War with the Robots

"I wish I knew," Commander Stane said glumly. "It would make my job a lot easier. We’ll get a complete report off to HQ — maybe they have some ideas."

On the way back to the ship they noticed the fresh dirt in the grove of trees. There was a raw empty hole where the girl had been buried. The ground had been torn apart and hurled in every direction. There were slash marks on the trunks of the trees, made by sharp blades… or giant claws. Something or somebody had come for the girl, dug up her body and vented a burning rage on the ground and the trees. A crushed trail led to an opening between the roofs of one of the trees. It slanted back and down, its dark mouth as enigmatic and mysterious as the other tunnels.

Before they retired that night, Commander Stane made a double check that the ports were locked and all the alarm circuits activated. He went to bed but didn’t sleep. The answer to the problem seemed tantalizingly obvious, hovering just outside his reach. There seemed to be enough facts here to draw a conclusion from. But what? He drifted into a fitful doze without finding the answer.

When he awoke the cabin was still dark, and he had the feeling something was terribly wrong. What had awakened him? He groped in his sleep-filled memories. A sigh. A rush of air. It could have been the cycling of the air lock. Fighting down the sudden fear he snapped on the lights and pulled his gun from the bedside rack. Arnild appeared, yawning and blinking in the doorway.

"What’s going on?" he asked.

"Get Dall — I think someone came into the ship."

"Gone out is more like it," Arnild snuffed. "Dall’s not in his bunk."

"What!"

He ran to the control room. The alarm circuit had been turned off. There was a piece of paper on the control console. The Commander grabbed it up and read the single word written on it. He gaped as comprehension struck him, then crushed the paper in his convulsive fist.

"The fool!" he shouted. "The damned young fool! Break out an Eye. No, two! I’ll work the duplicate controls!"

"But what’s happened?" Arnild gaped. "What’s young Dall done?"

"Gone underground. Into the tunnels. We have to stop him!"

Dall was nowhere in sight, but the lip of the tunnel under the trees was freshly crumbled.

"I’ll take an Eye down there," Commander Stane said. "You take another one down the next nearest entrance. Use the speakers. Tell them that we are friends, in Slaver."

"But — you saw what reaction the girl had when Dall told her that." Arnild was puzzled, confused.

"I know what happened," Stane snapped. "But what other choice do we have? Now get on with it!"

Arnild started to ask another question, but the huddled intensity of the Commander at the controls changed his mind. He sent his own Eye rocketing towards the village.

If the people hiding in the maze of tunnels heard the message, they certainly didn’t believe it. One Eye was trapped m a dead-end tunnel when the opening behind it suddenly filled with soft dirt. Commander Stane tried nosing the machine through the dirt, but it was firmly trapped and held. He could hear thumpings and digging as more dirt was piled on top.

Arnild’s Eye found a large underground chamber, filled with huddled and frightened sheep. There were none of the natives there. On the way out of this cavern the Eye was trapped under a fall of rocks.

In the end, Commander Stane admitted defeat. "It’s up to them now, we can’t change the end one way or another."

"Something moving in the grove of trees, Commander," Arnild said sharply. "Caught it on the detector, but it’s gone now."

They went out hesitantly with their guns pointed, under a reddened dawn sky. They went, half-knowing what they would find, but fearful to admit it aloud while they could still hope.

Of course there was no hope. Dall the Younger’s body lay near the tunnel mouth, out of which it had been pushed. The red dawn glinted from red blood. He had died terribly.

"They’re fiends! Animals!" Arnild shouted. "To do that to a man who only wanted to help them. Broke his arms and legs, scratched away most of his skin. His face-nothing left.. "The aging gunner choked out a sound that was half gasp, half sob. "They ought to be bombed out, blown up! Like the Slavers started…" He met the Commander’s burning stare and fell silent.

"That’s probably just how the Slavers felt," Stane said. "Don’t you understand what happened here?"

Arnild shook his head dumbly.

"Dall had a glimpse of the truth. Only he thought it was possible to change things. But at least he knew what the danger was. He went because he felt guilty for the girl’s death. That was why he left the note with the word slaves on it, in case he didn’t come back."

"It’s really quite simple," he said wearily, leaning back against a tree. "Only we were looking for something more complex and technical. When it wasn’t really a physical problem, but a social one we were facing. This was a Slaver planet, set up and organized by the Slavers to fit their special needs."

"What?" Arnild asked, still confused.