“Thanks,” Perceveral said. “Hurry up, how’s it done?”
“You’ll need the following equipment. A power source of two hundred volts delivered at twenty-five amps. Can your generator handle that?”
“Yes. Go on.”
“You’ll need a bar of copper, some silver wire and a probe made of some non-conductor such as wood. You set the stuff up in the following—”
“I’ll never have time,” Perceveral said, “but tell me quickly.”
His radio hummed loudly.
“Haskell!” Perceveral cried.
His radio went dead. Perceveral heard the sounds of breakage coming from the radio shack. Then the robot appeared in the doorway.
The robot’s left arm and right eye cell were missing, but his self-repair units had sealed the damaged spots. He was colored a dull black now, with rust-streaks down his chest and flanks.
Perceveral glanced down at the almost-completed beamer. He began fitting the final pieces into place.
The robot walked toward him.
“Go cut firewood,” Perceveral said, in as normal a tone as he could manage.
The robot stopped, turned, picked up the ax, hesitated, and started out the door.
Perceveral fitted in the final component, slid the cover into place and began screwing it down.
The robot dropped the ax and turned again, struggling with contradictory commands. Perceveral hoped he might fuse some circuits in the conflict. But the robot made his decision and launched himself at Perceveral.
Perceveral raised the beamer and pressed the trigger. The blast stopped the robot in mid-stride. His metallic skin began to glow a faint red.
Then the beamer failed again.
Perceveral cursed, hefted the heavy weapon and threw it at the robot’s remaining eye cell. It just missed, bouncing off his forehead.
Dazed, the robot groped for him. Perceveral dodged his arm and fled from the cabin, toward the black mouth of the tunnel. As he entered, he looked back and saw the robot following.
He walked several hundred yards down the tunnel. Then he turned on a flashlight and waited for the robot.
He had thought the problem out carefully when he’d discovered that the robot had not been destroyed.
His first idea naturally was flight. But the robot, traveling night and day, would easily overtake him. Nor could he dodge aimlessly in and out of the maze of tunnels. He would have to stop and eat, drink and sleep. The robot wouldn’t have to stop for anything.
Therefore he had arranged a series of traps in the tunnels and had staked everything on them. One of them was bound to work. He was sure of it.
But even as he told himself this, Perceveral shivered, thinking of the accumulation of accidents that the robot had for him—the months of broken arms and fractured ribs, wrenched ankles, slashes, cuts, bites, infections and diseases. All of which the robot would hound him into as rapidly as possible, in order to get back to normal routine.
He would never survive the robot’s backlog. His traps had to work!
Soon he heard the robot’s thundering footsteps. Then the robot appeared, saw him, and lumbered forward.
Perceveral sprinted down a tunnel, then turned into a smaller tunnel. The robot followed, gaining slightly.
When Perceveral reached a distinctive outcropping of rock, he looked back to gauge the robot’s position. Then he tugged a cord he had concealed behind the rock.
The roof of the tunnel collapsed, releasing tons of dirt and rock over the robot.
If the robot had continued for another step, he would have been buried. But appraising the situation instantly, he whirled and leaped back. Dirt showered him, and small rocks bounced off his head and shoulders. But the main fall missed him.
When the last pebble had fallen, the robot climbed over the mound of debris and continued the pursuit.
Perceveral was growing short of wind. He was disappointed at the failure of the trap. But, he reminded himself, he had a better one ahead. The next would surely finish off the implacable machine.
They ran down a winding tunnel lit only by occasional flashes from Perceveral’s flashlight. The robot began gaining again. Perceveral reached a straight stretch and put on a burst of speed.
He crossed a patch of ground that looked exactly like any other patch. But as the robot thundered over it, the ground gave way. Perceveral had calculated it carefully. The trap, which held under his weight, yielded at once under the robot’s bulk.
The robot thrashed for a handhold. Dirt trickled through his fingers and he slid into the trap that Perceveral had dug—a pit with sloping sides that came together like a great funnel, designed to keep the robot immovably wedged at the bottom.
The robot, however, flung both his legs wide, almost at right angles to his body. His joints creaked as his heels bit into the sloping sides; they sagged under his weight, but held. He was able to stop himself before reaching the bottom, with both legs stiffly outspread and pressed into the soft dirt.
The robot’s hand gouged deep handholds in the dirt. One leg retracted and found a foothold; then the other. Slowly the robot extricated himself, and Perceveral started running again.
His breath came short and hard now and he was getting a stitch in his side. The robot gained more easily, and Perceveral had to strain to stay ahead.
He had counted on those two traps. Now there was just one more left. A very good one, but risky to use.
Perceveral forced himself to concentrate in spite of a growing dizziness. The last trap had to be calculated carefully. He passed a stone marked in white and switched off his flashlight. He began counting strides, slowing until the robot was directly behind him, his fingers inches from his neck.
Eighteen-nineteen-twenty!
On the twentieth step, Perceveral flung himself headfirst into the darkness. For seconds, he seemed to be floating in the air. Then he struck water in a flat, shallow dive, surfaced and waited.
The robot had been too close behind to stop. There was a tremendous splash as he hit the surface of the underground lake; a sound of furious splashing; and, finally, the sound of bubbles as the heavy robot sank beneath the surface.
When he heard that, Perceveral struck out for the opposite shore. He made it and pulled himself out of the icy water. For minutes, he lay shuddering on the slimy rocks. Then he forced himself to climb further ashore on hands and knees, to a cache where he had stored firewood, matches, whisky, blankets and clothes.
During the next hours Perceveral dried himself, changed clothes and built a small fire. He ate and drank and watched the still surface of the underground lake. Days ago, he had tested with a hundred-foot line and had found no bottom. Perhaps the lake was bottomless. More likely it fed into a swift-flowing underwater river that would pull the robot along for weeks and months. Perhaps…
He heard a faint sound in the water and trained his flashlight in its direction. The robot’s head appeared, and then his shoulders and torso emerged.
The lake was very evidently not bottomless. The robot must have walked across the bottom and climbed the steep slope on the opposite side.
The robot began to climb the slimy rocks near shore. Perceveral wearily pulled himself to his feet and broke into a run.
His last trap had failed him and his neurosis was closing in for the kill. Perceveral headed toward a tunnel exit. He wanted the end to come in sunlight.
At a jolting dogtrot, Perceveral led the robot out of the tunnels toward a steep mountain slope. His breath felt like fire in his throat and his stomach muscles were knotted painfully. He ran with his eyes half closed, dizzy from fatigue.
His traps had failed. Why hadn’t he realized the certainty of their failure earlier? The robot was part of himself, his own neurosis moving to destroy him. And how can a man trick the trickiest part of himself? The right
