In a moment, the room was cleared. Rikud stood alone. He cleared his
throat and listened to the sound, all by itself in the stillness. What
would have happened if they hadn't retired? But they always did things
punctually like that, whenever the buzzer sounded. They ate with the
buzzer, bathed in the health-rays with it, slept with it.
What would they do if the buzzer stopped buzzing?
This frightened Rikud, although he didn't know why. He'd like it,
though. Maybe then he could take them outside with him to the big
garden of the two viewports. And then he wouldn't be afraid because he
could huddle close to them and he wouldn't be alone.
* * * * *
Rikud heard the throbbing again as he stood in the room of the
machinery. For a long time he watched the wheels and cogs and gears
spinning and humming. He watched for he knew not how long. And then he
began to wonder. If he destroyed the wheels and the cogs and the gears,
would the buzzer stop? It probably would, because, as Rikud saw it, he
was clearly an "unauthorized person." He had heard the voice again
upon entering the room.
He found a metal rod, bright and shiny, three feet long and half as
wide as his arm. He tugged at it and it came loose from the wires that
held it in place. He hefted it carefully for a moment, and then he
swung the bar into the mass of metal. Each time he heard a grinding,
crashing sound. He looked as the gears and cogs and wheels crumbled
under his blows, shattered by the strength of his arm.
Almost casually he strode about the room, but his blows were not
casual. Soon his easy strides had given way to frenzied running. Rikud
smashed everything in sight.
When the lights winked out, he stopped. Anyway, by that time the room
was a shambles of twisted, broken metal. He laughed, softly at first,
but presently he was roaring, and the sound doubled and redoubled in
his ears because now the throbbing had stopped.
He opened the door and ran through the little corridor to the smaller
viewport. Outside he could see the stars, and, dimly, the terrain
beneath them. But everything was so dark that only the stars shone
clearly. All else was bathed in a shadow of unreality.
Rikud never wanted to do anything more than he wanted to open that
door. But his hands trembled too much when he touched it, and once,
when he pressed his face close against the viewport, there in the
darkness, something bright flashed briefly through the sky and was gone.
Whimpering, he fled.
* * * * *
All around Rikud were darkness and hunger and thirst. The buzzer did
not sound because Rikud had silenced it forever. And no one went to
eat or drink. Rikud himself had fumbled through the blackness and the
whimpering to the dining room, his tongue dry and swollen, but the
smooth belt that flowed with water and with savory dishes did not run
any more. The machinery, Rikud realized, also was responsible for food.