"Doc," I whispered, "let's slip down to the entrance and find out
what's going on."
Although my words shouldn't have carried six feet, that robot thing
must have heard me--and, stranger still, must have understood.
For immediately I heard a subdued, metallic jabbering, then Rog Tanlu's
voice speaking urgently to Doc and me.
"That would be very unwise. Eyoaoc Eiioiei suggests that it would be
better for us three to withdraw farther from the entrance. He will
remain here and act as guard. Moreover, I can easily learn, with the
audio-visiscope, what is taking place outside--just as soon as I have
a moment of leisure. Come, my friends."
Well, we faced around and started back. And I could hear that nightmare
thing he called Eyoaoc Eiioiei moving on down toward the rock-choked
entrance--its steps surprisingly soundless, considering its clumsy
appearance.
However, the entire arrangement didn't seem right to me, especially
letting that thing plan our line of action as if it was one of us and,
well, alive.
But that robot-thing could certainly think, and fight, as I was shortly
to learn!
Doc Champ and I groped along after Rog Tanlu. He seemed to know right
where he was going, and after a hundred feet or so he stopped.
It was not quite dark here--just enough light for us to see, in a
vague sort of fashion, that he was bending over a low, flat block of
stone, a stone suggesting that it had once served as the foundation for
some huge machine. I realized that he was setting up that flashlight
contraption with the black bulb at one end.
And suddenly that bulb began to glow softly.
"Now," said Rog Tanlu, "we'll see what's going on."
The three of us bent over the thing. What looked like reflections in it
were shifting around and around, and abruptly the steep face of a cliff
swung into view. We could see the Ice Stone as it appeared from the
outside, and the ledge running up to it.
We saw no one near the Ice Stone. But suddenly, under Rog Tanlu's
swift adjustment, the image shifted and enlarged--like a movie
close-up--magnifying a certain portion of that ledge.
And there, in a heap like cast-off cocoons, were some half-dozen of
those heavy, fawn-colored garments, identical with the one we had seen
hanging in the tree.
"So-o-o," Rog Tanlu breathed tensely, "Eyoaoc Eiioiei was right! They
_have_ come! They must be--"
A startled shout cut off his words. It was followed by a blinding flash
of light. Then hell suddenly broke loose down below us....
In that cavern-darkness the blast of light was, in itself, almost
stunning; and following it were other blasts of equal intensity. Vision
was a torturing thing. It was like those brief but vivid glimpses
presented by lightning during a summer storm at night.
But with hurting eyes I managed to discern a group of figures jamming
the entrance-way to the cavern, with Eyoaoc Eiioiei's weird shape
looming between us and them.
"Down!" shouted Rog Tanlu to Doc and me. "Down, behind the rock!"
In a dim, bewildered way I realized that those flashes of light were
from weapons in the hands of invaders--weapons trained on Eyoaoc
Eiioiei. But we, also, were directly in line.
Doc Champ didn't seem to hear Rog Tanlu's order. He was staring down at
that weird sight--staring at Eyoaoc Eiioiei. And for a moment I, too,
ignored the warning. For that grotesque thing was fighting--fighting in
a way that was an astonishing sight to witness.
Thin, dazzling, rapierlike beams were flashing up at him and past him.
But Eyoaoc Eiioiei was avoiding those hissing shafts with a skill not
human--a dancing, cavorting nightmare thing, silhouetted against and
enmeshed by those lethal streaks of fire; and I saw that now and then
from his metal hand flashed a return blast of radiance. He was standing
between his master and his master's assassins, and such wild courage
and savagery brought into my throat a choked feeling of admiration.
A hissing white shaft flashed within a foot of my head, bringing me to
my senses. I made a grab at Doc Champ, intending to drag him down to
safety. Then I realized that he was already lying flat behind that
ancient block of rock.
Rog Tanlu was on his knees. He had jerked that fountain-pen affair into
action. Again and again I saw its belching bar of whiteness blast down
toward the entrance. This man from the Past, despite his thin, pale
face and affable manner, was also a fighter!
And strangely, watching him and that wildly cavorting shadow that was
Eyoaoc Eiioiei, I forgot all about the automatic in my pocket. For
somehow this fantastic meeting of forces seemed remotely withdrawn from
the affairs of Doc Champ and myself--although heaven knows we were
mixed up in it at that moment close enough!
I do not know for how long that flaming barrage lasted--perhaps only
a moment or so, although it seemed longer. But suddenly it was over.
Darkness and silence blotted down on us there in the cavern.
"Doc!" I gasped.
He didn't answer. But I heard someone moaning softly.
I groped around in the darkness. Then my hand touched him. He didn't
move, and somehow it needed only that touch to tell me the truth.
"Rog Tanlu," I called hoarsely. "Rog Tanlu--!"
"Here," came a voice, followed by a moan.
The temporary blindness caused by those recent blasts of light was
leaving my eyes. I began to see dimly.