"Alright," Pere said, keeping his emotions under control. "That leaves Zen as the only casualty and he can walk well enough with his arm in a cast."
When the officers had all assembled General Natia stepped up to Pere and saluted. "All present, sir. Everyone is carrying extra rations and water, in case there is trouble in the return tunnel."
"Yes, of course," Pere said, mentally berating himself for not thinking of these simple precautions. There had been so much on his mind. It was time to leave.
"Has the mono tunnel been kept open?" he asked the adjutant.
"Two additional minor blockages have occurred, but have been cleared."
"Very good. Fall in with the others. Attention… right face… forward MARCH." As his small company tramped out of the room General Pere turned back, goaded by some anachronistic impulse, and saluted the command post. None of the machines paid the slightest attention to him. The robot in his chair jabbed a quick finger at some buttons and ignored him. Feeling slightly foolish he turned quickly and followed the others out.
They were cycling through the multiple sealed doors of the fortress when they met the robot. It was waiting in the outer compartment and pushed past them as soon as the door was open. It was a worker, a mechanical of some kind, scratched and covered with mud: because it had no speech facilities Pere had to question it through the adjutant.
"Find out what has happened," he snapped.
The two robots held a voiceless communion, their radio waves in a direct brain-to-brain hookup carried thoughts far faster than could any speech.
"The exit tunnel has been blocked," the adjutant said. "The roof is down in many places and it is beginning to fill with water. The decision has been reached that it cannot be opened. New falls are occurring all the time."
"Challenge the decision. It is not possible," Pere said. There was a note of desperation in his voice.
They were through the last door now and in the exit bay. The heat was overpowering and made intelligent thought almost impossible. Through a red haze Pere saw bulky digging robots streaming out of the mouth of the exit tunnel, going towards the entrance valve behind them.
"No change is possible," the adjutant said, a metallic voice of doom. "The tunnel can not be opened now. It has been found that small machines, very like the heat units, have penetrated the earth and are collapsing the tunnel. It will be opened after they —"
"Another way! There must be another way out!" Pere’s voice was as heat-strained as his thoughts, yet the robot understood and took it for a command.
"There are emergency exits here that once led to higher levels. My information is incomplete. I do not know if they have been sealed."
"Show us — we can’t stay here."
They were all wearing gloves, so the metal bars of the ladder didn’t char their hands, just burned them. The robot adjutant went first and only his mechanical strength could have turned the time-sealed wheel that locked the entrance to the older levels. The humans groped their way behind the adjutant, some falling and failing to rise again. Colonel Zen must have been the first to be left behind because he only bad the use of one arm. The heat in the stifling darkness was so great that even the doctor didn’t notice when his patient dropped out. The doctor himself must have gone soon after, because he was no longer a young man.
General Pere tried to issue orders, and when they were not obeyed he made an attempt to help the laggards himself. He could not do this and keep up with the others. When he saw the lights winking out of sight in the dust filled passage ahead, he made the only decision possible under the circumstances. Not that he was aware of making it, he was barely conscious at the time and only the will to survive drove him forward. Passing the straggling survivors he shouldered General Natia aside and took his place behind the guiding robot.
Pain fought a battle with fatigue and kept them going until they were out of the zone of terrible heat. Pere had strength enough only to utter the one word command to stop, drink from his canteen, then fall unconscious to the floor. The others dropped in huddled lumps of pain about him. The adjutant stood with untiring machine-patience, waiting for them to rise.
Moans of agony roused Pere at last and he forced his charred fingers to fumble out the first aid packs. Burn ointment brought some relief to the five survivors and stimulants gave them the illusion of strength needed to carry on. General Natia had somehow managed to stay close behind him through the ordeal, as well as three others. They were all young and strong, though one was not strong enough. He simply vanished during the next climb.
Above HQ was a maze of tunnels and rooms, occupied by the base at various times before the unremitting pressures of the war had driven the controllers even deeper into the ground. Most of it was collapsed and choked with rubble and no progress was possible. If the robot had not been with them they would have died. Every detail of the various layers was impressed in his electronical cortex, since his brain contained the memory of every other adjutant back to the beginning of the war. They retraced their steps whenever their way was blocked and found a different direction. Bit by bit they progressed towards the surface. There was no way to measure time in the darkness; they slept when exhaustion was too great, then woke up to stumble on. Their food was gone and the water almost exhausted. They kept going only because of the robot’s firm insistence that they were now m the upper levels.
"We are just under the surface of the ground," the adjutant said. "This tunnel led to a gun position, but it is now blocked."
Pere sat and blinked at the circular tunnel and forced his fatigued brain to consider the problem. The top of the tunnel was not much higher than their heads and made of ferroconcrete. Jagged chunks of the same material choked the end.
"Clear away the opening," Pere ordered.
"I cannot," the robot said. "My battery is almost discharged, I would not be able to finish."
This was the end. They could not go on.
"Perhaps we could… blow it out of the way," Natia said apologetically. Pere turned his light on her and she shook a handful of cartridges from the clip at her waist. "These contain powerful explosive. Perhaps the adjutant could arrange them to all explode together."
"I can," the adjutant said.
Surprisingly, all four of them still had their sidearms and spare clips; they had not been discarded with the rest of the equipment. The adjutant took the spare clips and buried them in the rubble while they moved back down the tunnel. A minute later the robot came running back to join them and they pressed themselves to the floor. The ground jumped and the roar of concussion smote their ears. They forced themselves to wait long minutes for the stifling cloud of dust settled, before Pere let them go forward.
The barrier was still there, but the ceiling had fallen and high up in the gap a ray of light shone on the dust motes.
"We’re through," Pere said hoarsely. "Help me up there." Steadied by the robot he reached up into the hole and crumbled away the soft dirt at the lip until it was big enough for his shoulders. A lump came away with a tuft of grass, green and damp. He groped up through the hole, reaching for a hold.
"Let me help you," a voice said, and brown calloused hands clutched his and pulled.
It was so unexpected that Pere gasped with shock. Yet he could not let go and the hand pulled him steadily out of the hole in the ground. He fell face first onto the grass and groped for his gun, while the light burned into his eyes. Through tears of pain he saw a circle of legs surrounding him, and took his hand from the pistol butt.
The others were out of the hole now and as his eyes adjusted Pere could look around him. The sky was cloudy and it must have been raining because the grass on which he sat was damp. Before him stretched a freshly plowed field. He felt a sudden spurt of pleasure at identifying these things that he had only seen before on the screen. This was the first time in his life that he had ever been above ground.