CHAPTER VIII

_Stop! Stand perfectly still._

The thought was unexpected, peremptory, driving into Johnny's brain with more authority than any words. He wanted to stop, wanted to immobilize the Robot in which he hid--but where had the thought come from?

Westler's Robot was pointing a many-jointed metal arm at the supervising Robot which rushed toward them. Then, did the thought originate there? Could the Robot somehow send a soundless message to them?

_Stop! Let me dismantle you._

The urge to render his own Robot motionless became stronger within Johnny. It was as if the unbidden thought originated outside his head but tried to direct his own muscles, as surely as his own mind.

Something made soft beeping noises in his ear and it took a while before he realized Westler wanted to break their radio silence, so soon after they had started. The other Robot was almost upon them.

Awkward and uncomfortable in his cramped quarters, Johnny found the radio switch and pulled it.

"We've got to destroy that Robot, Johnny. Now, at once, or we're finished."

"But how--"

The Robot was upon them, its unbidden thoughts stronger.

_Halt_....

It was Johnny who struck the first blow--clumsily, lifting his great right arm up and bringing it down stiffly on the other Robot's head. Metal arms came up, swung blurringly. A clanging tumult deafened Johnny as dents appeared inside the chamber of his own Robot's head. He triggered the levers mechanically now, aware that they were fighting under a tremendous disadvantage, for their fingers were still stiff on the unfamiliar controls and their artificial reflexes could not hope to match the Robot's.

"Look out, Johnny--"

Two metal shapes loomed, Westler and the real Robot. The three of them came together, clashing, clanging, metal arms swinging and wrecking metal bodies. It was Westler's Robot which went down first, slowly, buckling at the knee joints and then collapsing. Metal feet drove down upon it ponderously, crushing the head section. Westler's Robot was still.

Johnny hammered with huge metal hands at the other robot hardly knowing where he might strike a mortal blow. But the Robot slowed, its reactions grew feeble, its blows denting Johnny's head-chamber no longer. Finally, it sprawled across Westler's Robot, then rolled away and was still.

Cursing to himself, Johnny climbed down from his Robot, found the battered head plate of Westler's, forced it open.

He saw at once he could never hope to extricate the older man, for the metal walls of his chamber had been crushed, knifing into bone and flesh and trapping him.

"Amos, can you hear me?"

* * * * *

The eyelids fluttered open with pain. "I never will see the end, Johnny...."

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't ... fool me. I'm all broken, inside. I--"

"We'll get you out of there in no time."

"You'd have to melt ... the metal down to ... do it, and you know it."

"We'll do it."

"Your only hope is that the Robot did not have time to broadcast a warning. If ... he did ... you will have to hurry, but--"

"They still don't know our plans. Maybe they think we only want to escape, using these Robot bodies for a disguise."

"Perhaps. I hadn't thought ... of that." Westler lapsed into silence, his face twisted with pain. "If you can do it, if you can destroy their cybernetics center ... new start for humanity. I was going to tell you about the Plague, Johnny. The Robots ... have been using ... a particularly virulent form of the ... toxin which does not exist naturally. Spreading it in the air, all over the earth. That, combined with the ... toxin carried by a Shining One, causes illness ... and death." Westler's words were harder to hear now, low, the barest whisper of sound. Johnny leaned close to the glazed eyes, the barely opening lips. "When the Robots are ... gone ... the Plague will die out almost at once. Shining Ones even will be harmless. You see why it's so important? You see...."

"I could never do it without you. We'll hide away somewhere, nurse you back to health--"

"Stop fooling ... an old man. We both know I'm dying."

"That's ridiculous."

"Please ... don't interrupt me. I want to finish telling you ... the Robots communicate with humans by telepathy. You witnessed it yourself, a few ... minutes ago. They can make it seem like your own thoughts and ... who can say? Thought waves are electromagnetic, like ... so many other things. There is nothing mysterious about ... telepathy. Give humanity a chance to study what the ... Robots have done and ... you'll have civilization flourishing again within a generation. Give humanity the chance...." It was a whisper, a prayer.

On that final note of hope, Westler died.

* * * * *

"The human has emerged from the underground within his Robot and is heading north-east across the city."

"I still think we ought to stop him now, while we know we can do it."

"Silence. Think on the primary level. In unity we will triumph. It is our one weapon they cannot hope to match."

"But 63-17-B warned us before he perished--"

"Precisely. That the humans were attempting something other than mere escape. We must find out what that is, what they have learned. Don't you realize that if this man fails another might succeed in his place? Whatever knowledge he has, perhaps it is widely disseminated. We must find out before we kill him."

There was a silence among the conclave of motionless Robots, their unblinking eyes intent upon a huge three-dimensional map of the city, following a tiny pip of light in its slow progress.

"He seems to be heading straight for Central Intelligence."

"That's hardly possible, unless it is mere coincidence."

"I don't think so.... See? Not half a mile away, now."

"Have the supervisors discovered who is missing?"

"Yes. He was employed in the very repair bay where 63-17-B perished--a defective Robot, incidentally, and no great loss. We have given his name to the top-level Shining Ones in the hope that they can help us."

"There is a Shining One, a human, here right now. He wants an audience concerning the rebel."

"Very well, although we'll have to make it brief."

Starbuck entered the chamber cockily, then lost his poise when he saw the solemn, unmoving conclave of Robots. "I have outside," he began, moistening his lips and talking rapidly, "a woman who this man, this Johnny Hope, loves. Can you understand me? Do you know what love is? He won't do a thing that might harm her."

_We can understand._

"I thought that--"

_We can read your thoughts. Leave your name with the Robot outside. Take this woman within the U.N. building and hold her there until you hear from us._

"The U.N. building?"

_No questions. Go._

Starbuck shuffled from the room, self-conscious and fearful under the mental command.

"I doubt if we'll need the hostage, but you never can tell."

"It seems incredible that--"

"Does it? The man has almost reached the U.N. building. It will take him perhaps half an hour, for the rubble is piled high there. Underground he could reach it in a few moments, but apparently he is unfamiliar with the passages."

"He has only recently arrived at the Citadel."

"Somehow, they have learned something. It is why we cannot kill the man until we are sure. Have them alerted at Central Intelligence, but let him enter. Watch him. If he blunders about as if he has arrived there by accident, kill him. If he knows something, take him alive."

"Someday we must learn the secret of Central Intelligence, if we are to survive. We must learn how to duplicate it or face the possibility of perishing in a single accident."

"Men built it once. Men could do it again."

"Defective! Silence. Man can do nothing we cannot do."

Then they were quiet, watching the tiny, darting pip on the three-dimensional map as it struggled through the uncleared rubble southwest of the U.N. building.

* * * * *

Even in ruin, the city held more wonders for Johnny Hope than he had ever thought possible. In many ways, it was like a scar on the face of the earth, pitted with bomb craters, strewn with the debris of toppled towers, its streets choked with fallen, crumbling masonry and blocked by the skeletons of buildings which once had stood, bare and rusted now but not always so, as monuments to the greatness of man. Yet it was a scar which could be healed, a broken, dying city which could be made great again, with men and women roving its streets, repairing the structures, making the living city function once more.

That was Amos Westler's dream. It was the dream of all mankind, Johnny thought philosophically, although they did not realize it as they roved the earth in hunter-bands of Shining Ones or tilled its soil in small communities fearful of the Plague.

Now, directly ahead of him, he could see the monolithic slab of the U.N. building. Like one structure in five, it stood incredibly intact, a remembrance of the past and a promise of the future. We can build again, Johnny thought, without the Robots and the Plague. They could build again or they would die. Natural world or artificial world--men or Robots--they could not survive jointly.

Battered and broken but still functioning adequately, Johnny's Robot pushed through the debris south of the U.N. building to the edge of the river. He stood there a moment and stared upstream at the gaunt ruins of a bridge, now tumbled down the river and resting on the river-bottom, thrusting its towers up beyond the surface of the water and toward the sky. Men had used that bridge once, long ago but within the memory of Johnny's father, to reach the country beyond. The bridge might be rebuilt. Men might learn to use it again. It was as if, in dying, Amos Westler had transferred his own vision to Johnny, showing him a dream of the unborn tomorrow--its birth or stillborn death depending entirely upon Johnny's success or failure today.

Half a dozen Robots stood about the wide terrace leading to the building, but Johnny ignored them, for he had passed many in the broken streets of the city and grown accustomed to them. He entered the building through a door of glass and metal and was not aware of the Robots entering it behind him.

His impulse was to climb down from his Robot, to stretch his cramped arms and legs and find something to eat, then explore the wonders of this new place. Above his head, the ceiling was high and vaulted. Ramps led away, curving and graceful, in all directions and he longed to feel his feet, his own feet, upon them, and to explore until he satiated himself with this wonder and sought another.

To leave the Robot would be suicide. Had the thought been his own--or a metal-made thought, instilled in him some unknown way, an unbidden suicide thought? It was less specific than the commands of the Robot that had perished in the repair bay, but Johnny guessed it came from outside nevertheless.

He advanced mechanically, for Westler had given him careful directions. The ramps led up, higher and higher, past the rooms in which men from many lands once, long ago, used to debate their future--then higher still, climbing....

There was noise behind him. He whirled in cramped quarters, peered from the Robot's second set of eyes. A dozen Robots climbed the ramp behind him, gaining. He let his mind drift blankly, let their thoughts reach him.

_He is not wandering aimlessly. Somehow he learned. He learned. Capture him._

* * * * *

He ran now, awkwardly, his own Robot not smooth and graceful, a flawless piece of machinery like the others. He clomped and clattered up the ramp and prayed for time.

The ramp soared upward, curved to the left. Once he looked down at the floor of the rotunda so far below and became giddy with the distance and the thought of falling. He leaned over the railing and looked. His head whirled....

At the last moment, he drew his Robot back from the edge, stabbing half-blindly at the controls which propelled it. They had almost driven him to suicide. He must keep his mind a perfect blank--or, better still, think of something which would keep them at bay. Diane, his love for her--Diane....

A Robot waited for him at the top of the ramp. Those behind him were gaining rapidly, driving death-wishes deep within his brain.

The Robot above him abruptly swung into motion, but Johnny desperately sidestepped the lunge which would have sent him hurtling to the floor of the rotunda. The other Robot checked its own inertia and came for Johnny again, huge arms swinging, trying to crush him within the metal chamber as Amos Westler had been crushed. Johnny parried the blows with his own metal arms, then reached out and heard machinery groan within his metal frame as he lifted the other Robot and hurled it in the path of his pursuers.

There was a grinding, clattering crash of metal. Johnny saw three forms detach themselves from the arcing ramp and tumble, swinging and twisting in air grotesquely, to the floor, where they struck resoundingly and broke apart, the metal arms and legs flying.

Then he was climbing again, the remaining Robots far below him and disorganized now. But soon, he knew, they would be capable of following.

It was as Amos Westler had predicted. After a time, the ramp grew smaller. It no longer climbed now--it had soared high and now was just below the girdered ceiling. It was hardly wide enough for Johnny's Robot, it shook dangerously with the tread of metal feet. Here, Johnny knew, was the sanctuary. This was the Achilles Heel. This was the entrance, this ramp which no Robot could traverse. Here the way led to self-functioning, self-repairing machinery, to Central Intelligence. Here was man's final hope in the eyes of the original inventor. Here was the guarantee that the Robots, if they became some Frankenstein monster, could be met and conquered.

For no Robot could guard the final portal to Central Intelligence. No Robot could even draw close enough to alter the thin ramp. Johnny smiled grimly as comprehension grew. If Robots could become neurotic, this was the place for it. They could have employed their human servants, the Shining Ones, to alter the place, but would have divulged their secret in the process.

Still smiling, Johnny halted his Robot, opened the face plate clumsily from the inside, and climbed out. He sat on the ramp and flexed stiff arms and legs, then stood up and heard the Robots below him. He could see them now, no longer advancing, milling about in confusion. Their weight would destroy the ramp, and they knew it. They could never hope to reach him.

It was all so incredibly simple.

Was it?

_One Robot had been above him._

Then they knew he was coming. What had they prepared for him beyond the point where the Robots could not climb? Shrugging, he advanced warily.

Soon he could see where the ramp reached a small doorway, much too low and narrow to admit a Robot, even if one of the machines could have climbed the ramp this far.

"Hold it,--Johnny Hope. Don't come any closer."

* * * * *

Startled, he looked up. Harry Starbuck stood in the doorway, holding Diane in front of him.

"I'm not fooling, Hope. If you come any closer I'll throw her off. It's a long way down."

"You're crazy, Starbuck. You'll never leave this place alive." But even as he spoke, he knew he could never reason with the man. "The Robots can't let you carry their secret from here. Your only hope is to cooperate with me."

"Is that so? They're sending some more men up to get you. All I have to do is hold the fort until ... cut it out, Hope! Stay right there." Starbuck edged out of the doorway, dragging Diane along with him to the railing at one side of the ramp. "I'll do it if you make me."

"Don't listen to him, Johnny! I'm not afraid." Hair disheveled, clothing torn, face bruised, she still looked beautiful to him. All at once she stood for everything Westler had mentioned; for the future of man, for the dreams of tomorrow, for a free world with no Plague and no Robots. But for Westler the choice would have been easy. The girl--or humanity.

Westler had not been in love.

Now Starbuck had forced Diane, back arched, breasts thrust forward, out over the railing. She struggled in his grip, but futilely. He could hurl her out over the edge and into space or not, as he wished.

"Back up, Hope. I want you to go back down the ramp and surrender to the Robots. You're only delaying things. More men will be here soon. You're licked and you know it."

Wearily, Johnny retreated. "Don't hurt her," he said. "Promise me that."

"You crazy? I want her for myself."

The thought numbed Johnny. He hadn't considered it that way. A live Diane or a dead one was one thing. But a Diane forced to submit to Starbuck....

He reached his own immobile Robot, saw the others, not twenty yards below him, waiting, thought he heard shouts somewhere behind them. He must do what he had come to do as if Diane did not exist. It was Starbuck who had made the choice for him.

But there was a wild possibility....

Quickly, he climbed within his Robot, activated it, lumbered forward. He could feel the ramp shaking with each step he took. At any moment, its struts might collapse and send him hurtling to his death, trapped in his man-shaped metal coffin, far below.

Soon he could see Starbuck again, on the ramp outside the doorway, holding Diane. Starbuck's eyes went wide. Starbuck frowned, then began to lick his lips anxiously.

"You can't come up here!" he cried. "It won't hold you. I sent the man down to surrender, anyway. Do you have him? Is he dead? What do you want, anyway? I can come down myself. Don't come any closer, not unless you want the ramp to collapse. Keep away, you hear me?"

Johnny advanced slowly, the ramp shaking with each stride no longer, but dipping and rocking constantly now, almost ready to go. Starbuck retreated, taking Diane with him. Through the doorway they went--

Out fell the faceplate of Johnny's Robot. He tumbled after it as the ramp shook, metal grinding against metal, then snapped. He leaped forward as the ramp caved in. He felt his feet shoot out from under him, saw metal dropping away, twisting, to his left. He clawed out with his hands, gripped a jagged edge, pulled himself up slowly as blood made his hands slip.

He stood in what was left of the doorway, trembling as reaction set in, his heels on the brink of nothing, his bloodied hands aching.

Starbuck roared and charged at him, attempting to drive him back a few inches to his death. But Johnny caught him, met him halfway with no room to evade the charge, and they grappled there, teetering on the edge.

"You tricked me," Starbuck moaned. "That Robot ... was you."

* * * * *

A knee blurred up at Johnny, exploding in violent pain. He felt himself falling and managed to twist away from the edge of the sundered ramp. He hit the floor with waves of nausea boiling up from his stomach. He lay there, blinking his eyes.

Starbuck came for him.

He drew his legs up instinctively, the knees bent, then straightened as Starbuck leaned over him. His feet caught the big man squarely on the chest, lifted him, pushed--

Starbuck went over the edge of the ramp, screaming all the way down.

Inside, Johnny found Diane, dazed, on the floor. He ignored her. She could wait, for now he was a man possessed. The machinery which he could never hope to understand was all about him, bank on bank of it lining the walls, humming with its strange, sentient energy, glowing and flickering with a million lights.

_Kill yourself._

Two words, clamoring, insistent, inside his skull. Their final hope.... He felt himself edging back toward the doorway, and the death which awaited him just outside. He looked at Diane, huddled on the floor, her lips parted--"Johnny...."

_I love you_, he thought. The words of death and those of life and hope fought inside his skull, twisting his brain, battling there for mastery....

He found something, a length of metal rod. He ripped it loose and began to attack the machinery he would never understand. He was a wild man. The strength flowed in from elsewhere, raising his arm, swinging it high over his head and down. Sparks flew as his metal club battered the crystaline tubes, the delicate wiring, the metal cases. Glass shattered, sprinkled him, brought blood from a dozen cuts on his face. Electricity hummed, then shrieked, then wailed off distantly on a register too high for his ears.

Raise his arm and plunge ... lift it and bring it down, battering, the metal club part of him....

It was Diane who eased the twisted rod from his fingers, soothed him with her words. "It's finished. Easy, Johnny. You've done it."

The place was a shambles. Bank on bank of gutted machinery lay silent there, on a floor strewn with glass, with wire, with filaments, with nameless things which were the brains for a million Robots.

"There's another way out, Johnny. Starbuck took me here. Behind that wall, you--"

She took his hand and they went. The passage was dark and cool and smelled musty, as if air did not circulate very well within it. It was a place for thinking and dreaming of tomorrow. It was a place for realizing you could go back to the hills and find Keleher and his Shining Ones and convince them they should at least look at the City, the City which belonged to them now, to them and DeReggio and his villagers--and all the others. And there must be a coming together of Keleher and DeReggio, with Johnny as mediator, and a realization that the last Plague victim had been smitten and humanity had a long path to travel but could set foot upon it right now, at once.

Outside, it was growing dark, but Johnny could make out the still forms of the Robots, gleaming red with final sunlight, sprawled upon the broken streets. The Shining Ones within the City stalked about furtively in small groups, not yet knowing what it meant to live without their masters. Perhaps in time Keleher and all the others could teach them.

"Hungry?" said Johnny. "We could stop and eat."

"No. You?"

"In a different way."

They followed the last slanting rays of the sun to the western river and the mainland beyond it.