that had chased the spacetime ship, looked about the same. There was something absolutely implacable about it. It gave the impression that it would not stop until its assigned task of the complete destruction of its target was accomplished.
The trailer was already angling toward the edge of the roadbed. I cut the front rollers to the right, compensating and straightening it out.
We didn't get very far back up the road. Something came out of the pit and picked us off the bridge.
'Some kind of crane,' Sam said, pressing his face against the port and trying to look straight up. 'Don't know what the hell-some kind of magnetic gizmo.'
Reeling us like a fish on a line, the gizmo or whatever it was swung the rig out over the pit, dangled it there for a moment, then began to lower it swiftly but carefully down. A hole opened up at the bottom, and we descended through it. The trailer hit the floor first, then the cab thumped down, not ungently. There came a loud, echoing clang above us: Then there was silence.
I looked around. In dim light I could see outlines and shapes of things-machinery and the like. We were in a large chamber, its farthest corners hid in shadow. The darkness was a little unsettling, even though the scanners showed nothing stirring out there.
'What now?' Sam wondered.
The engine was still running. I eased forward a mite, peering into the gloom. 'I don't know. Can you see…?'
The scanners went crazy as a towering dark shape outlined in flashing lights came out from a hole in the wall. I focused the rig's spotlights on it. Rising to about thirty meters, it was an asymetrical structure composed of interconnected components, and taken as a whole it appeared to be some sort of mobile wrecking crane or other piece of heavy equipment. It was jagged with mechanical arms and appendages, some of them very wicked-looking, all of them capable of opening up the rig like a hotpak dinner.
And it was coming for us.
22
'Jake, I am receiving a query,' Bruce informed me, 'presumably originating from the Artificial Intelligence in control of the mechanism which is advancing toward us.'
'Tell it we come in peace,' I said lamely.
'I do not think that is the issue. It is asking why we have not been assigned a Disassemble Order Number, and demands to know what sector and subsystem we have been decommissioned from.'
'Tell it to stand by for data transmission!' Sam barked.
'Done,' Bruce said.
The hulking thing stopped in its tracks, lights flashing, its Shiva-arms waving threateningly. Motes of light flickered on a pyramid-shaped component at its top.
'Go to address 0000H to 0002H!' Sam ordered.
'Done.'
'Restart and move Source Library to Working Storage!'
'Done.'
'Download!'
A minute later, Bruce said: 'Done. Receiver acknowledges.'
Sam exhaled, looked at me and grinned. 'When the checkpoint guard asks for your papers, give him everything you got. Swamp the bastard.'
'Good move,' I said. 'Let's hope it works.'
The huge thing chewed the matter over for a moment, standing there in the darkness. Then a grouping of lights realigned itself along the monster's left flank.
'The mechanism informs me,' Bruce relayed, 'that it is having very little success in processing the data it has received. It demands further data and clarification.'
'System reset,' Sam said.
'Done.'
'Select datapipe B. Begin moving entire contents of Auxiliary Storage to CPU.'
'CPU at capacity,' Bruce stated.
'Download, then reload.'
'Downloading.'
Sam crossed his arms and snorted. 'That ought to hold it.' It did for about thirty seconds. Then angry red lights blared on the pyramidal structure.
'The mechanism informs me that it is not capable of processing the data we are transmitting,' Bruce said. 'It instructs us to follow it to a place where such a thing may be accomplished.'
'He's taking us to see the Commandant,' Sam said.
Some of the robot's components swiveled about, a few lights changed pattern, and the thing began moving away. I followed cautiously. The hulking contraption led us into the high-arched tunnel that it had come out of, and as it entered it reconfigured itself, reducing its height slightly. The tunnel ran for about a quarter klick, debouching into a dim spacious cavern full of gigantic equipment. I tagged after our robot captor down a wide central aisle that ran straight through the chamber and ended at another tunnel, this one shorter than the first. It fed through into a smaller chamber clogged with pipes and machinery. The aisle here branched at a Y, the left leg leading to a tunnel mouth which looked small enough for the robot to have a hard time squeezing into.
It didn't take me long to arrive at the decision. I had no desire to see the Commandant. When we got to the Y, I gunned the engine and swerved left, racing down the branch and into the tunnel. The robot either hadn't noticed we had gone the other way or wasn't willing to chase us; it showed no reaction.
Maybe, I thought, because this tunnel is a direct chute to the discombobulator.
But it wasn't. We came out onto a high suspended metal ramp that curved through a perplexity of multicolored pipelines, cables, and exotic technology. It was at least a ten-story drop off the edge, and overhead the tangle of conduits and titanic machinery continued up out of sight. I slowed and drove carefully; there was no guardrail, and it was a long and very unpleasant way down.
'Sam, was that too easy, or am I just paranoid?' I said.
'Seemed just a tad too easy,' Sam allowed.
We moved on, soaring through congested and confusing spaces. The ramp took odd bends, banking crazily as it swooped and swerved. Then it did something that made me come to a full stop.
'Either this roadway has artificial gravity, or it's for flies only,' Sam deduced.
A few feet ahead the ramp did an outside loop, curving under itself and doubling back. It then twisted and spiraled downward, finally leveling off a dozen stories below. I looked at Sam. He shrugged. I shrugged, too. Why not?
It was the best roller coaster I ever rode. A little disorienting, though, as there seemed to be about four equally valid centers of gravity to contend with. As we came shooting down the final dip, my stomach was debating whether to turn itself inside out or plant soybeans this winter.
We moved on, encountering more nonsense. I could have sworn that at one point we were crawling across the ceiling, instead of the floor, of a huge compartmented chamber. I became convinced of this as loose debris in the cab began to fall up. Then it all fell to the driver's side. I peeled a dirty sock off my face and considered taking a Dramamine pill. I had a headache, and the contents of my stomach were sloshing about. Darla looked a little green.
'How long do we do this,' Sam asked, 'before we admit to ourselves that we're lost?'
I looked back and forth between two branches of a diverging ramp, considering the choice. 'We were lost when the saucer crashed,' I said. 'Now we're just making a proper job of it.'
'Maybe Arthur knows how to get out of here,' Darla said.
'Holy heck,' I said, 'I forgot all about him.' Switching a mike to the intercom circuit, I called, 'Hey, Arthur! You okay back there?'
