Hell's Gate

He put three shots in the killer's face. For a moment, he thought he had won, for the man stopped, was perfectly still, eyes hardly blue at all, but more of a gray. Then, painfully, the arm with the brass vibrabeam tube rose toward Salsbury.

A premature blast erupted from the end, struck the computer trunk, glanced off without damage.

Gritting his teeth, every cell screaming to every other cell in his body, Salsbury put the last three bullets in the killer, all in his chest again. When that was done, he threw the gun at the man, watched it bounce off the impassive face.

Inexorably, the firing arm continued to raise.

He was going to die. As surely as he had killed Harold Jacobi. But this time, there was an assassin who did not bleed, who was not human. And what would the thing do with him when he was dead? Stuff him in some hole it would dig in the orchard? Let him rot out there to help grow the trees? He had a picture in his mind of this thing, full of eighteen.22 slugs, face half destroyed, chest almost one gaping hole, dragging Victor Salsbury to the orchard and putting him in a grave.

Screaming, mad now with terror, Salsbury leaped, crashed onto the killer, bore him backwards. The other man's skull struck the bedpost, opened in two before he went on to the floor. His head, laid open, was mostly hollow, except for several sets of wires and transisters. While Salsbury pressed him down, the last false life leaked out of the robot and it was still at last.

Robot. No blood. Wires in its face. Salsbury struggled off the inanimate form, his head pumping up and down on his neck like a wooden horse on a brass merry-go-round pole. Up. Down. Up-Down. Pretty music. Up. Down. A computer in a trunk. And he had a dead man's past. Up. Down. Up. Lizard-things lurked in the walls of his cellar. Up. Down. Down. Up. Sucker mouths. Down. Up. Now a robot with intent to kill. Up. Down. Round, round

He found the master bedroom, opened the door, welcomed Intrepid who bounded against him. His dislike for this room had faded now that he had become a victim too-or intended victim. It put him in sympathy with Jacobi. All he wanted was to sleep now. He was so tired. If he could only make his head stop going up and down. He clamped his hands on it and bit his tongue. Vaguely, he was aware that he could hurt himself biting on his tongue, that the next step was to swallow it. But his head did not go up and down any longer. Just down and down and down, down, down

CHAPTER 7

Once, he opened his eyes and saw a faint gray light seeping through the windows and across the floor, playing like soft fingers on his eyes. He thought about getting up, seriously thought about it. That seemed like the proper thing to do. He got his hands under himself and pushed, managed to raise his head a foot off the floor. Then the little strength he had left was gone, carried away by the fingers of gray light. His head fell and he cracked his chin on the floor. There was no more light at all.

He was in a beautifully furnished room of pleasant and airy proportions, waiting for something, though he could not remember what. He paced around, admiring the decorating job, wondering if the Fabulous Bureau had done it, just generally passing time. When he touched the top of a smooth and darkly finished writing desk, the thing opened like a mouth. There were little sharp-edged teeth made of pipe. It slammed shut, trying to chomp off his hand. He retreated from the desk and sat down in a comfortable black chair, sucking the ends of his fingers which the desk had barely nipped. Suddenly bars slid out of the chair arms across his lap, locking him in. Nothing, it seemed, was what it appeared to be. He screamed as the chair began to swallow him.

Someone told him to take it easy, that they were going to get help, get help very soon? now? He smiled- or at least he tried to smile-and told them that was all very nice and quite thoughtful of them but that the chair was swallowing him and could they please hurry. The black chair. The comfortable one. DO SOMETHING! Then the swirling face that he could not see clearly and the reassuring voice that accompanied it were gone. He was fading back into the room with the vicious chair and the cannibalistic desk.

He didn't want to be in this room. He looked for a way out, found a tall, white door set flush with the walls. As he walked toward it, the desk to his right began flapping its wooden mouth and growling angrily. The chair, taking up the chorus, began thumping around, rattling its sturdy wooden legs against the floor and slowly converging on him. The ends of the legs were carved like animal paws, and Salsbury was certain he saw the toes wriggle. He hurried to the white door, flung it open, and found there was no escape. The door was nothing more than another mouth. He had opened it and stepped slightly into it. Beyond was a pink, wet throat, the heavy nodes of the tonsils hanging like stalactites. The big, black teeth started coming down to cut him in half. Oddly enough, he noticed that their biting match would be perfect. Behind, the chair rattled closer, snarling thickly. He screamed again.

This time when he woke from the room of living furniture, there were two voices. He recognized one as the same that had gotten him to open his eyes earlier. It was soft, concerned, and sweet, the sort one hears in television commercials and over public address systems in some of the more pleasant airline terminals. The new voice was gruff, older, definitely male. It was closer to Salsbury, almost directly over him.

Then he saw the face that matched the second voice: heavy-jowled and wide-mouthed with a ski-slope nose, two velvety black eyes, a heavy, bushy mustache the same gun-metal gray as the thinning head of hair.

?I think it's chiefly exhaustion,? the man said.

?Will he be all right then?? the woman asked.

?With some rest, yes.?

?What about his? his chest??

?Nothing deep here. I don't see how the deuce he got that. Doesn't make sense.?

?You've seen the car??

?Yes. That still answers nothing.?

?Will it hurt when you take the slivers out??

?It won't hurt me a bit,? the man said. When she slapped him playfully, he said, ?I've never seen you so solicitous of anyone.? He chuckled deep in his throat. ?Especially a man.?

?You're an old goat,? she said.

?And you're a young lamb. About time you found yourself another pasture mate. One marriage doesn't mean a thing, dear. This one might not be anything like Henry.?

?You're insane!? she said. Then she said, ?He isn't.?

The man chuckled again. ?Well, it won't hurt him. I'll just give him a sedative first to make sure. A mild one. He won't feel a thing.?

?I don't want to have a sedative,? Salsbury said, still dazed. His voice sounded as if he had the vocal chords of a frog.

?What's that?? the man asked.

The woman's face appeared, a truly lovely face that he had seen somewhere before? Certainly? he just could not remember where. He could not remember much of anything, in fact.

?Vic,? she said, reaching a hand to touch his face.

?Shush,? the gruff man said. ?He's delirious. You can wait to talk to him.?

?If you give me a sedative,? Salsbury said, ?The door will swallow me up.?

?No it won't,? the gruff one answered. ?I've muzzled the door.?

?The chair, then. The chair or the desk will eat me alive!?

?Not much chance,? he said. ?I've given both of those devils a very strict warning.?

Then there was a sudden sharpness in Salsbury's arm, a coolness, a moment of exhilaration, and darkness. It was a quiet, empty darkness this time, without any mystery room or cannibalistic furniture or other horrors. He settled into it, pulled a flap of blackness across him like a blanket, and stopped thinking.

When he woke much later, he was one big stomach. There was no room in him for any sensation but hunger. He blinked at the white ceiling until he was certain he was not dizzy, then took stock of his body, lying there quietly letting the nerves signal the brain, cautiously interpreting the reports they made. There was a dull ache in his jaw; he remembered cracking it against the floor. His hands tingled as if he might have scraped them. His chest felt odd,