But they made no move. They lacked the guts. He was head of the household, and his word was law. They sat, pale and shaken and dazed, as he rolled his chair past them and out of the grand hall.
Within an hour, he was ready to go. Winter was in the fourth of its seven months, and Michael Holt had not left the house since the first snowfall. But he had nothing to fear from the elements. He would not come in contact with the frigid air of the sub-zero plain. He entered his car within his own house, and it glided out past the defense perimeter, a gleaming dark teardrop sliding over the fresh snow. Eight of his robots accompanied him, a good enough army for almost any emergency.
A visual pickup showed him the scene at McDermott Keep. The robots were filing out, an army of black ants clustering around the great gate. He could see them marching eastward, vanishing from sight beyond the house. A robot overhead reported that they were heading for the river by the dozens.
The miles flew past. Black, twisted trees poked through the snow, and Holt’s car weaved a way through them. Far below, under many feet of whiteness, lay the fertile fields. In the spring, all would be green, and the leafy trees would help to shield the view of McDermott Keep, though they could not hide it altogether. In winter, the ugly copper-colored house was totally visible. That made the winters all the more difficult for Holt to endure.
A robot said softly, “We are approaching the borderlands, your lordship.”
“Try a test shot. See if his screens are still down.”
“Shall I aim for the house?”
“No. A tree just in front of it.”
Holt watched. A thick-boled, stubby tree in McDermott’s front palisade gleamed a moment, and then was not there.
“The screens are still down,” the robot reported.
“All right. Let’s cross the border.”
He leaned back against the cushion. The car shot forward. They left the bounds of Holt’s own estate, and entered McDermott’s. There was no warning ping to tell them they were trespassing. McDermott had even turned off the boundary scanners, then. Holt pressed sweaty palms together. More than ever he felt that he had let himself be drawn into some sort of trap. There was no turning back, now. He was across the border, into McDermott’s own territory. Better to die boldly, he thought, than to live huddled in a shell.
He had never been this close to McDermott Keep before. When it was being built, McDermott had invited him to inspect it, but Holt had of course refused. Nor had he been to the housewarming; alone among the lords of the planet, he had stayed home to sulk. He could hardly even remember when he had left his own land at all. There were few places to go on this world, with its fifty estates of great size running through the temperate belt, and whenever Holt thirsted for the companionship of his fellow lords, which was not often, he could have it easily enough via telescreen. Some of them came to him, now and then. It was strange that when he finally did stir to pay a call, it should be a call on McDermott.
Drawing near the enemy keep, he found himself reluctantly admitting that it was less ugly at close range than it seemed from the windows of Holt Keep. It was a great blocky building, hundreds of yards long, with a tall octagonal tower rising out of its northern end, a metal spike jabbing perhaps five hundred feet high. The reflected afternoon light, bouncing from the snowfield, gave the metal-sheathed building a curiously oily look, not unattractive at this distance.
“We are within the outer defense perimeter,” a robot told Holt.
“Fine. Keep going.”
The robots sounded worried and perturbed, he thought. Of course, they weren’t programmed to show much emotional range, but he could detect a note of puzzlement in what they said and how they said it. They couldn’t understand this at all. It did not seem to be an invasion of McDermott Keep—that they could understand—but yet it was not a friendly visit, either.
When they were a hundred yards from the great gate of McDermott Keep, the doors swung open. Holt called McDermott and said, “See that those doors stay open all the time I’m here. If they begin to close, there’ll be trouble.”
“Don’t worry,” McDermott said. “I’m not planning any tricks.”
Holt’s car shot between the gate walls, and he knew that now he was at his enemy’s mercy. His car rolled up to the open carport and went on through, so that he was actually within McDermott Keep. His robots followed him through.
“May I close the carport?” McDermott asked.
“Keep it open,” Holt said. “I don’t mind the cold.”
The hood of his car swung back. His robots helped him out. Holt shivered momentarily as the cold outside air, filtering into the carport, touched him. Then he passed through the rising inner door, and, flanked by two sturdy robots, walked slowly but doggedly into the keep.
McDermott’s voice reached him over a loudspeaker. “I am on the third floor of the tower,” he said. “If I had not sent all the robots away, I could have let one of them guide you.”
“You could send a member of your family down,” Holt said sourly.
McDermott ignored that. “Continue down the corridor until it turns. Go past the armor room. You will reach a dropshaft that leads upward.”
Holt and his robots moved through the silent halls. The place was like a museum. The dark high-vaulted corridor was lined with statuary and artifacts, everything musty-looking and depressing. How could anyone want to live in a tomb like this? Holt passed a shadowy room where ancient suits of armor stood mounted. He could not help but compute the cost of shipping such useless things across the light-years from Earth.
They came to the dropshaft. Holt and his two robots entered. A robot nudged the reversing stud and up they went, into the tower Holt had hated so long. McDermott guided them with a word or two.
They passed down a long hall whose dull, dark walls were set off by a gleaming floor that looked like onyx. A sphincter opened, admitting them to an oval room ringed by windows. There was a dry, foul stench of death and decay in the room. Andrew McDermott sat squarely in the middle of the room, nesting in his life-capsule. A tangled network of tubes and pipes surrounded him. All of McDermott that was visible was a pair of eyes, like shining coals in the wasted face.
“I’m glad you came,” McDermott said. His voice, without benefit of electronic amplification, was thin and feeble, like the sound of feathers brushing through the air.
Holt stared at him in fascination. “I never thought I’d see this room,” he said.
“I never thought you would either. But it was good of you to come, Holt. You look well, you know. For a man your age.” The thin lips curled in a grotesque twisted smile. “Of course, you’re still a youngster. Not even two hundred, yet. I’ve got you by thirty years.”
Holt did not feel like listening to the older man’s ramblings. “What is it you wanted?” he asked without warmth. “I’m here, but I’m not going to stay all day. You said you had something vital to tell me.”
“Not really to tell,” McDermott said. “More to ask. A favor. I want you to kill me, Holt.”
“What?”
“It’s very simple. Disconnect my feed line. There it is, right by my feet. Just rip it out. I’ll be dead in an hour. Or do it even more quickly. Turn off my lungs. This switch, right here. That would be the humane way to do it.”
“You have a strange sense of humor,” Holt said.
“Do you think so? Top the joke, then. Throw the switch and cap the jest.”