Beware the Microbots Read online

  "Did you see them?" Tiff asked in astonishment.

  "Yes, very clearly. The poor devil next to me was one of the first to catch it. He waved his searchlight all over the place and I was able to see the flies quite distinctly." Halligan crawled closer and began to groan: "For heaven's sake, if it isn't that old buzzard O'Keefe!"

  "You bet your life!" O'Keefe gnashed his teeth furiously. "And I'll tell you something, if..."

  "Cut it out!" Tiff ordered sternly. "We don't have time for your banter."

  Two hours after the attack the sky slowly began to turn red. Tiff knew that he couldn't expect to find another healthy man. Of the 20 people 17 were afflicted by the Argonin of the mysterious enemy whom they had set out to nail down.

  Tiff took the transceiver again, connected it with the outside speaker of his helmet and began singing with the raucous voice of a drunk: "The three of us are gonna go on a little junket."

  Then he explained to the two sergeants: "We'll have to act crazy like the others. I assume that the enemy is closely watching the basin. We can't let him find out that we aren't sick because we are going to continue our search. If we know how to take advantage of the situation we'll have a better chance than ever."

  As soon as the day was light enough they left the cave and joined the crowd that frolicked in the basin like madcap kindergarten kids. O'Keefe and Halligan fell right in with the others, playing their roles, hopping up and down and singing nonsensical ditties.

  Tiff, however, had trouble putting on an act. The 17 men who cavorted in the grass like a bunch of brainless brats, and for whom nothing existed in the world except the joy of life, presented, despite their hilarity—which was only caused by a poison—a sad picture. It was a heavy burden on Tiff's conscience that he had failed to mention all his reservations and fears to Chaney when they first discovered the caterpillar treads at the entrance of the cleft. Maybe he could have induced Chaney to take fewer men along.

  One of the drugged men roughly jostled Tiff and interrupted his brooding. "Hey, buddy! Why so glum? Don't you think this is a great life?"

  It was Chaney. Tiff looked at him but wasn't sure that Chaney even recognized him. "Of course it is, pal," Tiff beamed. "It's terrific. I've never been happier all my life."

  "That's better. Now let's sing together!"

  Without waiting for an answer Chaney began a song. Tiff joined him in a few verses, then bounded friskily away, rolling head over heels through the grass, hollering hysterically and getting away from Chaney's happy singing. In the meantime Halligan and O'Keefe had reached the opposite wall and waited to the left and right of the spot where Tiff had seen the Hono for the last time during the night.

  Tiff stood on his head and dangled his legs from his knees. Then he furtively kicked a little object he had noticed a few minutes earlier. He had been afraid to pick it up because he felt certain that their enemy kept a sharp lookout on the goings on in the basin. He kept gaily turning around and eventually managed to conceal the little gadget in his hand.

  His invitation "Now we're all going to sing My Darling Clementine!" was a sign for the 2 sergeants to retreat to the cave, where they met again after 15 minutes, the time needed to cover the distance of 150 feet as inconspicuously as possible.

  One of the rabid revelers called to them: "What do you want in the cave? Why don't you stay in the nice sunshine?"

  Tiff had the presence of mind to answer: "We'll be with you a little later. It's still so warm and cozy in the cave."

  This seemed to satisfy his doped comrade and Tiff fervently hoped that it was good enough for the enemy too. In the cave they examined the little gadget Tiff had found. Although they had intended to track down the Honos, now they figured it was more important to get to the bottom of the device. It seemed to be made out of one piece and Tiff had to open it with a precisely aimed but weak disintegrator beam in order to see what was inside. The device was built with an alien technique. But principles serving the same purposes are not so different that an expert would have trouble identifying a fork as a fork a comb as a comb, or a code transmitter as a code transmitter. And this gadget was a code transmitter. As far as Tiff could determine the little set was capable of sending at least 10 different code signals via hyper-radio although its output was minimal. One of the Honos—probably the one Tiff had shot at—must have dropped the instrument in the excitement.

  Since when did the Honos have such devices?

  This brought up the question of how credible the whole story of the Approved People and the outcasts was in the light of the newest developments. Wasn't it more likely that Nathan and his 3 companions were sent by the 'Gods' in a plot to lure the enemies of the Gods into a watertight trap?

  If so, they would have to be equipped with the means of informing the Gods, such as a code transmitter for instance. The reasoning was altogether logical and nothing should have prevented Tiff from accepting the conclusions. Yet he remembered the Honos from the time of the Titan's first landing on Honur; they were peaceful, lethargic, almost stupid beings who did nothing else than play with their Nonues.

  What had to be done to such indolent people to change them into efficient operators like Nathan and his 3 companions?

  Tiff was interrupted by Sgt. O'Keefe, who was trying to get his attention by coughing discreetly. "Sir, I've also found something. If you care to take a look at it..."

  "Don't think you're the only one who's found something!" Halligan broke in. "Sir, I'm sure you'll be more interested in my..."

  Tiff laughed. "Let me see what you've got, both of you!"

  They stuck their hands under his face. They had both found the same thing but even in duplicate it was interesting enough to cause Tiff the greatest excitement. He took the find carefully out of O'Keefe's hand. The little object was about two inches long and consisted of 5 moving parts which could change their positions with respect to each other. Four of them looked like 2 pairs of wings and the fifth one doubtlessly was the body of the strange contrivance. There was no clearly distinguishable head but in its place it had a long sharp needle which was surrounded at its base by a circle of 15 tiny points shimmering like crystals.

  It was one of the 'flies' Halligan had observed in the night.

  In his agitated state, and in the unsteady light by which Halligan had made his observation, it was easy to be mistaken about the true nature of the peculiar object. Now that Tiff held it in his hand he recognized it from the metallic needle and from the regular form of the jointed wings for what it was: the 'fly' was no organically grown creature but a miniature robot.

  It took Tiff quite awhile to convince Halligan and O'Keefe. They had trouble believing that such a tiny remote-controlled robot could be built. But Tiff remembered the skill exhibited by the Ferrons in the Vega sector in the field of microtechnology and he persuaded them step by step.

  "The real marvel in the matter," Tiff finally explained, "lies somewhere else. Each of these little machines has to be steered separately, In an attack such as occurred last night it would be useless to guide a whole swarm as a unit; the flies wouldn't have finished the job yet.

  "In order to direct a swarm of about 100 of these miniature robots in a battle it is necessary to issue commands in the tiniest-fraction of a second, to countermand them and replace them by new ones. This requires an automatic positronic control mechanism. No living being possesses such an instant and wide grasp of a complicated situation nor does it have the ability to react so spontaneously. By all appearances even the positronicon experiences difficulties; these two flies obviously careened in full flight against the wall and fell to the ground."

  O'Keefe and Halligan were utterly amazed.

  "I would guess," Tiff continued thoughtfully, "that we're dealing here on Honur not so much with real enemies as with an intricate system of positronic brains and remote-controlled robots; otherwise we'd already have caught a glimpse of our foes."

  "Don't you think, sir, that the four Honos..." Halligan began.


  Tiff shook his head. "No, I believe they were only acting as agents."

  Halligan said nothing and Halligan cogitated on the implications. Tiff paused for awhile, then said: "Tonight we'll go after the Honos."

  The sergeants perked up. "The four Honos? Do you know where to...?"

  "I saw the last of them over there at the wall where we found the code transmitter. I'm sure there must be a second exit over there."

  O'Keefe peered out of the cave. "I can't see a thing," he murmured sullenly.

  "No wonder," Tiff laughed. "They'd be pretty dumb to show an open hole."

  "Do you think they've camouflaged or locked the entrance?" Halligan asked.

  "I suppose."

  "How will you open it?"

  Tiff tapped the code transmitter. "With this," he explained. "One of the 10 signals should open the exit—or the entrance as it were. How else could they've escaped so suddenly?"

  He looked gravely at Halligan and O'Keefe. "It's got to be that," he concluded.

  • • •

  The day passed and the boisterous drug-inspired carousing never let up for a single minute. They no longer felt tiredness, hunger or thirst since the Argonin had permeated their spinal fluid and to a lesser degree their blood and lymph ducts. The infected body stimulated all their energies and didn't permit even a temporary lapse of their hyper-euphoria.

  It was a very exasperating day for Tiff and the two Sergeants. It was torture to stand by idly all day long before they could resume stalking the unknown enemy.

  Tiff picked up the little transmitter several times to send a short call to the Titan. The boredom led him to believe that a message couched in the same exultant tones as the night before could do no harm even if their tormenter intercepted it. But Tiff knew better than that. A man under the influence of Argonin could hardly be trusted to perform a logically coordinated operation involving purposeful manipulations such as sending a message by a complex transmitter. If he flipped a lever and turned a knob he would find something else more amusing and discard the set. Tiff had got away with one humorous radio call but a second one would doubtlessly make a listener suspicious.

  At dusk Tiff, Halligan and O'Keefe mixed again with the prancing crowd. But this time they carried in addition to their weapons the transceiver and the code transmitter.

  They unobtrusively worked their way to the opposite mountain wall and while Halligan and O'Keefe crazily scrambled up the wall and painfully tumbled down again and again, Tiff systematically tried all the code signals on the band of the little transmitter.

  Each time he sent a new code signal he waited a moment and watched for the effect. He didn't have the slightest idea what reactions the signal would conjure up and he didn't discount the possibility that the robot flies could invade the basin once more.

  But nothing of the sort happened. The whole operation turned out to be much less elaborate than Tiff had imagined. When he came to the fourth code signal a part of the wall suddenly receded and turned to the side before Tiff could call the two sergeants. The opening thus laid bare was about 10 feet wide and almost 8 feet high.

  Halligan and O'Keefe dropped down. They stumbled around and babbled as if inebriated. Finally they

  staggered into the dark hole. Tiff followed quickly and pushed them deeper into the corridor which seemed to lie behind the opening. Then he turned around and waited breathlessly if the door closed automatically or waited for another signal.

  The door snapped back in place and although Tiff felt it had taken half an eternity no more than 30 seconds had elapsed between opening and closing. None of their deranged comrades had noticed the incident. Tiffs decision to continue their pursuit at night had been correct. "Turn on your searchlight!" Tiff whispered in the darkness.

  The light flooded a smooth corridor which was as high and wide as the entrance into the cliffs. It was slightly inclined and stretched as far as the eye could see.

  "Go ahead!" Tiff ordered. "Keep your weapons ready! We've got to be prepared that the opening of the door has alerted somebody with a signal. I imagine somebody is waiting for us unless he comes to meet us head on."

  But the corridor remained still and dark. The din of the caper behind them abated in their helmet radios.

  Sgt. O'Keefe took the lead while Halligan and Tiff marched side by side behind him. O'Keefe moved forward with long strides and snorted impatiently. He sounded as if he wanted to say something but instead uttered a terrified cry and Tiff and Halligan promptly did the same.

  The ground under their feet had suddenly begun to move. O'Keefe lost his balance and toppled down, dropping his searchlight and plunging the corridor into darkness again. Tiff could hear wind rushing by his helmet. "O'Keefe, switch the light on again!"

  O'Keefe muttered something under his breath nobody could understand, which was just as well. Tiff heard him rap the floor with his gloved hands; then a sigh of relief and finally the searchlight lit up again.

  Their surroundings didn't seem to have changed. The walls and the ceiling of the corridor were covered so uniformly that the eye found no reference point for orientation. Tiff pulled an empty plastic container out of his pocket and threw it at a forward angle against the right wall.

  The result was perplexing. With unexpected force the container ricocheted from the smooth wall and instead of obeying the law of reflection, flew back the same way Tiff had thrown it. It zoomed past Halligan's helmet to the opposite wall, bounced off again and disappeared in a flash from the cone of O'Keefe's searchlight.

  Tiff knelt down and felt the floor with his hand but no matter where he reached, the floor gave no evidence of the peculiar properties the walls now exhibited. Only when Tiff stretched out his hand and touched the wall with his fingers was his arm hurled back with full force. "Conveyor band," he murmured. "Moves at least 50 miles an hour. The entire width of the floor is a single band!"

  The two sergeants remained silent; they were bewildered and waited for instructions. Tiff tried to assay the new situation. He didn't know if the conveyor had been started automatically or whether the intruders were deliberately transported to a place where they were wanted.

  Which ever was the case Tiff didn't care to rush into hostile arms at 50 miles per hour. "Halligan, go ahead!" he instructed the sergeant. "Keep your disintegrator ready to shoot. When I give you the sign, cut through the floor before you from wall to wall. This ought to stop it from moving. But for the time being we could wish for nothing better than to get a free ride."

  Halligan took up his position in front of O'Keefe and trained the barrel of his weapon on the floor. Tiff figured that, if things became desperate, it would take Halligan only a second to sever the band and perhaps a total of 10 before the conveyor came to a stop. The jolt would be violent but they were prepared for it.

  Tiff watched the time. They advanced with considerable velocity through the corridor for 15 minutes before O'Keefe signaled a change he discerned ahead of them.

  Almost at the same moment the band began to slow down.

  "Halligan, watch out!" Tiff urged.

  However there was as yet no cause for alarm. The band ran into a circular room of the same height and with a diameter of about 100 feet. It ended at a round disk in the middle of the room and deposited the three men on the smooth surface so that they didn't feel the transition. The velocity of the band had by that time been reduced to the speed of walking.

  But the disk didn't give the men time to think. As soon as Tiff had been transferred as the last one on the disk, it started to rotate. Tiff noticed hairline cracks radiating from the disk and he recognized the purpose of the seams. The disk turned until Sgt. Halligan, who still kept his disintegrator aimed at the floor, came between two parallel seams. The ground under Halligan's feet started to move again and pulled him from the disk. He continued to move with growing speed toward the wall of the room.

  The parallel seams in the floor were the edges of other smaller conveyors and where they ended at the
wall a heretofore-invisible door would presumably open at the proper moment. Meanwhile the disk resumed its rotation and put the horrified O'Keefe down on another band moving out at an angle of about 40° with Halligan. Tiff had no intention of letting his small team be split up by rotating disks and conveyor belts. He shouted: "Jump off!"

  This presented—in contrast to the corridor through which they had arrived—no problem. Halligan and O'Keefe stepped to the side and stood on the solid floor of the room. Their respective bands continued moving a short distance with a soft whir and came to a stop.

  Tiff also jumped off the disk. O'Keefe broadened the beam of his searchlight and directed it toward the ceiling, bathing the entire room in light.

  Halligan and Tiff leaped across several bands to get together with O'Keefe. Halligan slung the disintegrator over his shoulder; there were no bands to cut here.

  "This is apparently a distributor station," Tiff commented. "Whatever comes in from the outside lands on the disk and is transferred by another band to its destination. I wonder how to recognize the selection of a band?"

  Tiff scrutinized the bands leading in 18 different directions from the disk in the center; each looked exactly like all the others. There was no clue, which of them could lead them to the innermost secrets of this subterranean installation.

  Tiff chose one at random. "Let's take this one!"

  He let Halligan and O'Keefe step on the band and waited. What he had hoped for really happened: the band started to move as soon as it was loaded.

  When Halligan, who was first, came within 15 feet, a part of the wall slid open just as Tiff had envisaged and the band entered with the three passengers unmolested.

  However what followed next could not have been foreseen by Tiff. O'Keefe still pointed his searchlight at the ceiling but it was clear that the band went down steeper and steeper at increasing speed. Halligan became frantic and shouted: "Help! We're falling!"

  Tiff crouched down on the band and tried to grab a hold with his hands. Before he succeeded the band changed into a vertically downward direction but instead of the fall anticipated by Halligan they began to float gently. The strange pulling sensation as caused by an artificial gravity field was unmistakable. O'Keefe quickly collected himself and shined his light down the shaft through which they moved.