"He'll come in handy," Annanarie promised. "He's a good shot."
"A good shot?" squawked Stanton. "What do you expect we'll have to shoot at?"
But Annamarie was already inside the building.
II
Descent into Danger
"Hey, sand-man!" hissed Annamarie.
"Be right there," sleepily said Stanton. "This is the strangest date I ever had." He appeared a moment later dressed in the roughest kind of exploring kit.
The girl raised her brows. "Expect to go mountain-climbing?" she asked.
"I had a hunch," he said amiably.
"So?" she commented. "I get them too. One of them is that Josey is still asleep. Go rout him out."
Stanton grinned and disappeared into Josey's cubicle, emerging with him a few moments later. "He was sleeping in his clothes," Stanton explained. "Filthy habit."
"Never mind that. Are we all heeled?" Annamarie proudly displayed her own pearl-handled pipsqueak of a mild paralyzer. Joseph produced a heat-pistol, while Stanton patted the holster of his five-pound blaster. "Okay then. We're off."
The Martian subway service was excellent every hour of the day. Despite the earliness, the trip to the central museum station took no more time than usual – a matter of minutes. Stanton stared around for a second to get his bearings, then pointed. "The station we want is over there – just beyond the large pink monolith. Let's go."
The first train in was the one they wanted. They stepped into it, Josey leaping over the threshold like a startled fawn. Nervously he explained, "I never know when one of those things is going to snap shut on my – my cape." He yelped shrilly: "What's that?"
"Ah, I see the robots rise early," said Annamarie, seating herself as the train moved off. "Don't look so disturbed, Josey – we told you one would be here, even if you didn't believe us."
"We have just time for a spot of breakfast before things should happen," announced Stanton, drawing canisters from a pouch on his belt. "Here – one for each of us." They were filled with a syrup that the members of the Earth expedition carried on trips such as this – concentrated amino acids, fibrinogen, minerals and vitamins, all in a sugar solution.
Annamarie Hudgins shuddered as she downed the sticky stuff, then lit a cigarette. As the lighter flared the robot turned his head to precisely the angle required to center and focus its eyes on the flame, then eye-fronted again.
"Attracted by light and motion," Stanton advised scientifically. "Stop trembling, Josey, there's worse to come. Say, is this the station?"
"It is," said Annamarie. "Now watch. These robots function smoothly and fast – don't miss anything." •
The metal monster, with a minimum of waste motion, was doing just that. It had clumped over to the door; its monstrous appendages were fighting the relays that were to drive the door open, and the robot was winning. The robots were built to win – powerful, even by Earthly standards.
Stanton rubbed his hands briskly and tackled the robot, shoving hard. The girl laughed sharply. He turned, his face showing injury. "Suppose you help," he suggested with some anger. "I can't move this by myself."
"All right – heave!" gasped the girl, complying.
"Ho!" added Josey unexpectedly, adding his weight.
"No use," said Stanton. "No use at all. We couldn't move this thing in seven million years." He wiped his brow. The train started, then picked up speed. All three were thrown back as the robot carelessly nudged them out of its way as it returned to its seat.
"I think," said Josey abruptly, "we'd better go back by the return car and see about the other side of the station."
"No use," said the girl. "There's a robot on the return, too."
"Then let's walk back," urged Josey. By which time the car had stopped at the next station. "Come on," said Josey, stepping through the door with a suspicious glance at the robot.
"No harm in trying," mused Stanton as he followed with the girl. "Can't be more than twenty miles." •
"And that's easier than twenty Earth miles," cried Annamarie. "Let's go."
"I don't know what good it will do though," remarked Stanton, ever the pessimist. 'these Martians were thorough. There's probably a robot at every entrance to the station, blocking the way. If they haven't sealed up the entrances entirely."
There was no robot at the station, they discovered several hours and about eight miles later. But the entrance to the station that was so thoroughly and mysteriously guarded was – no more. Each entrance was sealed; only the glowing teardrop pointers remained to show where the entrance had been.
"Well, what do we do now?" groaned Josey, rubbing an aching thigh.
Stanton did not answer directly. "Will you look at that," he marvelled, indicating, the surrounding terrain. The paved ground beneath them was seamed with cracks. The infinitely tough construction concrete of the Martians was billowed and rippled, stuck through with jagged ends of metal reinforcing I-beams. The whole scene gave the appearance of total devastation – as though a natural catastrophe had come along and wrecked the city first; then the survivors of the disaster, petulantly, had turned their most potent forces on what was left in sheer disheartenment.
"Must have been bombs," suggested the girl.
"Must have been," agreed the archaeologist. "Bombs and guns and force beams and Earth – Marsquakes, too."
"You didn't answer his question, Ray," reminded Annamarie. "He said: "What do we do now?" "
"I was just thinking about it," he said, eyeing one of the monolithic buildings speculatively. "Is your Martian as good as mine? See if you can make out what that says."
"That" was a code-symbol over the sole door to the huge edifice. "I give up," said Annamarie with irritation. "What does it say?"
"Powerhouse, I think."
"Powerhouse? Powerhouse for what? All the energy for lighting and heating the city comes from the sun, through the mirrors up on the surface. The only thing they need power for down here – the only thing – Say!"
"That's right," grinned Stanton. "It must be for the Mars-Tube. Do you suppose we could find a way of getting from that building into the station?"
"There's only one way to find out," Annamarie parroted, looking for Josey for confirmation. But Josey was no longer around. He was at the door to the building, shoving it open. The others hastened after him.
III
Pursuit
"Don't wiggle, Annamarie," whispered Josey plaintively. "You'll fall on me.
"Shut up," she answered tersely; "Shut up and get out of my way." She swung herself down the Martian-sized manhole with space to spare. Dropping three feet or so from her hand-hold on the lip of the pit, she alighted easily. "Did I make much noise?" she asked.
"Oh, I think Krakatoa has been louder when it went off," Stanton replied bitterly. "But those things seem to be deaf."
The three stood perfectly still for a second, listening tensely for sounds of pursuit. They had stumbled into a nest of robots in the powerhouse, apparently left there by the thoughtful Martian race to prevent entrance to the mysteriously guarded subway station via this route. What was in that station that required so much privacy? Stanton wondered. Something so deadly dangerous that the advanced science of the Martians could not cope with it, but was forced to resort to quarantining the spot where it showed itself? Stanton didn't know the answers, but he was very quiet as a hidden upsurge of memory strove to assert itself. Something that had been in the bobbin-books ... "The Under-Eaters." That was it. Had they anything to do with this robot cordon sanitaire?