"There's some light ahead," he whispered.
"I know."
"A piece of the sky, I think."
They crept toward it, Jenny's engine but the barest sigh within the great chambers of rock.
They stopped at the threshold to the light. The i-r shield dropped again.
It was a sand-and-shale canyon that he looked upon. Huge slantings and overhangs of rock hid all but the far end from any eye in the sky. The light was pale, at the far end, and there was nothing unusual beneath it.
But nearer...
Murdock blinked.
Nearer, in the dim light of morning and in the shadows, stood the greatest junkheap Murdock had ever seen in his life.
Pieces of cars, of every make and model, were heaped into a small mountain before him. There were batteries and tires and cables and shock absorbers; there were fenders and bumpers and headlamps and headlamp housings; there were doors and windshields and cylinders and pistons, carburetors, generators, voltage regulators, and oil pimps.
Murdock stared.
"Jenny," he whispered, "we've found the graveyard of the autos!"
A very old car, which Murdock had not even distinguished from the junk during that first glance, jerked several feet in their direction and stopped as suddenly. The sound of rivet heads scoring ancient brake drums screeched in his ears. Its tires were completely bald, and the left front one was badly in need of air. Its right front headlamp was broken and there was a crack in its windshield. It stood there before the heap, its awakened engine making a terrible rattling noise.
"What's happening?" asked Murdock. "What is it?"
"He is talking to me," said Jenny. "He is very old. His speedometer has been all the way around so many times that he forgets the number of miles he has seen. He hates people, whom he says have abused him whenever they could. He is the guardian of the graveyard. He is too old to go raiding any more, so he has stood guard over the spare parts heap for many years. He is not the sort who can repair himself, as the younger ones do, so he must rely on their charity and their auto-repair units. He wants to know what I want here."
"Ask him where the others are."
But as he said it, Murdock heard the sound of many engines turning over, until the valley was filled with the thunder of their horsepower.
"They are parked on the other side of the heap," she said. "They are coming now."
"Hold back until I tell you to fire," said Murdock, ad the first oneчa sleek yellow Chryslerчnosed around the heap.
Murdock lowered his head to the steering wheel, but kept his eyes open behind his goggles.
"Tell him that you came here to join the pack and that you've monoed your driver. Try to get the black Caddy to come into range."
"He will not do it," she said. "I am talking with him now. He can broadcast just as easily from the other side of the pile, and he says he is sending the six biggest members of the pack to guard me while he decides what to do. He has ordered me to leave the tunnel and pull ahead into the valley."
"Go ahead, thenчslowly."
They crept forward.
Two Lincolns, a powerful-looking Pontiac, and two Mercs joined the Chryslerчthree cars on each side of them, in position to ram.
"Has he given you and idea how many there are on the other side?"
"No. I asked, but he will not tell me."
"Well, we'll just have to wait then."
He stayed slumped, pretending to be dead. After a time, his already tired shoulders began to ache. Finally, Jenny spoke:
"He wants me to pull around the far end of the pile," she said, "now that they have cleared the way, and to head into a gap in the rock which he will indicate. He wants to have his auto-mech go over me."
"We can't have that," said Murdock, "but head around the pile. I'll tell you what to do when I've gotten a glimpse of the other side."
The two Mercs and the Big Chief drew aside and Jenny crept past them. Murdock stared upwards from the corner of his eye, up at the towering mound of junk they were passing. A couple well-placed rockets on either end could topple it, but the auto-mech would probably clear it eventually.
They rounded the lefthand end of the pile.
Something like forty-five cars were facing them at about a hundred-twenty yard's distance, to the right and ahead. They had fanned out. They were blocking the exit around the other end of the pile, and the six guards in back of him now blocked the way behind Murdock.
On the far side of the farthest rank of the most distant cars an ancient black Caddy was parked.
It had been beaten forth from assembly during a year when the apprentice-engineers were indeed thinking big. Huge it was, and shiny, and a skeleton's face smiled from behind its wheel. Black it was, and gleaming chromium, and its headlamps were like dusky jewels or the eyes of insects. Every plane and curve shimmered with power, and its great fishtailed rear end seemed ready to slap at the sea of shadows behind it on an instant's notice, as it sprang forward for its kill.
"That's it!" whispered Murdock. "The Devil Car!"
"He is big!" said Jenny. "I have never seen a car that big!"
They continued to move forward.
"He wants me to head into that opening and park," she said.
"Head toward it, slowly. But don't go into it," said Murdock.
They turned and inched toward the opening. The other cars stood, the sounds of their engines rising and falling.
"Check all weapons systems."
"Red, all around."
The opening was twenty-five feet away.
"When I saw `now,' go into neutral steer and turn one hundred-eighty degreesчfast. They can't be expecting that. They don't have it themselves. Then open up with the fifty-calibers and fire your rockets at the Caddy, turn at a right angle and start back the way we came, and spray the naphtha as we go, and fire on the six guards...
"Now!" he cried, leaping up in his seat.
He was slammed back as they spun, and he heard the clattering of her guns before his head cleared. By then, flames were leaping up in the distance.
Jenny's guns were extruded now and turning on their mounts, spraying the line of vehicles with hundreds of leaden hammers. She shook, twice, as she discharged two rockets from beneath her partly opened hood. Then they were moving forward, and eight or nine of the cars were rushing downhill toward them.
She turned again in neutral steer and sprang back in the direction from which they had come, around the southeast corner of the pile. Her guns were hammering at the now retreating guards, and in the wide read view mirror Murdock could see that a wall of flame was towering high behind them.
"You missed it!" he cried. "You missed the black Caddy! You rockets hit the cars in front of it and it backed off!"
"I know! I'm sorry!"
"You had a clear shot!"
"I know! I missed!"
They rounded the pile just as two of the guard cars vanished into the tunnel. Three more lay in smoking ruin. The sixth had evidently preceded the other two out through the passage.
"Here it comes now!" cried Murdock. "Around the other end of the pile! Kill it! Kill it!"
The ancient guardian of the graveyardчit looked like a Ford, but he couldn't be sureчmoved forward with a dreadful chattering sound and interposed itself in the line of fire.
"My range is blocked."
"Smash that junkheap and cover the tunnel! Don't let the Caddy escape!"
"I can't!" she said.
"Who not?"
"I just _can't_!"
"That's an order! Smash it and cover the tunnel!"
Her guns swivelled and she shot out the tires beneath the ancient car.
The Caddy shot past and into the passageway.
"You let it get by!" he screamed. "Get after it!"
"All right, Sam! I'm doing it! Don't yell. _Please don't tell!_"
She headed for the tunnel. Inside, he could hear the sound of a giant engine racing away, growing softer in the distance.
"Don't fire here in the tunnel! If you hit it we may be bottled in!"