnel filled their nostrils.

"This should be it," Rolth half whispered.

The car was slowing down, drawing to the right side of the tunnel. Ahead a dim light glowed. They must be approaching another platform. Kartr glanced at the dial on his wrist band. It had taken them exactly five minutes planet time to reach this place. Whether or not it was the one they wanted—that was another question. They had aimed at a point they thought would be directly under what seemed to be a large public building in the very center of the city. If any human or Bemmy force had taken over here that would be the logical place to find them.

"Anyone ahead?" asked Rolth, trusting as usual to Kartr's perception.

The sergeant sent a mind probe on and then shook his head. "Not a trace. Either they don't know about these ways or they have no interest in them."

"I'm inclined to believe that they don't know." The Faltharian grabbed at a mooring ring as the car came along the platform.

Kartr climbed out and stood looking about him. This place was at least three times the size of the one from which they had embarked. And other tunnels ran from it in several directions. It was lighted after a fashion. But not brightly enough to make Rolth don his goggles again.

"Now"—the Faltharian stood with his hands resting on his hips, surveying their port—"how do we get out—or rather up—from here?"

There were those other tunnels, but, on their first inspection, no other sign of an exit. Yet Kartr was sure that this platform must have one. It was air which betrayed it—a puff of warmer, less dank breeze which touched him. Rolth must have felt it too for he turned in the direction from which it had come.

They followed that tenuous guide to a flat round plate at the foot of another well. Kartr crooked his neck until his throat strained. Far above he was sure he could see a faint haze of light. But they certainly couldn't climb— He turned to Rolth bitterly disappointed.

"That's that! We might as well go back—"

But the Faltharian was engrossed by a panel of buttons on the wall.

"I don't think we need do that. Let's just see if this works!" He pressed the top button in the row. Then he jumped back to clutch his companion in a tight hold as the plate came to life under them and they zoomed up.

Both rangers instinctively dropped and huddled together. Kartr swallowed to clear the pressure in his buzzing ears. At least, he thought thankfully, the shaft was not closed at the top. They were not being borne upward to be crushed against an unyielding surface overhead.