Special Deliverance

20

“I Doubt,” the Brigadier observed, “that there is as much danger here as would appear to be the case. The machines may be able to affect a sensitive, whereas a man of stronger fiber who had his feet solidly planted on the ground…”

“I suppose,” said Lansing, “you are thinking of yourself. If that is the case, don’t let me hold you back. Go ahead and walk straight into it.”

“You’re dead wrong,” Mary told the Brigadier. “I’m not a sensitive. It’s just possible Edward may be and Sandra certainly. The Parson was and—”

“The Parson,” said the Brigadier, “could not have been a sensitive. Unstrung, perhaps, unstable, but otherwise a clod.”

Mary sighed in resignation. “Have it your own way,” she said.

The five of them stood on the metal walkway, well clear of the machines, which still were glowing with their cat eyes, still singing to themselves.

“I had anticipated,” said Jurgens, “that being half machine myself I might be able to discern some affinity with this installation. I could not know, of course, for on my world there are only the simplest machines. Nothing remotely like these. As I say, I had looked forward to a possibly interesting experience, but I am deeply disappointed.”

“You feel nothing?” Sandra asked.

“Not a thing,” he said.

“Well, now that we have seen these machines,” the Brigadier asked, “what do we do about them? What do we do next?”

“We promised you nothing,” Lansing said, “except that we would come along with you to have a look at them. For my part, that’s all I’m going to do. Have another look at them.”

“Then what’s the use of finding them?”

“We told you,” Mary said, “that at the moment there is no way of understanding them. You were looking for something — you had no idea what it was — so we went out and found it for you. I told you the other night that this city will kill us one by one. The Parson told you it was evil and he fled the evil that he saw. If the Parson was right and there is evil in this city, the machines may be a part of it.”

“You don’t think this, do you?”

“No, I don’t. I don’t think machines have a capacity for evil. But the city is no place to stay and I am leaving it, right now. Are you coming, Edward?”

“You lead the way. I’ll be right behind you.”

“Now wait a minute!” stormed the Brigadier. “You can’t desert me now. Not when we are on the brink.”

“The brink of what?” asked Jurgens.

“The brink of finding the answer we seek.”

“It’s not here,” said Jurgens. “The machines may be a part of it, but they’re not all of it and you can’t get the solution from them.”

The Brigadier sputtered at him, but no words came out. His face was puffed and red with anger and frustration. Then suddenly his sputtering stopped and he shouted at them. “We’ll see about that! I’ll show you. I’ll show all of you!”

As he shouted at them he leaped forward, running down the walkway, straight between the two banks of machines.

Jurgens took two quick steps in pursuit, struggling to get solid footing with his crutch on the smoothness of the metal walkway. Moving deliberately, Lansing kicked the crutch out from under him and sent the robot sprawling.

The Brigadier still was running. He was far down the walkway when suddenly he sparkled all along his entire body. The sparkle flared for a small fraction of a second and the Brigadier was gone.

Blinded by the flare, they all stood stockstill, horrified. Jurgens, using the crutch to pull himself erect, scrambled to his feet.

“I think,” he told Lansing, “that I must thank you for my life.”

“I told you, long ago,” said Lansing, “that if you ever tried another stupid trick, I’d clobber you with whatever was at hand.”

“I can’t see him,” said Sandra. “The Brigadier’s not there.”

Mary directed a flashlight beam down the walkway. “Neither can I,” she said. “The beam doesn’t carry far enough.”

“I think it does,” said Jurgens. “The Brigadier is gone.” “But it wasn’t that way with us,” Mary said to Lansing. “Our bodies stayed behind.”

“We weren’t as far down the walkway as the general was.”

“That may be it,” she said. “You spoke of the machines being able to take over the body as well as the mind. I told you it would be impossible. Maybe I was wrong.”

“Two of us gone,” said Sandra. “The Parson and the Brigadier.”

“The Brigadier may come back,” said Lansing.

“Somehow I don’t think so,” said Mary. “There was a lot of energy involved. The Brigadier could very well be dead.”

“You can say this for him,” said Jurgens. “He went out in a blaze of glory. No! No! I’m sorry. I apologize. I did not mean that; I should not have said it.”

“You’re forgiven,” Lansing said. “You just beat another one of us to saying it.”

“Now what?” asked Sandra. “What do we do now?”

“That’s a problem,” Mary told her. “Edward, do you have any kind of hunch that he’ll be coming back? As we came back.”

“No hunch. Since we came back, I thought…”

“But this was different.”

“The damn fool,” said Lansing. “The poor, pitiful damn fool. The leader to the end.”

They stood, huddled together, looking down the walkway in all its emptiness. The cat eyes glowed, the machines kept up their crooning.

“Maybe we should wait awhile,” said Mary, “before we leave the city.”

“I think we should,” said Jurgens.

“If he does come back, he’ll need us,” Sandra said.

“Edward,” Mary asked, “what do you think?”

“That we should wait,” he said. “At a time like this, we can’t desert the man. I can’t imagine he’ll come back, but if he should…”

They moved their camp into the alley, near the stairs that went down into the cavern where the machines sang softly to themselves. Each night the lonesome beast came out on the hills above the city and cried out its bitterness and lostness.

On the morning of the fourth day, after consulting the map that might have represented this part of the world, they left the city and found the westward continuation of the road they’d walked to reach it.