Stirling waited four days before the right opportunity came. The big robots had become less active during the colder weather; but on two occasions one of them came right to the end of a strip near the village. Each time, there was another close by, and he decided to pass up the chance. He did not want to ride out on one of the yellow machines if the villagers were able to jump others close behind, because at the western end of the He there would be a five-mile run to the elevator’s head. Even with his new flat-bellied physique, Stirling had no desire to race that distance against a horde of ragged cheetahs without a substantial headstart. The best solution would have been to go along the western margin to the center line before making his break; but his earlier escape attempt had barred that road.
On the afternoon of the fourth day, he was operating the crude press which made fuel briquettes from dried grass and roots when a robot advanced right to the end of its strip and halted. Sterile sunlight glinted on the spider legs as they moved solicitously beneath the turret; apparently they were preparing the open soil for next spring’s planting.
Stirling surveyed the He cautiously and saw that the southeast corner was otherwise free of the robots. The village itself was gripped by the mid-afternoon somnolence. The sound of a woman singing mingled with a faint, regular hammering of a man working at the distant end. Thin plumes of smoke drifted up from the shielded cooking fires in the central area and mixed with the ever-present canopy of water vapor. Even the nameless midget who had been appointed to watch Stirling was not in evidence.
Suppressing the unpleasant idea that this might be a more elaborate, and final test of his trustworthiness, Stirling began walking towards the patiently grazing robot. During the four days’ wait, he had tried to analyze Latham’s motives for breaking the self-imposed pact with the villagers, ‘the pact to which he had sacrificed his own life. His tentative conclusion was that the judge had intended him to bring Melissa with him, if Johnny had decided to take her by force and she had objected strenuously enough. But Stirling had seen neither of them since the morning after Latham’s death, nor had he heard of any scenes of spectacular rapine. He had decided to go when the going was good—regardless of any concomitant feelings of guilt. Besides, there was always the risk something would go wrong.
From close up, the nearside bogey of the robot was reminiscent of a locomotive, with its massive steel wheels and profusion of cylinders and levers. The yellow-painted structure was covered by a beaded blanket of condensation, under which were ancient streaks of oil, hydraulic fluid, and the other liquids which coursed its plastic arteries. Resisting the urge to take a final look around—the familiar, furtive gesture which so often attracts attention where flagrantly unusual conduct has failed—Stirling climbed up the sweating metal until he had reached the level of the beam which spanned above the soil bed to the bogey on the opposite side. He walked along its broad, upper flange, still trying to maintain an air of nonchalance, until the complex bulk of the turret was beneath him. The lower flange of the beam carried the rails upon which the turret could travel the full width of the strip. Praying there was nothing there which would electrocute him, Stirling dropped down onto it through a flexible tangle of helical pipes, and crawled into the turret itself. He located the panel giving access to the robot’s alarm-system relays and began releasing the stiff, spring-loaded catches. From the corner of his eye, he saw a small black figure dart away through the village.
The solution to his problem had been simple. In fact, he had been given a good clue during his first minutes on the He when a big robot had passed him at full speed. It had been heading for the point where he had dived into the bean rows to escape the scarecrow.
Along the fifteen-mile length of each soil bed was a sensory network designed to warn the robot of crop damage, at any point, by detecting cellulose particles emitted from crushed or broken stems. The network also monitored soil moisture in case a malfunction of the irrigation system should cause localized parching or flooding; but it was the former function which gave the villagers the power to control the robots. In retrospect, Stirling was able to piece together what had gone wrong with his first escape bid. While he had been slogging along the He on foot, someone had found Biquard and raised the alarm. The hunters had summoned a robot by smashing down some plants; then they mounted it and manipulated the alarm relay panel to make the big machine think there was trouble at the opposite end of the strip. The fretful monster had thundered off at fifty miles an hour to investigate, incidentally overtaking Stirling on the way.
In theory it was perfectly straightforward, but the catches of the access panel appeared not to have been disturbed for years and had been designed for robotic pincers anyway. Stirling had wasted a precious minute and torn the skin of his fingers, before the last clamp fell away. He glanced towards the village and saw men running, loping across the margin like black wolves. Some were carrying what seemed to be spears. He clawed at the panel and discovered it had bonded itself to the surrounding casing.
Down below him one figure outstripped all the others, and Stirling recognized it at once. Dix was moving over the tough grass at an incredible speed, more like the shadow of an aircraft than a man, and his pike mouth was agape, scooping in air. He was also carrying an automatic pistol.
Swearing in sudden panic, Stirling scrabbled at the panel’s edges and felt it lift slightly. He worked his fingertips in and pulled the rectangle of thick plastic upwards, revealing orderly rows of miniature relays, each of which was covered by a transparent case. The spring clips of the end case defeated his bloodied fingers for a second, then the smooth plastic cover popped off. Stirling saw Dix leap onto the robot’s bogey and swarm up it, seemingly without losing speed. He jabbed his finger down on the exposed relay, closing its contacts—and nothing happened.
He had chosen the wrong end of the relay banks. He had ordered the robot to go to the sector it was already in.
Stirling was wrestling the cover from the relay at the opposite end, when Dix appeared above him on the upper flange of the beam. Dix steadied himself, lower teeth bared, and leveled the automatic. Stirling skimmed the access panel at him—causing him to duck away—and at the same time drove his heel down through the relay covers, splintering the fragile plastic and closing half-a-dozen contacts at once. The big machine lurched into motion; and as Dix overbalanced down onto the turret, he windmilled his arms against the sky. Stirling brought up his right knee, catching the falling man in the small of the back and bouncing him clear of the turret for a twenty-foot drop to the soil bed. Two alloy-tipped spears clattered off the metal behind Stirling; but the robot was quickly gaining speed, and the frantically running figures lost ground.
Stirling leaned back against the beam and somberly Watched them dwindle away into the distance. He had calculated that the robot, traveling at top speed, would travel the length of the He in eighteen minutes. This was very much better than leaving on foot, but it was such a spectacular form of departure that his headstart could also be measured in minutes. To be precise, it would be the number of minutes it took for the villagers to summon another robot and get it under manual control. Ten minutes would be a good lead to achieve under the conditions, and that was not much in the context of the five-mile run waiting at the He’s western end—especially if his pursuers had guns.