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The flying cloud came closer, plucked strings tinkling and falsettos singing. Another swan appeared, singing lustily despite the fact they had no lungs, being just heads with wings sprouting from behind their ears. This was pretty strange and I was begi
They flew lower, circling and chorusing high—pitchedly just above our heads. I bent my knees—and sprang. Grabbing one by the leg before it could float away. It kept on singing, blue eyes staring upwards. I squeezed it, touched the wings, tried to lift the ribbons around its loins. So that was it. I twisted with both hands and tore its head off.
“Jim—you monster!” Angelina cried.
“Not really.” I pulled the head away and wires came out of its neck. It kept on singing and fluttering its butterfly wings. I released it and it floated away still singing from its dangling head.
“Null—G robots filled with recorded music. Slakey must have built them to add verisimilitude to the landscape for co
The road curved through a glen filled with flowering shrubs. As we approached something burst out of the bushes and galloped towards us.
“That’s mine!” Angelina cried out happily as she ran towards it. A stained and scratched robot with one good eye. I hurried after her, not to spoil her fun but to stand by in case of accidents.
There were none. It was all done quite deliberately. When it swung its mighty hand, tipped with razor—sharp fingers, at her she swung her power saw up even faster. The hand clanked down on the road leaving the robot with a metal stump. Two stumps an instant later.
It tried to kick her. There was another clang and it tried to hop away on its remaining leg. Then, limbless, it rolled along the ground.
“You are not nice to people,” she said, saw ready. “You are just insensate metal so you do not feel what I am doing to you. You do only as you are instructed. It is your master who is next.”
The head rolled over close to my feet. I looked down and smiled as the light in its single eye faded and died.
“One down,” I said as I kicked it aside. “Now we follow this road to its master’s lair. And please stay alert, gang. Slakey knows that we are coming and will throw everything at us that he can.”
Sudden memory flashed and I jumped. Shouting.
“Off the road!”
A little too late. The slurping sounded and the road rolled out from under our feet disclosing the chasm beneath.
“Gravchutes!” I ordered, turning mine on. Our descent into the pit stopped just before we hit the jagged stalagmites and sharp blades that projected up from the pit floor below. We zoomed up and out to safety and our advance continued. Reside the road.
“There it is,” I said, pointing to the white temple on the hill ahead. “That’s where I met a fat old Slakey playing God in this unheavenly Heaven. I wonder if he’ll be there now?”
We were about to find out, approaching the marble steps with caution. They were not moving this time, no celestial escalator for us. We strode up resolutely until we could see the throne. And Slakey sitting on it. Scowling ferociously.
“You are not welcome here,” he said, shaking his head. His fat jowls jiggled and the golden halo bounced with the movement.
“Don’t be inhospitable, Professor,” I said. “Answer a few questions and we’ll be on our way”
“This is my answer,” he snarled as he reached back and seized his halo—and hurled it at me. It exploded as it struck my Suit, knocking me down with the impact. I climbed back to my feet and saw Slakey, throne and all, vanish into the floor.
As he went down—so did the ceiling. The supporting pillars must have been pistons as well. Before we could escape out of the way the entire thing, stone ceiling, roof and lintels and all, crushed us like beetles.
Or it would have crushed us like beetles if we hadn’t been wearing our battle suits. As the weight of stone struck the nanomolecules in the fabric locked and the suits became as rigid as steel.
Steel coffins. “Can anyone move?” I shouted. My only answer was grunts and groans. Was this the end? Crushed under a power—operated temple in Heaven. Waiting for our air to run out. One hundred hours—and then asphyxiation.
“No… way!” I muttered angrily. My hands were at my sides. All the pressure was on my chest which stayed as hard as nanosteel. But there was no weight on my hand and I could wiggle my fingers. Move them, feeling along my belt in the darkness. Plucking out a percussion grenade by feel. Pushing it into the rubble of broken stone, as far out as I could reach. Taking as deep a breath as I could. Triggering it.
Flame and a great explosion of sound. Smoke and dust of course—that settled and blew away to disclose a crater in the stone. With sunlight filtering in.
A few more grenades did the job. I stumbled to my feet, staggering as another explosion rocked the ruin of the temple, and Angelina emerged from the cloud of smoke. We embraced, then blasted free the others.
“Could we please not do that again,” Sybil said, more than a little shaken by the experience.
“An act of desperation on his part,” I told her. “Trying to pick us off before we closed in on them. It didn’t work—and now we take the fight to them.”
“How?” Angelina asked, ever practical.
“This way,” I said, leading them back down the steps. “That first pit we fell into in the road was just that. A pitfall pit for killing people~ But this pit leads to the underworld where his entire operation is taking place.”
As I said that, I flipped another grenade towards the place on the—road where I and the robot had dropped through. It blew up nicely and opened a hole into the deep chasm below.
“I’ll lead since I’ve been this way before.”
We powered up our gravchutes and leaped into the jagged opening. Floated down slowly instead of dropping as I had the first time. The jagged stone walls moved past at a leisurely pace, lit by the ruddy glow from below. Then the bleak, black landscape with its sporadic gouts of flame came into view. The table—like structures were still there, barely revealed by the ruddy light. But there was a difference—the women were gone. We soon discovered why. They were all grouped together before the buildings. My troops landed and spread out, weapons ready. “Don’t shoot!” Angelina called out. “Those women, they’re the victims, the workers here.” As we warily came closer we could hear a low moaning, and the familiar coughing. It was pretty obvious why. They were tied together, ten or twenty in a bunch, bound with ropes. “Safety is here!” I called out. “We’ve come to free you.” “Oh no you’re not,” Slakey said in chorus. Behind each group of women was a Slakey with a gun. They all spoke at the same time because of course they were all the same person. “Leave or we kill them,” he/they chorused as each of them raised his gun and aimed it at the captive victims. It was stalemate. “You can’t get away with this,” I said, playing for time, wondering what I could do to save them. “Yes I can;” the massed voices said. “I will count to three. If you have not gone by then, one in every group will die. You will have killed them. Then another and another. One… two…” “Stop,” I called Out. “We’re going.” But we didn’t—the women did. The coughing and moaning wads replaced by silence and a whooshing sound as they popped out of existence. I had a moment of dreadful fear that they were gone, dead—until I saw the shocked expression on every Slakey’s face. Professor Coypu—of course! He had been watching and had snatched them out of Heaven to the safety of Prime Base. I raised my gun and shot the nearest Slakey, ran towards his inert body. Everyone else was shooting now and a blast of fire rocked me back. I stumbled, ran on, grabbed for the Slakey I had shot. Grabbed empty air as he vanished. The firing was dying down, stopped, as the Slakeys disappeared one by one. Angelina reholstered her gun and came over to me, patted my arm. “I saw that you killed one. Congratulations.” “Premature. I used my paralysis pistol since I wanted to talk to him.” “What next?” “A very good question. There is no point in going to the coal mines right now because that’s just the place that supplies the raw ingredient. The same goes for the cyclotron chamber because we know that the u