Death's Demand Read online

  Carba maintained his usual reserve and Melaal assumed his previous attitude—disinterested and apparently bored. Arfar asked the questions. "We were talking about Belubal," he began. "What has become of him?"

  Thekus gave a slight shrug. "I don't even know who he is.

  It was obvious that Arfar struggled to control himself only in deference to the presence of Carba. "Don't hand me that!" he retorted. "On Arkon you stated you knew he was an Akon. So what has happened to Belubal?"

  "He's gone," said Thekus.

  "We know that—but where?"

  Thekus pointed upward. "Up there."

  "You mean you—!"

  Thekus confessed. "Yes, I did...I didn't like him and he was too dangerous for me."

  Ron couldn't help marveling at the robot. Thekus had given this answer of and by myself. Quinto had not been able to give him any additional information about the Akon, Belubal. Thekus had gone over his own program in the meantime and after searching through his memory bank he had come up with a new tactic. He was playing the role magnificently.

  "That's hard to believe," said Arfar in poorly concealed anger. "You kill off a man like Belubal? Before you could have formed the first thought of doing such a thing, Belubal would have known how he stood with you. When did this happen? When we sent Belubal to you to negotiate concerning this station?"

  Thekus calmly confirmed this.

  "Speak!" shouted Arfar. "How did you do it?"

  Thekus was still very casual. "Oh, when he entered my house I shot him."

  Arfar stared at him in amazement. "But you didn't even know him at all! You couldn't know who was coming to visit you!"

  Thekus gave him a lofty smile. "One has his agents, right? The same as you."

  Ron took a deep breath. The situation was getting tricky. As Arfar looked helplessly at his colleagues, Carba encouraged him with a nod to continue the interrogation. Melaal stood up. He was seen to walk slowly away among the rows of nightmarish machines and disappear into the background. Ron tensed. Melaal was the reticent one who had nevertheless almost trapped Thekus with a key question. What was going on in his mind? Why didn't he want to continue being a participant in the hearing?

  • • •

  Melaal had come to a stop in the shadow of one of the large machines. With a confident movement of his hand he found the place on the smooth surface where a small access door had been installed almost invisible. A light pressure of his fingers caused the little hatch cover to open and a dim light came on. Inside the niche was a video intercom. Melaal took up the microphone and waited until the viewscreen brightened. He seemed to be on familiar terms with the man whose face appeared there.

  "Is the ship ready for takeoff, Laaseph?" he asked.

  "Of course!" replied the other wonderingly.

  "Then everybody get on board. We'll probably have to make a mad dash out of here—and very soon.

  Laaseph's eyes widened. "Why is that?" he asked curiously.

  Melaal waved a hand impatiently. "I haven't got much time, Laaseph. The Terrans are after us. Unfortunately we aren't equipped with top-flight tracking equipment. That's because we always felt too sure of ourselves on Kusma. The Terrans could arrive at any moment. Before they can make a landing we've got to disappear."

  "Then why not now?"

  "I'll explain it later. Right now I need somebody to activate the security circuits of the dome. I can't take care of it myself because my absence would be noticed."

  "What security circuits in particular?"

  "Carba and his aide are sitting on the cover hatch of the antigrav shaft. I'm afraid that when trouble hits they'll be too slow to react. I can't wait around until they get the idea of what's going on. The shaft has to be opened on some kind of simple signal. Let's say for example...when I yell 'Terra' the cover will slide open."

  Laaseph grimaced. "That's a dirty word around here but it can be so arranged."

  "Good—hurry it up. I'm signing off."

  He replaced the microphone and the picture faded. He closed the little door and slowly returned to Carba and Arfar. No one could tell from his poker-faced expression what he was thinking.

  Which was that now he was sure. The man they were questioning here was not the Lord Admiral Thekus.

  He was a robot.

  He had been led to this conclusion by a chance observation. While he had been squatting on the floor with the others it had occurred to him that Thekus looked unusually tall. Ordinarily this would not have been too surprising an impression, considering their relative positions, with Thekus standing over them, but in this case there was something too definite about it Melaal had begun to study the admiral carefully and unobtrusively.

  The first thing that had attracted his attention was his shoes. Their soles seemed to be unusually thick. It was odd that a man like Thekus who was naturally tall should have to wear thick-soled shoes as if to emphasize his height. It was then that Thekus had shifted his weight from one foot to the other and Melaal noticed that the strong soles bent as though they were made out of thin plastic. In attempting to, estimate Thekus' weight he realized he'd have to weigh at least 500 pounds to bend those soles so easily.

  Earlier, too, he had become suspicious on Arkon when Thekus slowly began to admit that he knew Arfar. This had been followed by his strange remarks concerning the honor or character of a director-general. Wasn't this the typical minus-zero-plus test used in positronic programming? Of course it was camouflaged but nevertheless still recognizable. And why had Thekus fainted over his question concerning Belubal? What was so terrible about the question that it would make a man lose consciousness? Nothing. Thekus was being controlled remotely. The men behind him didn't know anything about Belubal and they couldn't think of any other way of getting Thekus out of the trap.

  This Thekus was a robot.

  But Melaal hadn't relied on mere presumptions. It had turned out to be an extra advantage now that he had positioned Carba and Arfar on the deck-plate of the anti-grav shaft. Basically it had been because of his second nature to always have an escape route available. But with Thekus also standing on it the situation took on a new significance. Since the deckplate had a load-factor limit there was a built-in scale for it. This was a safety feature because beneath the plate the shaft fell away into considerable depths. The scale meter was ensconced in a machine cowling just like the intercom that Melaal used later. While he had walked along the row of machines he had secretly opened the scale cover and read the instrument inside. It had registered about 1,700 lbs. Allowing about 380 lbs at the most for Carba and Arfar, the remaining 1,620 lbs had to be accounted for by the third member.

  Thekus.

  This had been the proof. Thekus had to be a robot.

  At first Melaal was frightened although he had already begun to suspect as much. A Terran robot—there could be no doubt that Terrans had built it. It was here inside the control dome on Kusma! The Terrans would have been fools if they had not equipped their creation with instruments which could keep them in continuous contact with it. Probably the Terrans could see and hear at this very moment what was transpiring on Kusma.

  They would attack. Of that Melaal was certain. And if he didn't want to endanger their whole operation he must not try to put up any resistance against them. They had to flee!

  Melaal's first impulse had been what Laaseph suggested: to leave at once! Fortunately it occurred to him just in time that a hasty flight would alert the Terrans all the more. They would know then that they had been discovered. Perhaps the robot was rigged for detonating and the Terrans would trigger the explosion if they saw that their plans had gone awry.

  No, he could not take such a risk. He had to hold off until such time that the Terrans would be sufficiently distracted by their own actions to not pay too much attention to the robot. That would be the moment of their landing, at the time when they would be trying to get into the dome. In an attack mode they wouldn't be carrying the robot's complete remote-control equipmen
t with them.

  So he had to compose himself and be patient.

  But at the last moment he wanted to play a trick on them that they would remember for the rest of their lives. Provided, of course, that Carba and Arfar were quick enough to react.

  • • •

  Melaal had returned to the two Arkonides. So far their situation hadn't changed. Thekus was still trying to wangle his way through the questions with his tricks. For the second time, Arfar was coming close to losing his patience.

  It was at this moment that Meech Hannigan noticed something. No human could have caught the shadowy movement that was visible for the fraction of a second in the background. But a robot's eyes could detect it. A man had moved back there. Therefore the dome station was occupied by more than just the two Arkonides, Melaal and the prisoner. At least there was a fifth man present.

  Meech turned and reported his observation in a few terse words. Quinto was alerted. He knew he could rely on Meech's report although neither he nor Ron Landry had seen the movement.

  "Activate the gate, Sergeant!" he ordered.

  Meech depressed a large control key. With an audible snap the last phase of the operation was introduced.

  • • •

  From a human standpoint it is difficult to say whether or not a robot can know fear. What series of positronic impulses could be defined as such? And how could one determine the robot's reaction?

  One thing, however, was clear: from the moment Meech Hannigan pressed that certain key, Thekus knew that he did not have long to live. A part of his body which had lain dormant until now had been activated. Thekus' memory registers told him that this section of his body had a limited capacity of only a few minutes at full power before it would damage the rest of him. It would go on functioning after that but five and a half minutes was the upper limit of survival for himself as a complete mechanism. After that, Thekus himself would cease to exist.

  He noted in one of his memory sectors that it would soon be over with for him.

  • • •

  "You won't be able to tell us any more of your lies," said Melaal, mixing into the hearing. "And you won't be able to delay out plans. The day is near when Arkon will be only a wreckage of helpless worlds and when people will be only too happy when we make the offer to bring order out of chaos. We are the new rulers. Because there will no longer be this horrible monster that usurps the rights of Imperators."

  Carba and Arfar looked at him in astonishment. Melaal turned his face away from the robot and managed to wink at the other two. He was lucky. The signal caught on.

  Carba sighed. "It's really too bad, Admiral," he said, "that you are no longer with us."

  • • •

  Nike Quinto had been startled by what he heard.

  "...this horrible monster that usurps the rights of Imperators."

  He didn't take long to realize what this threat meant. "Ye gods!" he exclaimed. "He's talking about destroying the robot Regent!"

  Immediately he was silent again. Melaal had been moved to make an incredible revelation. There might be still more.

  But there wasn't any. Melaal's interjection had brought the hearing to an end. Carba did ask a few more inconsequential questions, however, which Thekus had no difficulty in answering.

  Then Arfar finally turned to Melaal. "What are we still waiting for?" he wanted to know.

  Melaal decided on one quick chess move. "We should be hearing from our fleet at any moment," he answered.

  • • •

  This was Nike Quinto's cue. They were waiting on Kusma for the arrival of a spacefleet. He deliberated for only a few seconds as to whether he should call in some units of the Terran fleet in order to equalize the forces at least to some extent. But then he quickly decided against it.

  Aside from what Thekus had transmitted to him and what had been video-sound recorded of it, he didn't have any proofs against these revolutionaries on Kusma—nothing real red-handed. Calling in a fleet to take them prisoner might create a political incident.

  He decided to go it alone. And he didn't want to end his operation without achieving at least one definite result, after having only collected fragments and inferences up until now. He had to get into that dome, even if a thousand ships tried to stop him! If he hurried he might even get there ahead of the fleet.

  He handed over the command of the K-3605 to Larry Randall. Larry was commissioned to keep the ship on instant standby for action, to keep an eye out for the enemy fleet, to observe the activity inside the dome and to keep the "gate" open. Quinto planned to penetrate the dome with Ron, Meech and Lofty. He swiftly sorted out their tasks.

  "Landry and Patterson, you will join me in the capture of the 3 conspirators and we'll bring them back on board with us. Meech, you go through the dome and photograph everything you see. Understood?"

  The order was confirmed. Quinto handed out the weapons. They were compact but powerful shock-guns which could incapacitate the enemy by paralyzing them and rendering them unconscious.

  Since Randall had already taken over Meech's position at the controls, he then ordered him to open the gate.

  This was the final order that sealed the fate of Thekus.

  • • •

  Thekus sensed the rising surge of mighty energies. In a few fractions of a second his plastic-metal body became red hot. The living skin tissue which had given him such an amazingly human appearance could not withstand the temperature and it caught fire. Thekus lost his robotic consciousness. Only the part of his body was working that had previously been inert. It was receiving the tremendous energies being beamed into it from the K-3605, which it converted into the "gate". This formed the exit end of a n invisible channel that led through semispace from the Terran ship into the interior of the dome.

  The only functional part left of the once proud robot was that which was technically known as a transmitter.

  • • •

  Melaal had been expecting something to happen to the robot but he had not counted on the Terrans using a transmitter. For one precious second he stared at the robot as it started to vaporize. Then he saw the shimmer of the energy arc that marked the presence of the transport field. He knew then that the danger was much greater than he had believed it to be.

  He sprang to his feet and with all the strength of his stocky physique he threw himself against the glowing hot frame of the robot. The impact caused the machine thing to stagger. On legs no longer controlled by a brain it stumbled back a few feet and left the deckplate of the antigrav shaft.

  This is what Melaal had wanted to accomplish. "Terra...!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.

  Laaseph was well prepared. Melaal had hardly closed his mouth again before the shaft cover began to move under him. Carba and Arfar still sat there as if paralyzed and didn't know what was going on around them. The cover plate lowered a few inches and then started to slide to one side. Melaal jumped to Carba and gave him a powerful shove. Carba let out a cry of fright as he fell into the darkness below. But he didn't actually fall. Supported by an artificial gravity field he merely drifted slowly downward into the depths.

  Arfar didn't need any further invitation. He sprang voluntarily. Melaal was the last to leave the dome. Even as he jumped he looked back at the glowing arc of the energy gate and caught a shadowy movement. The phantom shape of a small fat man with a compact weapon in his hand emerged from the circle of light within a few meters of the lift shaft and became a reality. He looked around in confusion, then turned back as though giving instructions.

  It was all that Melaal could see because the hatch closed over him and the brilliant illumination of the antigrav shaft was turned on.

  8/ KISMET FOR KUSMA!

  Nike Quinto realized that something had gone wrong.

  In the place where he had seen in the viewscreen that the 3 conspirators had been only a few seconds before there was now nothing but smooth, empty floor. What remained of the robot was surrounded by the glowing light of the transp
ort field but it had been moved back somewhat from its previous position. Nike thought that when he had come through the gate he had seen a square black hole in the floor but it must have been an illusion. The hyper-fields that made the transport possible produced all sorts of weird effects.

  He turned and shouted to the others. "Watch out-this may be a trap!"

  He moved into one of the aisles, taking cover next to the looming machinery. Behind him the others moved out into other aisles and they all began to search through the dome. After 15 minutes of hurried searching they knew that the enemy was no longer in the station. Meech Hannigan had also taken part in the search but mainly for another reason. His optical system took pictures of the strange machinery which were registered on film that was pooling through his complex innards.

  Quinto came back to the remains of the robot. "So they've thumbed their noses at us," he said bitterly. "Anybody have any idea where they might have gone?"

  Ron and Lofty dejectedly shook their heads. Meech remained very quiet while staring at the floor. He looked up after a few seconds.

  "Sir, we're standing on some kind of hatch cover," he said. "Underneath is a shaft—about 70 meters deep. Maybe that's the way they went."

  Quinto glared at him. "A shaft? Why didn't you say so sooner?"

  "Because I was on another assignment, sir."

  But nobody was listening to Meech's apology. They were down on their hands and knees and were tapping the floor with the butts of their weapons. Meech was right. When they tapped in an area that was about 4 meters long and wide, the sound was hollow in comparison to the floor surrounding it.

  Quinto jumped up. "Hannigan! Shoot this thing apart! Patterson and Landry—stand back!"

  Ron and Lofty moved to one side and so did Meech. When he was sure he wasn't standing on the cover he simply pointed at it and fired. A white needle beam sprang from his right index finger and the concentrated energy sliced through the solid material of the hatch. He slowly described a circle with the beam and finally a section 2 meters in diameter broke away and disappeared. With a swiftness they wouldn't have given him credit for, Quinto kneeled down next to the hole and saw the cut-out section fall away slowly into the depths.