IX

My blue suit was soaking wet and splattered with mud, plus a few flecks

of what Dunger had used for brains, but it still carried the gold

eagles on the shoulders.

The attendant in the garage didn't look at my face. The eagles were

enough for him. I stalked to a vast black Bentley--a '70 model, I

guessed, from the conservative eighteen-inch tail fins--and jerked the

door open. The gauge showed three-quarters full. I opened the glove

compartment, rummaged, found nothing. But then it wouldn't be up front

with the chauffeur....

I pulled open the back door. There was a crude black leather holster

riveted against the smooth pale-gray leather, with the butt of a 4 mm

showing. There was another one on the opposite door, and a power rifle

slung from straps on the back of the driver's seat.

Whoever owned the Bentley was overcompensating his insecurity. I took

a pistol, tossed it onto the front seat and slid in beside it. The

attendant gaped at me as I eased my left arm into my lap and twisted to

close the door. I started up. There was a bad knock, but she ran all

right. I flipped a switch and cold lances of light speared out into the

rain.

At the last instant, the attendant started forward with his mouth open

to say something, but I didn't wait to hear it. I gunned out into the

night, slung into the graveled drive, and headed for the gate. Mallon

had had it all his way so far, but maybe it still wasn't too late....

Two sentries, looking miserable in shiny black ponchos, stepped out

of the guard hut as I pulled up. One peered in at me, then came to a

sloppy position of attention and presented arms. I reached for the gas

pedal and the second sentry called something. The first man looked

startled, then swung the gun down to cover me. I eased a hand toward

my pistol, brought it up fast and fired through the glass. Then the

Bentley was roaring off into the dark along the potholed road that led

into town. I thought I heard a shot behind me, but I wasn't sure.

I took the river road south of town, pounding at reckless speed

over the ruined blacktop, gaining on the lights of Mallon's horde

paralleling me a mile to the north. A quarter mile from the perimeter

fence, the Bentley broke a spring and skidded into a ditch.

I sat for a moment taking deep breaths to drive back the compulsive

drowsiness that was sliding down over my eyes like a visor. My arm

throbbed like a cauterized stump. I needed a few minutes rest....

A sound brought me awake like an old maid smelling cigar smoke in the

bedroom: the rise and fall of heavy engines in convoy. Mallon was

coming up at flank speed.

I got out of the car and headed off along the road at a trot, holding

my broken arm with my good one to ease the jarring pain. My chances had

been as slim as a gambler's wallet all along, but if Mallon beat me to

the objective, they dropped to nothing.

* * * * *

The eastern sky had taken on a faint gray tinge, against which I could

make out the silhouetted gate posts and the dead floodlights a hundred

yards ahead.

The roar of engines was getting louder. There were other sounds, too:

a few shouts, the chatter of a 9 mm, the _boom!_ of something heavier,

and once a long-drawn _whoosh!_ of falling masonry. With his new toy,

Mallon was dozing his way through the men and buildings that got in his

way.

I reached the gate, picked my way over fallen wire mesh, then headed

for the Primary Site.

I couldn't run now. The broken slabs tilted crazily, in no pattern.

I slipped, stumbled, but kept my feet. Behind me, headlights threw

shadows across the slabs. It wouldn't be long now before someone in

Mallon's task force spotted me and opened up with the guns--

The whoop! _whoop!_ WHOOP! of the guardian Bolo cut across the field.

Across the broken concrete I saw the two red eyes flash, sweeping my

way. I looked toward the gate. A massed rank of vehicles stood in a

battalion front just beyond the old perimeter fence, engines idling,

ranged for a hundred yards on either side of a wide gap at the gate.

I looked for the high silhouette of Mallon's Bolo, and saw it far off

down the avenue, picked out in red, white and green navigation lights,

a jeweled dreadnaught. A glaring cyclopean eye at the top darted a

blue-white cone of light ahead, swept over the waiting escort, outlined

me like a set-shifter caught onstage by the rising curtain.

The whoop! whoop! sounded again; the automated sentry Bolo was bearing

down on me along the dancing lane of light.

I grabbed at the plastic disk in my pocket as though holding it in my

hand would somehow heighten its potency. I didn't know if the Lesser

Troll was programmed to exempt me from destruction or not; and there

was only one way to find out.

It wasn't too late to turn around and run for it. Mallon might

shoot--or he might not. I could convince him that he needed me, that

together we could grab twice as much loot. And then, when he died--

I wasn't really considering it; it was the kind of thought that flashes

through a man's mind like heat lightning when time slows in the instant

of crisis. It was hard to be brave with broken bone ends grating,

but what I had to do didn't take courage. I was a small, soft, human

grub, stepped on but still moving, caught on the harsh plain of broken

concrete between the clash of chrome-steel titans. But I knew which

direction to take.

The Lesser Troll rushed toward me in a roll of thunder and I went to

meet it.

* * * * *

It stopped twenty yards from me, loomed massive as a cliff. Its heavy

guns were dead. I knew. Without them it was no more dangerous than a

farmer with a shotgun--

But against me a shotgun was enough.

The slab under me trembled as if in anticipation. I squinted against

the dull red IR beams that pivoted to hold me, waiting while the

Troll considered. Then the guns elevated, pointed over my head like a

benediction. The Bolo knew me.

The guns traversed fractionally. I looked back toward the enemy line,

saw the Great Troll coming up now, closing the gap, towering over its

waiting escort like a planet among moons. And the guns of the Lesser

Troll tracked it as it came--the empty guns, that for twenty years had

held Mallon's scavengers at bay.

The noise of engines was deafening now. The waiting line moved

restlessly, pulverizing old concrete under churning treads. I didn't

realize I was being fired on until I saw chips fly to my left, and

heard the howl of richochets.

It was time to move. I scrambled for the Bolo, snorted at the stink of

hot oil and ozone, found the rusted handholds, and pulled myself up--

Bullets spanged off metal above me. Someone was trying for me with a

power rifle.

The broken arm hung at my side like a fence-post nailed to my shoulder,

but I wasn't aware of the pain now. The hatch stood open half an inch.

I grabbed the lever, strained; it swung wide. No lights came up to meet

me. With the port cracked, they'd burned out long ago. I dropped down

inside, wriggled through the narrow crawl space into the cockpit. It

was smaller than the Mark III--and it was occupied.

In the faint green light from the panel, the dead man crouched over the

controls, one desiccated hand in a shriveled black glove clutching the

control bar. He wore a GI weather suit and a white crash helmet, and

one foot was twisted nearly backward, caught behind a jack lever.

The leg had been broken before he died. He must have jammed the foot

and twisted it so that the pain would hold off the sleep that had come

at last. I leaned forward to see the face. The blackened and mummified

features showed only the familiar anonymity of death, but the bushy

reddish mustache was enough.

"Hello, Mac," I said. "Sorry to keep you waiting; I got held up."

I wedged myself into the co-pilot's seat, flipped the IR screen

switch. The eight-inch panel glowed, showed me the enemy Bolo

trampling through the fence three hundred yards away, then moving onto

the ramp, dragging a length of rusty chain-link like a bridal train

behind it.

I put my hand on the control bar. "I'll take it now, Mac." I moved the

bar, and the dead man's hand moved with it.

"Okay, Mac," I said. "We'll do it together."

* * * * *

I hit the switches, canceling the pre-set response pattern. It had done

its job for eighty years, but now it was time to crank in a little

human strategy.

My Bolo rocked slightly under a hit and I heard the tread shields drop

down. The chair bucked under me as Mallon moved in, pouring in the fire.

Beside me, Mac nodded patiently. It was old stuff to him. I watched the

tracers on the screen. Hosing me down with contact exploders probably

gave Mallon a lot of satisfaction, but it couldn't hurt me. It would be

a different story when he tired of the game and tried the heavy stuff.

I threw in the drive, backed rapidly. Mallon's tracers followed for a

few yards, then cut off abruptly. I pivoted, flipped on my polyarcs,

raced for the position I had selected across the field, then swung

to face Mallon as he moved toward me. It had been a long time since

he had handled the controls of a Bolo; he was rusty, relying on his

automatics. I had no heavy rifles, but my pop-guns were okay. I homed

my 4 mm solid-slug cannon on Mallon's polyarc, pressed the FIRE button.

There was a scream from the high-velocity-feed magazine. The blue-white

light flared and went out. The Bolo's defenses could handle anything

short of an H-bomb, pick a missile out of the stratosphere fifty miles

away, devastate a county with one round from its mortars--but my BB gun

at point-blank range had poked out its eye.

I switched everything off and sat silent, waiting. Mallon had come to

a dead stop. I could picture him staring at the dark screens, slapping

levers and cursing. He would be confused, wondering what had happened.

With his lights gone, he'd be on radar now--not very sensitive at this

range, not too conscious of detail....

I watched my panel. An amber warning light winked. Mallon's radar was

locked on me.

He moved forward again, then stopped; he was having trouble making up

his mind. I flipped a key to drop a padded shock frame in place, and

braced myself. Mallon would be getting mad now.

Crimson danger lights flared on the board and I rocked under the recoil

as my interceptors flashed out to meet Mallon's C-S C's and detonate

them in incandescent rendezvous over the scarred concrete between us.

My screens went white, then dropped back to secondary brilliance,

flashing stark black-and-white. My ears hummed like trapped hornets.

The sudden silence was like a vault door closing.

I sagged back, feeling like Quasimodo after a wild ride on the bells.

The screens blinked bright again, and I watched Mallon, sitting

motionless now in his near blindness. On his radar screen I would show

as a blurred hill; he would be wondering why I hadn't returned his

fire, why I hadn't turned and run, why ... why....

He lurched and started toward me. I waited, then eased back, slowly.

He accelerated, closing in to come to grips at a range where even the

split micro-second response of my defenses would be too slow to hold

off his fire. And I backed, letting him gain, but not too fast....

Mallon couldn't wait.

He opened up, throwing a mixed bombardment from his 9 mm's, his

infinite repeaters, and his C-S C's. I held on, fighting the battering

frame, watching the screens. The gap closed; a hundred yards, ninety,

eighty.

The open silo yawned in Mallon's path now, but he didn't see it. The

mighty Bolo came on, guns bellowing in the night, closing for the

kill. On the brink of the fifty-foot-wide, hundred-yard-deep pit, it

hesitated as though sensing danger. Then it moved forward.

I saw it rock, dropping its titanic prow, showing its broad back,

gouging the blasted pavement as its guns bore on the ground. Great

sheets of sparks flew as the treads reversed, too late. The Bolo hung

for a moment longer, then slid down majestically as a sinking liner,

its guns still firing into the pit like a challenge to Hell. And then

it was gone. A dust cloud boiled for a moment, then whipped away as

displaced air tornadoed from the open mouth of the silo.

And the earth trembled under the impact far below.

X

The doors of the Primary Site blockhouse were nine-foot-high,

eight-inch-thick panels of solid chromalloy that even a Bolo would have

slowed down for, but they slid aside for my electropass like a shower

curtain at the YW. I went into a shadowy room where eighty years of

silence hung like black crepe on a coffin. The tiled floor was still

immaculate, the air fresh. Here at the heart of the Aerospace Center,

all systems were still go.

In the Central Control bunker, nine rows of green lights glowed on

the high panel over red letters that spelled out STAND BY TO FIRE. A

foot to the left, the big white lever stood in the unlocked position,

six inches from the outstretched fingertips of the mummified corpse

strapped into the controller's chair. To the right, a red glow on the

monitor panel indicated the locked doors open.

I rode the lift down to K level, stepped out onto the steel-railed

platform that hugged the sweep of the starship's hull and stepped

through into the narrow COC.

On my right, three empty stasis tanks stood open, festooned cabling

draped in disorder. To the left were the four sealed covers under

which Day, Macy, Cruciani and Black waited. I went close, read dials.

Slender needles trembled minutely to the beating of sluggish hearts.

They were alive.

I left the ship, sealed the inner and outer ports. Back in the control

bunker, the monitor panel showed ALL CLEAR FOR LAUNCH now. I studied

the timer, set it, turned back to the master panel. The white lever was

smooth and cool under my hand. It seated with a click. The red hand of

the launch clock moved off jerkily, the ticking harsh in the silence.

Outside, the Bolo waited. I climbed to a perch in the open conning

tower twenty feet above the broken pavement, moved off toward the west

where sunrise colors picked out the high towers of the palace.

* * * * *

I rested the weight of my splinted and wrapped arm on the balcony rail,

looking out across the valley and the town to the misty plain under

which _Prometheus_ waited.

"There's something happening now," Renada said. I took the binoculars,

watched as the silo doors rolled back.

"There's smoke," Renada said.

"Don't worry, just cooling gases being vented off." I looked at my

watch. "Another minute or two and man makes the biggest jump since the

first lungfish crawled out on a mud-flat."

"What will they find out there?"

I shook my head. "_Homo Terra Firma_ can't even conceive of what _Homo

Astra_ has ahead of him."

"Twenty years they'll be gone. It's a long time to wait."

"We'll be busy trying to put together a world for them to come back to.

I don't think we'll be bored."

"Look!" Renada gripped my good arm. A long silvery shape, huge even

at the distance of miles, rose slowly out of the earth, poised on a

brilliant ball of white fire. Then the sound came, a thunder that

penetrated my bones, shook the railing under my hand. The fireball

lengthened into a silver-white column with the ship balanced at its

tip. Then the column broke free, rose up, up....

I felt Renada's hand touch mine. I gripped it hard. Together we watched

as _Prometheus_ took man's gift of fire back to the heavens.