War with the Robots

WAR WITH THE ROBOTS

ONLY THE SLIGHTEST VIBRATION could be felt through the floor of the hurtling monorail car. There was no sensation of motion since the rushing tunnel walls could not be seen though the windowless sides. The riders, all of them in neatly pressed uniforms with buttons and decorations shining, swayed slightly in their seats on the turns, wrapped in their own thoughts and mumbled conversations. Above them, thousands of feet of solid rock sealed them off from the war. At an effortless one-hundred and fifty miles an hour the car rushed General Pere and his staff to their battle stations.

When the alarm screamed the driver clamped the brakes full on and reversed his motors. There was not enough time. At full speed the metal bullet tore into the barrier of rocks and dirt that blocked the tunnel. Steel plates crushed and crumpled as the car slammed to a halt. All the lights went out; and in the empty silence that followed the ear-shattering clamor of the crash only a faint moaning could be heard.

General Pere pushed himself up from the chair, shaking his head in an effort to clear it, and snapped on his flash. The beam nervously danced the length of the car, gleaming on settling dust motes and lighting up the frightened white faces of his staff.

"Casualty report, verbal," he told his adjutant, his voice pitched low so that no quaver might be heard. It is not easy to be a general when you are only nineteen years old. Pere forced himself to stand still while the metal back of the adjutant robot moved swiftly up the aisle.

The seats were well anchored and faced to the rear, so it was hopeful that there would not be too many casualties. Behind the backs of the last chairs was a rubble of dirt that had burst in through the destroyed nose. The driver was undoubtedly dead under it, which was all for the best. It saved the trouble of a court-martial.

"One killed, one missing in action, one wounded, total active strength of unit now seventeen." The adjutant dropped the salute and stood at attention, waiting further orders. General Pere nervously chewed his lip.

Missing-in-action meant the driver. Presumed dead, damn well dead. The "one killed" was the new captain from Interceptor Control, who had had the bad luck to be leaning out of his chair at the time of the accident. His neck had been cracked on the edge of the chair and his head now hung down at a sickening angle. The moaning must be the wounded man, he had better check on that first. He stamped down the aisle and shined his light on the sallow, sweatbeaded face of Colonel Zen.

"My arm, sir," the Colonel gasped. "I was reaching out when we crashed, my arm whipped back and hit the metal edge. Broken I think. The pain…"

"That’s enough, Colonel," Pere said. A little too loudly, because the man’s fear was beginning to touch him too. There were footsteps in the aisle and his second-in-command, General Natia, joined him.

"You’ve had the standard first aid course, General," Pere said. ‘Bandage this man and then report to me."

"Yes, sir," General Natia said, her voice echoing that same note of fear.

Damn all, Pere thought, she should know that’s no way for a general to act. We can’t let the troops know we’re afraid — even if we are. He made no allowance for the fact that General Natia was a woman, and just eighteen.

Once his staff had been attended to he turned his mind to the problems at hand. Some of the tension eased as he sorted out all the factors. Problem solving was his speciality, and he had been selected for it before birth. Gene analysis had chosen the best DNA chain from his parents’ sperm-and-ovum bank. This, and subsequent training, had fitted him perfectly for command. With the instantaneous reflexes of youth, he was a formidable opponent on the battlefield and looked forward to a successful career of at least four or five years before retirement.

For a man who would soon be directing a global conflict this problem was childishly simple.

"Communications?" he snapped, and pointed his finger at the Signal Corps Major. There was an automatic authority in his voice now, in marked contrast to his boyish crewcut and freckles.

"None, sir," the officer said, saluting. "Whatever blocked the tunnel knocked out the land lines as well. I’ve tried with the field phone but the wires are dead."

"Does anyone know how far we are from HQ?" he asked, raising his voice so that all the officers in the car could hear him.

"I’ll have it… in a second, sir," one of them said, a grey haired colonel from Computor Corps. He was moving the scale on his pocket slide rule, blinking intently in the light of his flash. "Don’t know how long this tunnel is — or the exact location of HQ. But I have made the run before, and the total elapsed time is usually a few minutes over three hours. Figuring the time to the accident, our speed, allowing for deceleration His voice trailed off into a mumble and Pere waited impatiently, but unmoving. He needed this information before he could make his next move.

"Between forty and sixty miles to HQ, sir. And those are the outside figures, I’d say it’s very close to fifty…"

"That’s good enough. I want two volunteers, you and you. Get up in the nose there and see if you can’t dig a hole through that rubble. We’re going to try to get through and continue on foot. We’ll be needed at HQ if the Enemy is able to hit this close."

This last was added for the sake of his staff’s moral; the training courses had recommended the human touch whenever possible. Particularly in unusual situations. And this was an unusual, though not very promising way for his first command to begin. He scowled unhappily into the darkness. It took an effort to keep his feelings from his voice as he issued orders to assemble the food stores and water. When this was done he sent his adjutant to relive the two men who were digging into the dirt barricade. One robot was worth ten men — not to say two — at this kind of labor.

It took almost twelve hours to penetrate the barrier, and they were all completely exhausted before it was through. The adjutant did all the digging, and they rotated shifts in carrying away the rubble that he cleared. There had been some minor falls of dirt and rock that in their haste they ignored, until a major fall at the work face had completely buried the robot. They dug until they reached its feet and Pere had lengths of the now useless tunnel signal wire tied around the robot’s ankles. It wasn’t until they had added loops of wire so that they could all pull together that the adjutant had been dragged from his near grave. After that work slowed, since they had to unbolt the chairs from the car and use them to shore up the roof. All things considered, twelve hours was good time for penetration of the barrier.

Once they were through General Pere allowed them a half-hour break. They sipped at their water bottles and collapsed wearily on both sides of the central track. Pride and position would not allow Pere to rest; he paced ahead to see if the tunnel was clear, his adjutant beside him.

"How many hours left in your battery?" Pere asked. "At maximum output."

"Over three hundred."

"Then start running. If you come to any other falls begin clearing them away and we’ll catch up with you. If you get through without any trouble have them send a car for us. It will save some time."

The robot saluted and was gone, his running steps thudding away in the distance. Pere looked at the glowing dial of his watch and announced the end of the break.

Walking, with the single light twinkling ahead, soon took on a dream-like quality that numbed their responses. They went on this way, with short breaks every hour, for almost eight hours. When they began to drop out, asleep on their feet, Pere reluctantly ordered a stop. He forced them to eat first, then allowed them only four hours’ sleep before he forcefully shook them to their feet. The march continued — at a far slower pace now — and another five hours of constant darkness passed before they saw the light of the car ahead.

"Point your lights at it — everyone," Pere said. "We don’t want to be run down."

The driver, a robot, had been driving at half speed, watching for them. They climbed wearily aboard and most of them fell asleep during the short run back to HQ. The adjutant made a report to Pere.

"The break has been reported, and there have been two more blockages discovered in the other tunnel."

"What caused them?"

"Intelligence is not sure, but is expecting to report soon."

Pere swallowed his opinion of Intelligence’s intelligence, since even robots should not hear morale-lowering comment.

He pulled at his sticky shirt and was suddenly aware of the rising heat inside the car. "What’s wrong with the air conditioning?" he asked petulantly.

"Nothing, sir. It is the air temperature in the tunnel, it is much hotter than usual."

"Why?"

"That fact is not known yet."

The heat rose steadily as they approached HQ, and Pere issued orders that collars could be opened. The car slowed to a halt in the immense bay at the tunnel’s end. When the door was opened the hot air that boiled in was almost unbreathable.

"Double-time to the lock," Pere gasped out, choking over the words as the heat seared his throat. They stumbled and ran towards the large sealed valve at the end of the platform, robot guns tracking them from the turrets that studded the face of the metal wall. Identification was made and before they reached the lock the immense outer door rotated ponderously. Someone screamed as he fell and bare flesh touched the burning metal of the platform. Pere forced himself to wait until they were all inside, entering last. There was some relief when the outer door had closed, but no real drop in the temperature until they had passed through all five seals of the four-barreled lock. Even then the air inside the fortress was far warmer than normal.

"Perhaps this heat has something to do with the reason we were sent out a week early," General Natia said. "This and the tunnel blockage might be caused by an enemy penetration in force."

Pere had reached the same conclusion himself, though he wouldn’t admit it aloud, even to his second-in-command. In addition only he knew that a real emergency at HQ had changed their shipping orders, though Command had not been specific about the nature of the emergency. As fast as he could, without running, Pere led his staff towards HQ control.

Nothing was right. No one answered him when he formally requested permission to enter. There were maintenance robots stolidly going about their work, but no officers in view. For a single heart-stopping instant he thought that all four battle stations were vacant. Then he saw a finger come out and touch a button at Command Prime: the occupant of the chair was slumped so low that he could hardly be seen. Pere stalked quickly towards the post and began a salute, but his hand stopped before it reached his forehead and forgotten, dropped slowly back. He stared with horror.

In the chair the operator gradually became aware that someone was standing over him. It was an effort for the man to draw the attention of his deep-socketed and reddened eyes from the board. When he did it was just for an instant and Pere had only a glimpse of the pain in their depths, of eyes peeping out of their black-rimmed pits like frightened animals. Then their attention wavered back to the board and the thin arm lifted tremulously to touch a control.

"Thank God you’ve come… you’ve come at last thank…" The words, scarcely a whisper to begin with, died away to a wheeze.

The officer’s arms were pocked and scarred with needle holes: streaked with hardened rivulets of blood. The jumbled cartons and vials on the table told a wordless story of a man forcing himself to stay awake and active long past human limits: there were stimulants, sleep-surrogate, glucose, anesthetics, vitamin complexes. He had obviously been days alone in this chair, manning all four battle stations hooked into his own board. Alone — for some unknown and terrible reason alone-he had fought the war, waiting for help. With an uncontrollable feeling of revulsion Pere saw that the man had soiled himself as he sat there.

"General Natia, man that free board," he ordered.

She slipped efficiently into the chair and set up a repeater from the others. Quickly taking in the factors of the conflict she called out, "Ready, sir."

Pere threw the command switch and the red bulb winked out on the board before him, and the one in front of Natia flashed on.

It was as though the light had been the spark of life holding the man at the controls. When the red bulb snuffed out he dropped his face into his hands and collapsed sideways into the cushioning chair. Pere took him by the shoulder and shook him until the hands dropped away and the last traces of consciousness stiffened the lolling head. With painful effort the man opened his eyes.

"What happened?" Pere asked. "Where is everyone else?"

"Dead," the feeble voice whispered, near to death itself. "I was the only one didn’t die — in bed at the time. Just chance I wasn’t touching any metal. Just sheets, mattress. Robots say it was a vibration source — subsonic — supersonic — something new. Curdled everyone, killed them — coagulated the protein. Like eggs… cooked eggs… all dead."

When the man sank into unconsciousness again Pere signalled to the medical officer who was standing by. Pere looked down at the solid steel floor beneath his feet and shuddered; the vibration weapon might be used again at any time. Or could it? The robots must have taken some preventative measures. He turned to the command robot, standing with steady metallic patience by the computor bank. Shaped like a normal motile, this robot’s unique function was apparent only by the large vision screen on its chest and the thick cable, a metallic unbilical cord, that ran back from it to the computors behind. It was simply an extension of the giant computors and logic and memory units that were the heart of HQ.

"Have you found out what generated the killing vibration?" Pere asked the command robot.

"A machine that assembled and attached itself to the outer wall of HQ. It was detected as soon as it began operating and the frequencies were analyzed and neutralized in three minutes and seventeen seconds. No equipment or robots were injured since the frequencies used only caused resonance in animal protein. All of the staff, with the exception of Colonel Frey, were killed instantly. Large quantities of food in the lockers —"

"We’ll concern ourselves with the food later. Where is the machine?"

"There," the robot said, pointing towards the far wall. It led the way, its cable trailing smoothly behind it, and pulled a cover from the yard high object resting there. It resembled no machine Pere had ever seen, rather it looked like a tangled mass of tiny gleaming roots: the red earth still packed between them heightened the illusion.

"How does it work?"

The robot reached out — leaning very close to focus its microscopic eyepieces — and carefully pulled one of the strands free. It lay on the robot’s outstretched metallic palm, eight inches long, an eighth of an inch in diameter. Seen close it was not completely flexible, but made instead of pivoted and smoothly finished segments. The robot pointed out the parts of interest.

"The vibration generator is made up of a large number of these machines, all of similar construction. At the front end is a hard-edged orifice that drills a hole in the ground. Debris is carried back through the body of the machine and eliminated here: in operation it is not unlike the common earthworm. Directional apparatus here guides it, orientated by a gravimeter to locate our base. Here a power unit and here a frequency generator. Singly the machines are harmless, their radiation of no importance. But when grouped together and activated at the same time they produce the deadly frequency.

"Why weren’t they detected before going into operation?"

"Their individual mass is too small and they have no metallic components. In addition they move very slowly, it took them a long time to reach HQ and mass for the attack."

"How long?"

"By measuring the sensitivity of their gravimeters in response to the bulk of HQ and timing their speed of movement, it has been estimated that they entered the ground four years ago."

"Four years!" General Pere was aghast at the thought. The miles of dirt and rock that surrounded HQ on all sides, formally so comforting, changed suddenly to the hiding place of countless crawling, remorseless machines, closing in with mechanical patience.

"Can they be stopped from constructing another group-machine?"

"That is no problem now that it is known what we must guard against. Defensive screens and detectors have been installed."

Anxiety seeped slowly away and Pere wiped the trickling sweat from his face as he looked around at his staff. All of the battle stations were manned now and the collapsed form of Colonel Frey had been taken out. Everything was functioning perfectly — except for the damn heat.

"And what’s causing that?" Pere snapped. "Why the rise in temperature? You must have found the cause."

"The increased temperature is caused by areas of in-tense heat in the soil around this station. The cause of this localized heat increase is unknown."

Pere found himself worrying his thumb nail with his front teeth and angrily jerked it from his mouth. "Cause unknown! I should think it would be obvious. If the Enemy can build complex wave generators into something as small as this piece of plastic spaghetti, they can certainly build more of them with some kind of compact heat generator. These things could be coming in a second wave after the coagulator generators."

"This theory was considered, as well as other high probability explanations, but we have no evidence…"

"Then get evidence!" Pere was angry at the persistant logicality of all robots, no matter how theoretically brilliant they might be. This obvious explanation of the mysterious heat seemed to him to be more than a hunch or guess, it was almost a certainty. He thumbed the button labeled IMPLEMENT ORDER on the robot’s chest and issued a command. "Search will be made at once beyond the heat zone to uncover any more of these specialized boring machines."

With his defense taken care of he turned his attention to the war. Operations were proceeding so smoothly that the knot of tension in his midriff softened a bit. Lights flickered across the control boards, coded symbols for logistics and intelligence. The operators collated and questioned, feeding their results to Command Prime where General Natia sat relaxed yet completely alert. The electronic war of course moved at too great a pace for the human mind to follow. All of the missiles, anti-missile missiles, interceptors, bombers and tank squadrons were robot-controlled and — operated. Computors of varying degrees of intelligence and responsibility did the actual battle ordering. The same was true of logistics. But men had started this war and guided it towards its finish. The human operators made sense of the shifting factors in the global battle and chose the best course from among those fed to them by the strategy machines. The war had been going well Analysis of the results showed a small increment of victory during the past nine months. If this increment could be kept steady — or even increased — another generation or two might see complete victory. It was a pleasant, though slightly disconcerting, thought for Pere.

Five shifts later the first of the thermal-wrigglers was found and neutralized. Pere examined it with distaste. So small to be causing so much trouble. They were all wearing tropical kit now, and constantly uncomfortable in the overheated air. The only external difference between this wriggler and the wave generators was in the color of its plastic body; the new one was an appropriately fiery red.

"How does it generate the heat?" Pere asked the command robot.

"The machine contains a suicide circuit. The power supply is short circuited through a contractile field. The circuits burn out in microseconds, but there is enough time to compress a small quantity of hydrogen —"

"It implodes! A small hydrogen bomb?"

"In a sense, yes. There is very little radiation, most of the energy is released as heat. A molten pocket of lava is the result. The heat dissipates slowly into our base here. New implosions add constantly to the molten area outside."

"Can’t you detect and destroy these things before they detonate?"

"This is difficult because of the large number of them involved and the volume of earth that must be inspected. Special machines and detectors are being constructed. An extrapolation has been made of all the factors, and it is estimated with a ninety-nine percent certainty that the heat will not rise to the point where it interferes with the operation of the base."

This was one load of worry that Pere could cheerfully throw aside: the constant heat was a continual source of discomfort to them all. He wondered idly just how hot it would get before the temperature started back down.

"What is your estimate of this maximum temperature?" he asked.

"Five hundred degrees," the robot said with mechanical imperturbability.

Pere stared into the blank eye cells of the machine and had the sensation of being suddenly hammered down and gasping for air. "Why — that’s five times higher than the boiling temperature of water!"

"That is correct. Water boils at one hundred degrees."

Pere could only choke with unbelief. "Do you realize what you are saying? What do you think people are… How can we live?"

The robot did not answer since this problem was not the responsibility of the HQ robots. Pere chewed his lip and rephrased it.

"This temperature is unsatisfactory for the personnel — even if the machines can survive it. You must find some way to lower the temperature."

"This problem has already been considered, since a number of the more delicate components will be near their critical range at that temperature. The air conditioning units are now operating at maximum overload and no new units can be added. Therefore drilling operations have begun and are tapping nearby deposits of water, which will be substituted for air within the base. This water will enter at a lower temperature and will have a greater heat transfer capacity."

A compromise, not a perfect answer, but it might work for awhile. One room would have to be sealed off for living quarters and the watch officers could wear pressure suits. Uncomfortable but not impossible.

"What will be the maximum temperature of this water?" he asked.

"One hundred and forty degrees. There is adequate water to bring the temperature lower, but this base was not designed for easy circulation of anything other than air. All machine units are of battle standard and waterproof —"

"People aren’t!" Pere shouted, forgetting himself. "And if they were they would cook in this boiling soup of yours. How are we to survive, tell me that?"

Once more the oracle was silent. In the distance there was the sudden gush and spatter of water.

"What’s that?" he gasped.

"Flooding. The lower levels," the robot said.

Everyone in the room was watching him, Pore realized, listening to the final judgment of the robot’s words. "Anyone have any ideas?" he asked, unaware of the pleading in his voice. There were no answers.

There had to be an answer; he forced his numbed mind to check over the possibilities. Remote control of HQ from National Central? No, too dangerous, control circuits could be interrupted, cut off or even taken over. Someone had to be here, at least one person to man the Command Prime station. Unless this station could be robot-controlled too.

"A discretion circuit," he shouted with sudden relief. "Can a robot with discretion circuitry be built to operate the Command station?" he asked the robot extension of HQ.

"Yes."

"Well do it. Do it at once. We may have to evacuate, and in case we do I want the robot ready to take over."

It wouldn’t be for long, they would just be gone until the temperature dropped and human habitation became possible again. All of the decisions to be made at Command Prime were simple either-or choices, and an occasional multiple choice. A robot with the correct evaluation and discretion circuits would do well enough for awhile. It wouldn’t be perfect and the victory increment would surely drop a few points, but it wouldn’t be disaster. He would have to check with National Central before putting the plan into operation, but he was sure they wouldn’t come up with a better answer.

They didn’t. The aging commanders couldn’t even do as well and were grateful with General Pere for the suggestion. He even received a promotion and was authorized to wear another star on his shoulder. As soon as the command robot could begin satisfactory operation he was ordered to evacuate.

On the lower levels the hot oily water reached to their knees. The tension among the staff ebbed away only when the new robot was carried in. Pere watched and frowned when the machine was bolted into place in his chair. The job had been a quick one and no special care had been taken with unessentials; the body of the robot consisted simply of a square box, ugly with beaded weld marks. Two eye cells sat on a stubby column above it and a single, articulated arm projected from the front. The eyes focused on the unlit command light and the arm hung down limply. Pere had all the other boards tied into the logistics board, took one last look at the war, then decisively threw the command switch.

The red light came on in front of the robot and it instantly began operation. With lightning speed the metallic index finger pressed three buttons and threw a switch, then drooped again. Pere looked at the decisions and could find no fault. Perhaps he might have brought in the reserve tanks in the eastern bulge and tried to hold. Though it was just as tactically sound to withdraw and straighten the line and save on the estimated losses. Both choices had the same probability rating on the scale, which was why they had appeared on the board. The robot would work.

He hated it though. For some reason it seemed a colossal personal affront to him to be replaced by this arm-waving black box. Was this all that a man was to a machine? The metal fingers ran across the controls, then dropped again.

"Prepare to move out," he shouted in a harsh voice. This evacuation was wrong, very wrong. But what else could he do?

"We’ll rig a stretcher for Colonel Frey," he told the medical officer. "How is he progressing?"

"He’s dead," the doctor said with his toneless professional manner. "The heat was too much for him in his weakened condition. Too much of a strain on his heart."

"Alright," Pere said, keeping his emotions under control. "That leaves Zen as the only casualty and he can walk well enough with his arm in a cast."

When the officers had all assembled General Natia stepped up to Pere and saluted. "All present, sir. Everyone is carrying extra rations and water, in case there is trouble in the return tunnel."

"Yes, of course," Pere said, mentally berating himself for not thinking of these simple precautions. There had been so much on his mind. It was time to leave.

"Has the mono tunnel been kept open?" he asked the adjutant.

"Two additional minor blockages have occurred, but have been cleared."

"Very good. Fall in with the others. Attention… right face… forward MARCH." As his small company tramped out of the room General Pere turned back, goaded by some anachronistic impulse, and saluted the command post. None of the machines paid the slightest attention to him. The robot in his chair jabbed a quick finger at some buttons and ignored him. Feeling slightly foolish he turned quickly and followed the others out.

They were cycling through the multiple sealed doors of the fortress when they met the robot. It was waiting in the outer compartment and pushed past them as soon as the door was open. It was a worker, a mechanical of some kind, scratched and covered with mud: because it had no speech facilities Pere had to question it through the adjutant.

"Find out what has happened," he snapped.

The two robots held a voiceless communion, their radio waves in a direct brain-to-brain hookup carried thoughts far faster than could any speech.

"The exit tunnel has been blocked," the adjutant said. "The roof is down in many places and it is beginning to fill with water. The decision has been reached that it cannot be opened. New falls are occurring all the time."

"Challenge the decision. It is not possible," Pere said. There was a note of desperation in his voice.

They were through the last door now and in the exit bay. The heat was overpowering and made intelligent thought almost impossible. Through a red haze Pere saw bulky digging robots streaming out of the mouth of the exit tunnel, going towards the entrance valve behind them.

"No change is possible," the adjutant said, a metallic voice of doom. "The tunnel can not be opened now. It has been found that small machines, very like the heat units, have penetrated the earth and are collapsing the tunnel. It will be opened after they —"

"Another way! There must be another way out!" Pere’s voice was as heat-strained as his thoughts, yet the robot understood and took it for a command.

"There are emergency exits here that once led to higher levels. My information is incomplete. I do not know if they have been sealed."

"Show us — we can’t stay here."

They were all wearing gloves, so the metal bars of the ladder didn’t char their hands, just burned them. The robot adjutant went first and only his mechanical strength could have turned the time-sealed wheel that locked the entrance to the older levels. The humans groped their way behind the adjutant, some falling and failing to rise again. Colonel Zen must have been the first to be left behind because he only bad the use of one arm. The heat in the stifling darkness was so great that even the doctor didn’t notice when his patient dropped out. The doctor himself must have gone soon after, because he was no longer a young man.

General Pere tried to issue orders, and when they were not obeyed he made an attempt to help the laggards himself. He could not do this and keep up with the others. When he saw the lights winking out of sight in the dust filled passage ahead, he made the only decision possible under the circumstances. Not that he was aware of making it, he was barely conscious at the time and only the will to survive drove him forward. Passing the straggling survivors he shouldered General Natia aside and took his place behind the guiding robot.

Pain fought a battle with fatigue and kept them going until they were out of the zone of terrible heat. Pere had strength enough only to utter the one word command to stop, drink from his canteen, then fall unconscious to the floor. The others dropped in huddled lumps of pain about him. The adjutant stood with untiring machine-patience, waiting for them to rise.

Moans of agony roused Pere at last and he forced his charred fingers to fumble out the first aid packs. Burn ointment brought some relief to the five survivors and stimulants gave them the illusion of strength needed to carry on. General Natia had somehow managed to stay close behind him through the ordeal, as well as three others. They were all young and strong, though one was not strong enough. He simply vanished during the next climb.

Above HQ was a maze of tunnels and rooms, occupied by the base at various times before the unremitting pressures of the war had driven the controllers even deeper into the ground. Most of it was collapsed and choked with rubble and no progress was possible. If the robot had not been with them they would have died. Every detail of the various layers was impressed in his electronical cortex, since his brain contained the memory of every other adjutant back to the beginning of the war. They retraced their steps whenever their way was blocked and found a different direction. Bit by bit they progressed towards the surface. There was no way to measure time in the darkness; they slept when exhaustion was too great, then woke up to stumble on. Their food was gone and the water almost exhausted. They kept going only because of the robot’s firm insistence that they were now m the upper levels.

"We are just under the surface of the ground," the adjutant said. "This tunnel led to a gun position, but it is now blocked."

Pere sat and blinked at the circular tunnel and forced his fatigued brain to consider the problem. The top of the tunnel was not much higher than their heads and made of ferroconcrete. Jagged chunks of the same material choked the end.

"Clear away the opening," Pere ordered.

"I cannot," the robot said. "My battery is almost discharged, I would not be able to finish."

This was the end. They could not go on.

"Perhaps we could… blow it out of the way," Natia said apologetically. Pere turned his light on her and she shook a handful of cartridges from the clip at her waist. "These contain powerful explosive. Perhaps the adjutant could arrange them to all explode together."

"I can," the adjutant said.

Surprisingly, all four of them still had their sidearms and spare clips; they had not been discarded with the rest of the equipment. The adjutant took the spare clips and buried them in the rubble while they moved back down the tunnel. A minute later the robot came running back to join them and they pressed themselves to the floor. The ground jumped and the roar of concussion smote their ears. They forced themselves to wait long minutes for the stifling cloud of dust settled, before Pere let them go forward.

The barrier was still there, but the ceiling had fallen and high up in the gap a ray of light shone on the dust motes.

"We’re through," Pere said hoarsely. "Help me up there." Steadied by the robot he reached up into the hole and crumbled away the soft dirt at the lip until it was big enough for his shoulders. A lump came away with a tuft of grass, green and damp. He groped up through the hole, reaching for a hold.

"Let me help you," a voice said, and brown calloused hands clutched his and pulled.

It was so unexpected that Pere gasped with shock. Yet he could not let go and the hand pulled him steadily out of the hole in the ground. He fell face first onto the grass and groped for his gun, while the light burned into his eyes. Through tears of pain he saw a circle of legs surrounding him, and took his hand from the pistol butt.

The others were out of the hole now and as his eyes adjusted Pere could look around him. The sky was cloudy and it must have been raining because the grass on which he sat was damp. Before him stretched a freshly plowed field. He felt a sudden spurt of pleasure at identifying these things that he had only seen before on the screen. This was the first time in his life that he had ever been above ground.

Of course all of the recordings he had seen were historicals, from the time before the war when people still lived on the surface, instead of in the numerous sub-cities. He had always assumed that the surface was sterile and bare of life. Then who were these people? Something whistled and screamed away into the distance over his head, and he was aware for the first time of a constant rumbling that seemed to come from all sides.

"Who are you?" a voice asked, and Pere struggled up to face the man who had helped him from the hole.

"I am General Pere, this is my staff." The man had a very dark skin and was wearing a weird costume that seemed to consist completely of cast off mechanical items. His tunic was plexicloth from a machine cover: his shoes wedges of metal with webbing straps to hold them in place. He wore a metal helmet on his head as did all the others.

"A general," the man grunted and the smile vanished from his face. He turned and whistled shrilly. In the field there were some more people pulling at a strange device, one of them waved and they started in Pere’s direction.

"Boruk is coming," the tan skinned man said grufily. "Talk to him. Maybe it’ll do some good. Though I doubt it." He spat on the ground and kicked dirt into the spittle with one toe.

Overhead in the clouds there was a muffled and gigantic explosion. Pere looked up and saw the clouds briefly stained a rosy pink. A black speck appeared below the clouds and before his horrified eyes grew instantly to the shape of a giant wheel. It plunged down, apparently at him, but hit instead on the far side if the field. The huge tire recoiled and it bounced into the air directly over their heads. Only Pere and his officers looked up as it sailed over. The wheel must have been a hundred feet in diameter and he could see clearly the treads on the tire, and the metal hub with its sheared supports, a stream of liquid still leading from some severed pipe. It bounced again, shaking the ground, and vanished from sight over the hill.

"What was that?" Pere asked, but no one answered him.

The group in the field were closer now and he could see they were pulling a plow assembled of odd pieces of junk. The two handles of the plow were the only identifiable parts: the arms of a robot welded into place, the hands extended and acting as handles. One of the men who had been tugging in a harness dropped it and walked over. He was naked to the waist, but wore a pair of gray uniform pants and high boots.

"The military!" he shouted when he saw their uniforms. "Wonderful! Wonderful!" He turned and ran away. A fine rain of metallic particles hit in the grass around them. Pere had the feeling he was going mad.

The man had only gone to the side of the field to get the rest of his clothes. He struggled into a jacket and in place of his steel helmet pulled on a peaked cap of hauntingly familiar design. Only when he had buttoned it and knocked the dust from his trousers did he turn and come towards Pere.

"The Enemy!" Pere shouted and scratched for his gun. This was the uniform he had seen so many times in orientation films. He hauled the gun out but someone knocked it from his fingers. Then he could only stand paralyzed as the man stamped up to him, clicked his heels together and saluted.

"General Boruk," he said. "On a mission of peace. May I ask whom I have the pleasure of addressing?" He dropped the salute and pulled a white flag from one pocket with a collapsible rod attached to it. After snapping open the rod he held the flag up proudly. His face was as sunburned as the others, with a black moustache and pointed beard.

"I am General Pere," Pere forced himself to say. "‘Who are you? What are you doing here?"

"At your service, general," Boruk said, and stabbed the pole into the ground. He groped in another pocket and fished out a large wallet. "I bring you greetings from my proud country, and the joyous news that we wish to me for peace. All of the papers are here — including my credentials — and you have only to forward them to the proper authorities. You will notice that there is mention of a peace commission, but I am forced to admit that they are all dead or have returned. In fact, to be truthful, you will see my name entered on the rolls of the commission as Captain Boruk, but this was only in the beginning. Through determination and the fact I am young and strong as a bull, I was promoted to dizzying heights. In fact General Graniaz, who himself conferred my commission upon me, even gave me his own coat with his general’s Insignia. In that, his was a wise choice, for I ask you only to notice that I am here and the others are not. We want peace, any terms you care to name. Do you agree?"

"Sit down," Pere said, feeling the need to do so himself. "Why are you asking for peace now — allowing for the moment that your credentials are not forged? you are not losing the war?"

"To be truthful again, general, we are not even fighting the war." Boruk sprawled on the ground and chewed a stem of grass. "You will discover the reasons for our request sooner or later, so it might as well be sooner. In fact sooner the better since the situation is so far out of hand. It seems we have been forced to abandon our battle headquarters and turn it over to robot operation. Are you all right?" he asked, seeing Pere jump.

"Yes," Pere told him. "Yes, go on." This was too familiar to permit him to listen easily.

"I must say your scientists are tricky ones, I believe they managed to invest our HQ with a mutated virus that was impossible to eradicate. The base had to be evacuated, radiated and sterilized. To do this the robots had to be left in complete control of the war operations. When we tried to get back in, it was most difficult. All entrances had been sealed and we couldn’t get the robots to understand what we wanted. They were doing very well without us, very well indeed." He spat the grass out and scowled.

"But there are ways. You could have countermanded —"

"It is not that easy, general. I assure you we tried. To be brief, the more we tried the better the robot defenses against our interferences became. In the end they fought us off — having identified us with the Enemy — and we had to retire."

"We’ll get back in," Pere said, then mapped his mouth shut guiltily.

"I had assumed something of the sort," Boruk smiled. His seemingly lazy attention had missed nothing. "When a general and his staff climb out of the ground above the area of their HQ, I am afraid I leaped to a conclusion due to my own previous knowledge. Is it true? You have been forced to leave as well?"

"I’ll tell you nothing."

"You don’t have to. It is a cosmic jest indeed." Boruk laughed humorlessly and tore the surrender papers across and threw them into the dirt. Something keened through the air and exploded in an immense cloud of dust on the horizon. "You have been pushed out the way our officers were pushed out, and you shall not get back. It was due to come, since every other part of the battle in this war is done by robots. Since we have both been concentrating our weapons upon the opposite headquarters, it was fated that some of the weapons should have at least a partial success. Robots are much stronger than humans, much more able to stand lethal climates. I have had plenty of time to think about this, since I have waited here many months."

"Why — why didn’t you surrender? Why didn’t you come to us?"

"Believe me, my young companion general, that is the one wish of my country. But how is this done in this day of total war? We tried radio and all other forms of communication, but all were blocked by robot mechanisms designed for that job. Then we sent the mission in person — not carrying weapons, so of course the robots ignored us. Our casualties were due simply to the deadliness of the battlefields we had to cross on the way here. The robots were completely indifferent to us, a forewarning of the future — or of the present, I might say. Battle is going on everywhere, and only a few peaceful areas exist, such as this one, above a strongly defended base. But even when I reached here I found no surface installations and no way of reaching you below."

"This is monstrous! Monstrous!" Pere bellowed.

"It is indeed, but we must be philosophical about it. Accept it as these good people have done who live here under a canopy of death. The robots will continue their war just as efficiently without us, and probably make it last much longer since they are so evenly matched. Find yourself a woman, settle down and enjoy the life."

Pere found himself glancing inadvertently at Natia, who looked away and blushed. Even if she was a general, she had a fine figure…

"No!" he shouted. "I will not submit. This is terrible. This is no way for mankind to live. Just to sit by and watch these senseless machines destroy each other."

"It does not matter, friend general, whether we like it or not. We have been bypassed. Displaced. We have played too long at the destructive game of war and made our machines too efficient. They enjoy the game too much themselves to relinquish it, and we must find some place where we can try and live to the best of our abilities. Some place where they will not step on us while they play."

"No, I can’t accept it!" Pere shouted again and tears of frustration and anger burned in his eyes. He threw off Natia’s hand when she put it on his arm. The horizon grumbled and flared red, hot metal rattled into the ground nearby.

"I just hope you’re having a good time," he cried and shook his fist up at the unheeding sky. "I just hope you’re having a good time!"