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peeping out of their black-rimmed pits like frightened animals. Then their
attention wavered back to the board and the thin arm lifted tremulously to
touch a control.
"Thank God you've come... you've come at last thank..." The words, scarcely a
whisper to begin with, died away to a wheeze.
The officer's arms were pocked and scarred with needle holes: streaked with
hardened rivulets of blood. The jumbled cartons and vials on the table told a
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wordless story of a man forcing himself to stay awake and active long past
human limits: there were stimulants, sleep-surrogate, glucose, anesthetics,
vitamin complexes. He had obviously been days alone in this chair, manning all
four battle stations hooked into his own board. Alone - for some unknown and
terrible reason alone-he had fought the war, waiting for help. With an
uncontrollable feeling of revulsion Pere saw that the man had soiled himself
as he sat there.
"General Natia, man that free board," he ordered.
She slipped efficiently into the chair and set up a repeater from the others.
Quickly taking in the factors of the conflict she called out, "Ready, sir."
Pere threw the command switch and the red bulb winked out on the board before
him, and the one in front of Natia flashed on.
It was as though the light had been the spark of life holding the man at the
controls. When the red bulb snuffed out he dropped his face into his hands and
collapsed sideways into the cushioning chair. Pere took him by the shoulder
and shook him until the hands dropped away and the last traces of
consciousness stiffened the lolling head. With painful effort the man opened
his eyes.
"What happened?" Pere asked. "Where is everyone else?"
"Dead," the feeble voice whispered, near to death itself. "I was the only one
didn't die - in bed at the time. Just chance I wasn't touching any metal. Just
sheets, mattress. Robots say it was a vibration source - subsonic
- supersonic - something new. Curdled everyone, killed them - coagulated the
protein. Like eggs... cooked eggs... all dead."
When the man sank into unconsciousness again Pere signalled to the medical
officer who was standing by. Pere looked down at the solid steel floor beneath
his feet and shuddered; the vibration weapon might be used again at any time.
Or could it? The robots must have taken some preventative measures.
He turned to the command robot, standing with steady metallic patience by the
computor bank. Shaped like a normal motile, this robot's unique function was
apparent only by the large vision screen on its chest and the thick cable, a
metallic unbilical cord, that ran back from it to the computors behind. It was
simply an extension of the giant computors and logic and memory units that
were the heart of HQ.
"Have you found out what generated the killing vibration?" Pere asked the
command robot.
"A machine that assembled and attached itself to the outer wall of HQ.
It was detected as soon as it began operating and the frequencies were
analyzed and neutralized in three minutes and seventeen seconds. No equipment
or robots were injured since the frequencies used only caused resonance in
animal protein. All of the staff, with the exception of Colonel Frey, were
killed instantly. Large quantities of food in the lockers -"
"We'll concern ourselves with the food later. Where is the machine?"
"There," the robot said, pointing towards the far wall. It led the way, its
cable trailing smoothly behind it, and pulled a cover from the yard high
object resting there. It resembled no machine Pere had ever seen, rather it
looked like a tangled mass of tiny gleaming roots: the red earth still packed
between them heightened the illusion.
"How does it work?"
The robot reached out - leaning very close to focus its microscopic eyepieces
-and carefully pulled one of the strands free. It lay on the robot's
outstretched metallic palm, eight inches long, an eighth of an inch in
diameter. Seen close it was not completely flexible, but made instead of
pivoted and smoothly finished segments. The robot pointed out the parts of
interest.
"The vibration generator is made up of a large number of these machines, all
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