The steel robot had no expression, but its voice was almost surprised.
"Punish you?" it repeated on a rising note. "How?"
Swanson quivered as though the word had been a whip; but Burckhardt
flared: "Adjust _him_, if he'll let you--but not me! You're going to
have to do me a lot of damage, Dorchin. I don't care what I cost or
how much trouble it's going to be to put me back together again. But
I'm going out of that door! If you want to stop me, you'll have to
kill me. You won't stop me any other way!"
The steel robot took a half-step toward him, and Burckhardt
involuntarily checked his stride. He stood poised and shaking, ready
for death, ready for attack, ready for anything that might happen.
Ready for anything except what did happen. For Dorchin's steel body
merely stepped aside, between Burckhardt and the gun, but leaving the
door free.
"Go ahead," invited the steel robot. "Nobody's stopping you."
* * * * *
Outside the door, Burckhardt brought up sharp. It was insane of
Dorchin to let him go! Robot or flesh, victim or beneficiary, there
was nothing to stop him from going to the FBI or whatever law he could
find away from Dorchin's synthetic empire, and telling his story.
Surely the corporations who paid Dorchin for test results had no
notion of the ghoul's technique he used; Dorchin would have to keep
it from them, for the breath of publicity would put a stop to it.
Walking out meant death, perhaps--but at that moment in his
pseudo-life, death was no terror for Burckhardt.
There was no one in the corridor. He found a window and stared out of
it. There was Tylerton--an ersatz city, but looking so real and
familiar that Burckhardt almost imagined the whole episode a dream. It
was no dream, though. He was certain of that in his heart and equally
certain that nothing in Tylerton could help him now.
It had to be the other direction.
It took him a quarter of an hour to find a way, but he found
it--skulking through the corridors, dodging the suspicion of
footsteps, knowing for certain that his hiding was in vain, for
Dorchin was undoubtedly aware of every move he made. But no one
stopped him, and he found another door.
It was a simple enough door from the inside. But when he opened it and
stepped out, it was like nothing he had ever seen.
First there was light--brilliant, incredible, blinding light.
Burckhardt blinked upward, unbelieving and afraid.
He was standing on a ledge of smooth, finished metal. Not a dozen
yards from his feet, the ledge dropped sharply away; he hardly dared
approach the brink, but even from where he stood he could see no
bottom to the chasm before him. And the gulf extended out of sight
into the glare on either side of him.
* * * * *
No wonder Dorchin could so easily give him his freedom! From the
factory, there was nowhere to go--but how incredible this fantastic
gulf, how impossible the hundred white and blinding suns that hung
above!
A voice by his side said inquiringly, "Burckhardt?" And thunder rolled
the name, mutteringly soft, back and forth in the abyss before him.
Burckhardt wet his lips. "Y-yes?" he croaked.
"This is Dorchin. Not a robot this time, but Dorchin in the flesh,
talking to you on a hand mike. Now you have seen, Burckhardt. Now will
you be reasonable and let the maintenance crews take over?"
Burckhardt stood paralyzed. One of the moving mountains in the
blinding glare came toward him.
It towered hundreds of feet over his head; he stared up at its top,
squinting helplessly into the light.