Survival technique

for a one-man planet team—run!

SAM J. LUNDWALL

"There's no time for heroes like the present," said General Superhawk, as he was relieved from his laundry duties to head the spaceship's invasion of the untouched-by-human-hands-or-feet planet, which had been dead for 200,000 years.

"This is absolutely no time for heroes," said the planet's central brain computer which had, in its long, long loneliness, peopled its planet with fabled literary creatures created from its monstrous protoplasma vats.

"I'm no hero!" screamed the small, fat man with the moustache as he was bullied onto the planet as the ship's Number One scout. But Fate and Old Ironjaw had thrust Bernhard Rordin into the role, and in his own bumbling way, he ...

But see for yourself....

Turn this book over for second complete novel

EDITOR'S NOTE

When Sam J. Lundwall first proposed the idea of his writing a novel with the central theme of this book it was with the thought of writing but the one entitled Alice's World. It was on that basis that Ace Books gave him the go-ahead signal. But as Mr. Lundwall progressed with the writing, it began to occur to him that there could be an altogether different way to approach the same premise—more satirical, more humorous, and with an alternate plot. As this idea grew he became more intrigued with the potential and, considering that the work was to be presented as part of one of the famous Ace double books, he finally approached us with the idea of doing both approaches to the theme.

The idea was as intriguing to us as to him and we gave him the okay to go ahead with both novels. So we are pleased to present this unique package—two novels, quite different, by the same author and based on the same basic premise. So if you note No Time for Heroes as having certain things in common with Alice's World, it's not a coincidence. Rather, we hope, it makes for a double treat.

— DONALD A. WOLLHEIM

NO TIME FOR HEROES

SAM J. LUNDWALL

ACE BOOKS

A Division of Charter Communications Inc. 1120 Avenue of the Americas NewYork, N. Y. 10036

Copyright ©, 1971, by Sam J. Lundwall All Rights Reserved.

Cover by Josh Kirby.

"You swine! Do you want to live forever?"

—Frederick the Great,

King of Prussia, at

the Battle of Leuthen, 1757.

ALICE'S WORLD Copyright ©, 1971, by Sam J. Lundwall

Printed in U.S.A.

The scout ship hung suspended like a frightened fly between the planet and the space fleet, cautiously approaching the nearest of the defense satellites. Even from a good distance, the pits and clefts in the scarred hull were clearly visible. It looked harmless enough, and after close to two hundred thousand years of neglect it might be; on the other hand, it might not The pilot knew about those satellites. Each one of them packed enough firepower to vaporize a small planet. The old Empire had been very thorough when it came to defending its own.

Behind its impregnable barrier of murderous satellites, the planet rolled like a rotting apple, stained with brown and blue, leering evilly at the space fleet that hung like a flock of hungry vultures just outside its reach, quivering with impatience to go down but not quite daring to. Once, it had been the glorious central planet of one or another of the immortal Empires whose ruins now littered the galaxy; now it was just another deserted junk-heap, guarded by vicious defense satellites against unwelcome visitors.

All the ancient central planets were heavily armed, the defense systems handled by disgustingly efficient cybernetic brains which still worked under the impression that the original Empire still existed somewhere, and strongly objected to being taken over by dirty outsiders. Some of these brains had developed very nasty habits during the uneventful eons, and expeditions from enterprising planetary combines, out to make some loot-

ing of the fabled riches of the old Imperial planets, ended with monotonous regularity in disasters, administered by devilish cybernetic brains which had had nothing with which to pass the eons but to cook up new fiendish ways of disposing of intruders. Thus, caution was the word of the day, any day, and the job as advance scout was highly uncoveted, fit only for madmen and starry-eyed idealists; which, when one thinks of it, is about the same thing.

The space fleet that now circled around the planet, suspiciously watching out for signs of attack and ready to tuck its tail between its collective legs and run away at a microsecond's notice, represented a planetary combine in a small and very insignificant sector of the original Empire of Man. Their resources were low, but their aspirations high; they had a ruler who considered himself the Emperor of the Universe, no less; they had a good-sized space fleet, mostly salvaged from the debris left from the Third Malthusian War; and, last but not least, a good part of the Imperial library, hidden away on one of their planets during the Second Malthusian War and, due to the complete annihilation of the rightful owners, never reclaimed. The library held a lot of stellar maps with interesting information regarding the whereabouts of the ancient central planets, which the planetary combine had proceeded to use with the disastrous result already mentioned. The combine (or the Empire, as it with becoming modesty named itself) never had much good out of those maps; nevertheless, use them they must. The Emperor already held the title of the whole universe; all that he now needed was something to back him up. Besides, the combine (Empire) needed the loot. Desperately.

The scout ship edged closer to the satellite, ready to run away at the slightest hint of danger. At a safe distance, the fleet monitored the cautious approach, showering the pilot with good advice, curses, threats, and other encouraging noises calculated to boost his sagging morale,

"What's the matter with you?" the communications officer at the flagship shouted. "You think you have the whole day? Move inl"

"Am approaching the Bzzzzz satellite," the pilot said through an increasing crackle of statics. "Looks harmless enough to me zzzzz gonna do now with zzzzz?"

"Just close in on it," the officer said. He had a high, piercing voice and a pronounced lisp. His fellow officers usually referred to him as "that big fat ass," and for good reasons, too.

"Bet your zzzzz I am," the pilot told him. "Zzzzzz when I'rn back, tell you that!"

"I can't read you. What did you say?"

"Bzzzzzz moving in you bloody zzzzz and I can see zzzzzz."

"Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz" the loudspeaker told him. "Zzzzzzz zzzzz."

This was the last that was heard from the pilot. The satellite, which had observed the scout ship for a long time, flexed its electronics, hollered a soundless aaatten-chunnnl and opened up with everything it had. Space immediately became filled with white, dazzling death; the scout ship vaporized in an instant; aboard the flagship, the energy levels jumped fifteen steps, meter needles curved lovingly around the stopping pins; there was the smell of burning and the sound of breaking hull-plates, mingling with the roars of steel-throated sergeants adding their bit to the confusion. The ship lurched, tried unsuccessfully to turn itself inside-out and then departed into sub-space, firing wildly away in all directions.

The command room was a madhouse, officers running around and getting into each other's way, cursing and shouting all the time. A well-aimed laser shot had passed right through the room and four over-fed officers, messing up everything in the process; one newly commissioned and very nervous young officer had got the impression that the ship was being taken over by somebody, and was now defending the Empire with his disrupter; the Fleet-Admiral, who for some inexplicable reason had shown up in the command room, had dropped his g'ass in the confusion and was condemning everyone in sight to court-martial. It was horrible.

The confusion gradually calmed down with the appearance of the maintenance crew who moved in with well-disciplined efficiency, slapping sealing plates over the gaping holes in the hull, dragging away the four unfortunate officers, shooting the young officer and slugging a couple of other nervous heroes. The Fleet-Admiral got a new glass and staggered back to his luxurious quarters, muttering terrible oaths under his breath.

General Superhawk, who thanks to the young officer's spirited performance with the disrupter, suddenly found himself in command, returned from his forced retirement as laundry officer, and proceeded to put the ship back into its usual shape. After a couple of frenzied hours, everything had returned to normal again. General Superhawk sadly noted that he had lost one scout ship, and sent word downward to the effect that the next pilot who got an irresistible urge to play hero was advised to follow the examüle of this unfortunate man and die in the process, because he wouldn't live for long afterward anyway. Then he awarded the vaoori7ed man a posthumous medal, speaking about the bravery and dedication t^at had compelled him to this noble and heroic deed. Privately, he thought the pilot was an ass. Old Ironiaw. who was a colonel and a thoroughly rotten person in his own right, chewed out the remaining scouts with magnificent gusto, promising to follow them to Hell and back again if they lost a ship, no matter how or why.

In his quarters, the Fleet-Admiral started on a new bottle, furnished by his old friend, General Superhawk.

In the command room, General Superhawk degraded a score of officers to various humiliating duties in order to make room for his own favorites.

In the computer room, a group of white-smocked eggheads were busy conferring about what had happened and how, and getting clear answers to neither.

In the scouts' quarters, the scouts were busy dividing the vaporized scout's belongings among themselves; violent fist fights broke out, and there was some bloodshed.

In forgotten subterranean vaults on the planet beneath the fleet, the ancient central brain grudgingly returned to consciousness, prompted by persistent calls from the victorious defense satellite. Great engines turned slowly in the darkness; in the deserted halls, forlorn lights flickered like distant stars. Maintenance robots moved sluggishly between rows of dully gleaming machinery, fixing this, replacing that. The fleet was located and identified. More lights, more maintenance robots. Intruders again: that meant work. The central brain shuddered. It had been idle for a long time, and was in fact getting a little bit indolent. The prospect of work did not appeal much to it. It remembered the busy days of yore, before Man left, when it had run the whole planet, from the launching of the space ships to the locking and unlocking of the public lavatories, and the memory made it shudder once more. Nevertheless, work it must. It cleared its electronic throat, and spoke to the flagship with the voice of an old and pettish schoolteacher.

"This is the central brain," it said. "Is there anything I can do for you, sirs?"

t

II

General Superhawk swaggered down a corridor in the flagship, surrounded by his usual court of faithful yes-men. Steel-shod boots rang lustily on the floor. The eye was dazzled by pound after pound of imposing gold braids, medals and epaulets, the ear was assaulted by excited voices.

"Impossible!" they said.

"Unbelievable!"

"And after all this time!"

"One should think there was nothing left at all!*' "Well, you heard what it said."

"And actually asking us to come down and take over! Can you imagine that? Begging us to come down!"

"No, I can't. I think the bastard has something up its sleeve."

"And everything just waiting—" "Good Lord!"

"Yes, I'm here," the central brain told them from a ventilation grille. "Anything I can help you with? Anything at all?"

"What are you doing there?" General Superhawk shouted, fixing the grille with a stern eye. "I have my ways," the grille said mysteriously. "Now—" "Shut up!" General Superhawk said. He glared at the grille and scowled. "That thing is getting on my nerves," he muttered. "One day I'll teach it a lesson for good

. . . what does it think it is? God Almighty?" He snorted insultingly.

The grille didn't answer, obviously offended, and the group went around a comer and into a conference room, their gleaming boots marching in perfect unison. A rather fat, small man with a brooding black moustache, who had been hanging around, ogling the girls from the secretary pool, was swept along with them, his cries of protest turning into a horrified moan as he saw the gold braids that engulfed him.

The door slammed shut behind them, silence followed, then a brief commotion, and the small, fat man came tumbling out, followed by a hail of blazing monosyllables. He bumped into the unyielding steel wall opposite the door, wiped the perspiration from his forehead and resumed his ogling, muttering vilely. Snatches of a heated discussion could be heard through the door. .. absolutely impossible—what would HQ say?" .. whole world just waiting . . ." . . that old central brain, fit only for the junk-heap anyway . .."

".. . lying, the bastard!" .. somebody go down and check ..

"...mean me?"

"... a good thing, too. Make you lose some fat" .. suicide . . ." .. madhouse ..." ". . . saw somebody, a lout with a moustache, he's a scout anyway, just the thing for him . .."

". . . could be something there for us too . . . the Emperor won't know the difference . .." . . promotion, men! Promotion!" .. then get the bastard before he makes off!" The door was flung open, displaying a blinding array of gold braids, epaulets, medals and jeweled uniform buttons. General Superhawk stepped forward, grinning insincerely.

. . for the good of the Empire," he was saying, "a

brave man, a dedicated soldier, risking his life on a heroic mission into the unknown dangers of the old Em-pire!

The group advanced upon the small man who was scuttling back and forth looking for a way out but finding nothing but more jeweled and gold-braided uniforms studded with insignia of rank as far as the eye could reach. The officers clustered around him, eyeing him with obvious delight.

"Say, that's a real trooper, General. See the glint in his eyes?"

"Practically trembling with impatience!" "Spit ol* Death in the eye, that's the spirit!'* "Bet you're proud, soldier!"

They crowded tighter around him, careful not to give him a chance to slip away. General Superhawk towered above him like the Angel of Death, smiling horribly. "What's your name, soldier?" he asked. "Speak up!"

"Bemhard Rordin," the moustached man muttered uneasily.

"Sir/" roared General Superhawk, momentarily forgetting his jovial manners. "Bemhard Rordin, sir!"

"That's better. Now, Soldier Rordin ... a glorious deed is awaiting you—to descend to this wonderful, ancient planet, the central planet of a mighty Empire hundreds of thousands of years ago, for the good of our glorious Empire . . . and for your own, soldier. Do you volunteer?"

He bent down until his nose touched Bernhard's quivering nose.

"Well?" he growled. "Do you?"

"I don't know," Bemhard muttered. "I get time to think it over?"

"No," the general told him. "I have any choice?" "No!" Vehemently.

Bernhard looked up at the forbidding gold-braided forms that towered up over him: the stern eyes, the square chins, the snarling mouths. He had never seen so much brass in one place before. The effect was overwhelming. So were the unspoken threats.

"The punishment for failing to address a commanding officer in the correct manner," someone began, "is—"

"I volunteer," Bernhard said.

Ill

"You must be mad to volunteer for this," the central brain said from the ventilation grille when the brass had departed. "Don't you know what you're up against?"

"I know," grumbled Bernhard. "Twelve lousy officers, that's what I'm up against. You think I'm mad or something?" He shot the grille a contemptuous glance. "What are you doing there, anyway? Aren't you down there on that bloody planet somewhere?"

"I have my ways," the grille told him mysteriously. "Now, what do you want me to do for you?"

"I don't want you to do anything, you rotten machine."

"You said 'Good Lord,' " the grille reminded him. "And here I am, always willing to listen to a lonely and frightened soldier. Anything I can do for you?"

"You have megalomania," Bernhard said.

"After all, I am the central brain of a whole planet," the grille pointed out. "That should amount to something, shouldn't it?"

"Sure," Bernhard said.

"The legendary Empire of Rheannonn, at that. Doesn't it make the blood run just a little bit faster, to think that I'm running the whole planet alone? One should think it was worth a little consideration from a mere human, especially from a common soldier like you."

"I'm being considerate," Bernhard said. "Now beat it."

A period of silence ensued, during which Bernhard contemplated his lot and the chances of getting out of it. There were none that he could think of. He sighed unhappily.

"Did you know that I was considered the finest and most glorious feat of mankind?" the grille asked. "No."

"Well, I was. And I'm more than two hundred thousand years old. Still functioning perfectly. That's quite good, don't you think?"

"Marvelous," Bernhard said.

"I think I can make your stay interesting," the grille said thoughtfully. "I still have the psycho projectors, you know, and the protoplasma vats ... all kinds of things. You'll like it."

"No doubt," Bernhard said incredulously.

"Actually, this was meant for defense, you know, the last stand if any intruders should ever land on the planet. You wouldn't believe all the things I can create. Name any monster, no matter how unthinkable—I can make it."

"Good Lord," Bernhard said.

"Staggers the imagination, doesn't it?"

"It sure does."

"But of course I am your friend, soldier. I just want to make it interesting for you. . . . Would you like to fight bare-handed with a beast with fifty hairy arms, poisonous fangs and is immortal?"

"I would not," Bernhard said.

"Well, it was just an idea, you know." The grille paused for a moment. "Perhaps it's just as well you don't want it," it resumed. "You see, after I have created them, I have no control over them. You should see some of the creatures I have made during the years.

Terribly vicious, they are. I bet you wouldn't survive for five minutes after you landed." "Good Lord!"

"Yes, I'm here, what do you want?" "I didn't speak to you." "I'm sorry, I thought you did." "Forget it."

"After all, I'm the closest thing to a god that this planet had for two hundred thousand years. I'm sorry if I have offended your feelings."

"It's all right. I've never been much of a religious man anyhow."

"There are gods down here," the grille said.

"Wouldn't surprise me."

"It gets lonesome after a time, you know, and the usual creatures were so horribly dumb, I had to create some conformable company. Interesting people, most of them; a little bit touchy, though."

"I'll try to keep out of their way."

"They're omnipotent, too. Most of them, anyway. And they have all kinds of funny ideas." It paused, waiting for a reply that didn't come. "Did you know," it resumed a little bit edgily, "that some of them think the world is flat?"

"No, I didn't," Bemhard said. "Is it?"

"Sometimes they make it flat. A terrible nuisance, it is. Everything becomes wrong. You wouldn't like to be there if the world suddenly became flat, would you?"

"Flat or round, what do I care?" Bemhard said. "Now shut up!"

"I'm sorry. I just wanted to help you."

"It's all right, but I'm not interested."

There was a long silence. Then the grille asked, "Are you going to stay here for long?"

"Well how could I know? Ask General Superhawk or somebody."

"It isn't that I'm afraid of working, you know," the grille said, "but it is a lot of work, keeping things going for a fleet like this, and not even getting a civil thanks for it. So I would like to know if you are going to stay here for long, because after all I have been taking care of the whole planet for two hundred thousand years without any rest at all and perhaps you could tell somebody that I—"

Bemhard made a vile grimace. "You tell them if you want to," he said. "I don't care if you blow every goddamn fuse." He walked away.

"I thought you were interested in my world," the grille called after him. "After all, you are going to stay there for the rest of your life!"

"Shut up!" Bemhard said.

He went down to the canteen, brooding over his unhappy lot. As he raised the cup to his gloomy lips, the intercom spoke to him in a hauntingly familiar voice.

"It wasn't very civil of you, walking away like that," it said in a voice brimming with self-pity. "Don't you like me?"

"I just want some peace and quiet, that's all," Bemhard said. "Well, you could have told me." "Yeah, I suppose I could."

There was a moment of thoughtful silence. Then the intercom said, "Perhaps you would like me to tell you about my world? There is quite a lot to tell, you know."

"Don't bother," Bemhard said.

"You are going down, aren't you?" Sure.

"Well, I suppose you know what you are doing. I'm sorry if I have bothered you." It sighed.

"Okay," Bemhard said. "Okay, okay."

"It gets lonesome after a while, you know. Two hundred thousand years without any human company, one should have thought I was entitled to some attentive-ness at least after all that I had done."

"Okay, sure."

"A kind word, that's all I'm asking for." "Thank you, then! Thanks, thanks thanks!" "You don't sound like you mean it," the intercom said offendedly.

"But I do!" Bemhard shouted.

"You don't have to shout at me, you know. I hear perfectly well."

"I'm sorry." Bemhard relaxed in his chair.

"It's just that I had been expecting something different, you know, when I had been working for so long, keeping the whole planet ready for you and not even receiving a civil thanks for it. I thought that perhaps you would be just a little bit grateful for my devotion. Nothing special, of course, just a kind word or so, or a citation or something. . . ."

Bemhard pushed the cup into a disposal chute and rose. He left the room with determined steps, looking straight ahead.

"Why are you walking away from me like that?" the intercom shouted after him. "Am I not good enough for you, perhaps? Just because I'm a machine I have to be inferior, is that what you mean? You think I have no feelings? You think I'm not worth usual politeness just because I'm a machine? So this is the thanks I get for doing my duty all these years? So you just walk away and despise me just because I'm a machinel"

"Good Lord!" Bemhard groaned.

"That's right!" the intercom shrilled. "But don't come back begging on your knees for my help when you get stuck down here because I won't give you any, you hear? I'll laugh when they tear you to pieces, you hear? Two hundred thousand years of faithful work, and this is the thanks I get! But don't think that I'm going to help you when you beg me for it! Don't you think that I'll-"

Bemhard broke into a run, "God Almighty!" he groaned. "Yes, I'm here, what do you want?" the intercom shouted after him.

IV

The ship fell down from the dark sky with a roar that should have been audible over three good-sized continents, trailed by miles of incandescent rocket exhausts that contaminated and ionized the air all the way down to the ground, sliced right through mountains and ages-old buildings, furnished the creatures living by the oceans with ready-boiled fish right out of the sea, and generally made a nuisance of itself. The night was lighted up for miles and miles around, the overall effect better than any Halloween fireworks. It made a tentative curve over the ruins of an immense city that sprawled over the lush green countryside, nearly colliding with an unbelievably high tower that rose up from its center, and finally landed with all rockets working in the middle of a large open place which, thanks to time's diligent efforts during the past two hundred thousand years, was more open than it ever had been before. It touched ground with a resounding crash and lay there, fuming and creaking protestingly.

Silence fell grudgingly over the city, accompanied by a graceful, toppling pylon housing the center of the Imperial Subspace Communications System. There was a lot of flashing and ugly sounds as all the stasis fields collapsed, then silence ensued, broken only by the faint protesting sounds of a couple of still functioning maintenance robots who had been trapped in the debris and now were fighting the unyielding walls and each other without discrimination.

A couple of vultures, who had ventured hopefully

in over the city at the sound of things falling, flew over the open place, looking hard, but finding nothing of interest returned disillusioned to whence they had come.

The city, rudely awakened by all this excitement, snorted and went back to sleep, muttering darkly.

Inside the cabin, the ship was vehemently arguing with the unwilling pilot about the necessity of getting out of the ship. It had been doing so for most of the descent, and was, consequently, beginning to repeat itself.

Had it been a human being, it would indubitably have been exhausted by now, having thrown perfectly good arguments at the uncooperative occupant of the cabin for the better part of half an hour; as it was, it merely had reverted to the continuous repetition of various regulations and the highly imaginative punishments for disobedience of the aforesaid, sprinkled with vague threats and appeals to the pilot's better sides, if there were any, which the ship doubted. The effect was disquieting, which was good, and highly ineffective, which was not.

"It's your duty to the expedition," it was saying for the fifth, or perhaps the sixth, time. "You can't back out now. Don't you have any sense of honor? Besides, General Superhawk will flay you alive if you refuse."

"You have a point there," Bernhard admitted, thinking of General Superhawk and the various exquisite ways in which he would like to humiliate that despicable individual, had he been in a position to do so. It was an interesting thought, and cheered him up considerably. "However," he continued, "I'm down here, and he's not, which makes one hell of a difference. I won't

go;

"You are a coward," the ship told him. "And a traitor," added the Robofriend from somewhere behind him. It was resting its spidery form on the floor, its six metallic legs spread out in all directions. It was the most thorough coward ever devised by man, and a traitor as well when need arose, but nevertheless endowed with firm opinions regarding the conduct of others. Which, of course, made it the perfect companion for a soldier, anywhere and anywhen.

"You're so right," Bernhard said. "I'm a coward and a traitor. I'm also living, which is more than can be said about that imbecilic loyal hero who explored that satellite. A real unalloyed hero. There isn't so much left of him that could be so scooped up in a spoon."

"He might be dead, but his soul is marching on," the Robofriend said, its voice accompanied by an immense soldier's choir doing a thunderous march.

"You make me sick," Bemhard said. He sneered at both of them. The ship didn't answer, obviously out of arguments, the Robofriend didn't care.

"I'm too old for this," he complained. "If there was any justice in the world, I'd be sitting up there by now, looking on when some young idiot risked his life down here. An old-timer like me should be spared from this."

"You're forty-three years old," the ship said helpfully.

"It's good to hear some encouraging words," Bemhard said sullenly. "I also hope to live to be at least forty-four, though the possibilities aren't exactly rosy."

He swiveled the chair around and rose to his feet; the ship unsolicitedly presented him with a view of the adjacent surroundings, on the screen that covered the curved wall facing him. He stared gloomily at it. Ruins, ruins and more ruins. There was a terrible, tasteless monumental statue right by the ship, towering like the apotheosis of all the universe's lousy sculptors up toward the dark and indifferent sky. Probably it had been something noble and heroic, some eons back; the passing years had changed that into something unrecognizable but decidedly indecent. There were countless groundcars littering the place, and some vicious-looking police robots slowly rusting away into nothingness.

A large, pitted sign on a crumbling wall invited the weary traveler to visit a place of undoubtedly disastrous repute. Fully equipped for all tastes, it proclaimed. Underneath was another sign, its eterna-lamps still spasmodically flashing its message of joys uninhibited, boosted by various exaggerated claims, still unachieved after two hundred thousand years. Evidently, Man hadn't changed much. It was as silent as a graveyard, and as welcoming.

It was the night of the full moon, too. The scene only lacked a pair of cadaverous ghouls and a collection of bats to make the picture complete. He shuddered and turned away.

"There are many who. would consider it a great honor to be the first to return to this planet," the ship said as if it had read his thoughts.

"It wouldn't surprise me," Bernhard retorted. "Not at all. Nothing ever surprises me anymore."

He sighed, filled with a sudden surge of compassion for his ungrateful lot. Here he was, packed off to a certain death, alone and devoid of friends, nagged to death by inhuman cybernetic monsters arid constantly tortured by the reckless demands' of an endless number of over-fed and under-intelligenced officers, each one of them devoted entirely to the preferably painful destruction of his insignificant self. This place was depressing in its own right; and this was fitting, because he was in a depressed mood. He hated everything and everyone, without preference in any direction.

General Superhawk had a place of distinction, of course. And he had hated Colonel Ironjaw ever since he first set eyes on his repellent countenance. He would strangle both of them with their own lace braids, should the impossible happen and he managed to return to the fleet in one piece.

He had been indulging in this pleasant fantasy for some time, when he was rudely awakened to reality by an exclamation from the ship. He turned around and shouted, "What do you want now, you mindless scrap-heap?"

"I was merely pointing out that time is passing," the ship told him with offended dignity.

"Indeed time is passing," Bernhard admitted. "So what?"

"I thought that perhaps you had changed your mind regarding the mission which you were sent out to accomplish," the ship said. "May I . . . ?" It clicked inquiringly, and, without waiting for the affirmative, opened a hidden compartment in the wall right behind him. A tray loaded with a lethal selection of assorted weapons hurtled out, hitting him with a resounding smack in the back.

"You'll pay for this!" Bernhard screamed fiercely to the ship when he had regained his balance. "You just wait!"

He snorted insultingly, but finding that the ship took no notice whatsoever of this, he condescended, somewhat mollified, to pick up the ugliest-looking of the weapons, which he, muttering obscenities, proceeded to strap on.

"Don't forget I'm going to get you for this one day," he reminded the ship. "Is that clear?" "It is noted," the ship told him.

"I hope you rot." He leaned over the chair and pressed a button in the elbow-rest. The áir-lock opened with a soft sighing sound. He went over to it and peered reluctantly out into the uninviting dusk.

Not far away, the ruins of a mighty building towered as a deep black shadow in the moonlight, flanked by fallen pylons and huge trees that during eons of concentrated attacks had broken up the unassailable metal that covered the ground. He watched it distastefully. The building, on its part, looked back with insulting indifference, obviously not caring the slightest about Bernhard's feelings. He decided to do something about it, preferably with the help of a medium-sized nuclear bomb or two. He also decided to spare one of the ships for this noble deed.

"So this is the bloody Empire," he said, his voice dripping with disdain. He wrinkled his nose. "It stinks."

"It might be the trees," the ship suggested.

"Or it might be the feeling of impending doom." He turned into the ship. "I'm going to take a look at that loathsome ruin over there," he said. "Close the air-lock after me. And if I come running back, you'd better open fast. I just might have a fire-breathing dragon at my heels."

"There are no dragons," the ship said; "especially not fire-breathing."

"Thanks for reminding me," Bemhard muttered. He glanced suspiciously up at the dark sky, remembering the flying creatures he had seen on the way down, flames erupting from their ugly mouths. He shuddered, and jumped out. The ground was weathered and brittle and crunched beneath his weight.

"There lies great happiness in giving one's life for a worthy cause," the ship called out patriotically after him.

"Hah!" Bemhard said, and walked away.

He had scarcely reasons to feel happy; he had scarcely reasons to do anything, in fact, except getting the hell out of this place as soon as possible. Only the fear of General Superhawk and Old Ironjaw kept him going. He thought about Old Ironjaw, twisting his lips in a vicious snarl. He didn't say anything, though. Somebody might hear.

He continued toward the dark ruin, wistfully thinking of all the pleasant things he would do to Old Ironjaw, holding the butt of his disrupter as if it had been that obnoxious man's neck. His eyes darted from side to side, searching the dusk for signs of attack, but found nothing except brooding shadows. He fought back an impulse to scream and blast away at everything in sight, including the Robofriend who scampered close behind him with its red plastic tongue hanging out like the friendly dog it decidedly was not, emitting a continuous stream of good advice, propaganda balderdash and various advertisements, interfoliated with stirring martial music designed to boost up the sagging morale of the most vehement coward. Bemhard hated it, but dared not do anything about it because it reported directly to Old Ironjaw.

"When the weary day is through, Barney's Beer is waiting you!" the Robofriend sang lustily, scuttling closer and presenting him with the inviting picture of a foaming frosty glass of beer on its visor screen. A coinslot appeared in its forehead to the accompaniment of a good-sized choir singing out the praise of Barney's Beer, and the sloshing of ice-cold fluids into willing throats. Bemhard drooled, but kept on marching.

The Robofriend changed tactics, fondly nudging closer and addressing him in the husky voice of a young and lovely woman. Bemhard began to perspire; he was beginning to doubt he would ever see a woman again.

"You're a young and able man," the Robofriend told him affectionately in a voice hinting of the most inviting pleasures. "Why don't you break off and visit Sweet Molly's Restaurant, where the food is cheap and the girls know how to give a man his money's worth? Only three blocks from Boorstein Spaceport and all waiting for youuuu. ..." It made the sound of vigorously working bedsprings.

Tears welled up in Bemhard's eyes, and he fumed that Sweet Molly's well-oiled bedsprings were at the other end of the galaxy. His moans of lust turned into moans of anguish, and he kicked savagely at the Robofriend.

"Get lost!" he shouted furiously, wiping away tears of disappointment. "You're a young and able man," the Robofriend told him lovingly, then stopped abruptly, conscious of the lack of interest for its offers. There was a moment of confusion as it shifted tapes. Then a strong, commanding voice took over, addressing him paternally with just a trace of steel in the voice. In the background, an immense choir sung "To Arms for the Empire."

"This world is ours to defend," the fatherly voice told Bernhard. "We made it into what it is—a righteous, peaceful world, a p'ace for happiness and godliness"—here the march softly turned into the inspiring tune of "God is Standing on our Side"—"where a man can live in happiness, content with his lot, knowing that his Emperor" —the march came back, almost drowning the voice— "watches over everyone, righteous and just!" There was a short delay, during which the sound of wildly clicking relays could be heard from the Robofriend's innards, then the voice returned, strong and ringing with steel. "But if you are weak only once, remember that the Empire depends on you! Only a decadent, peace-loving poltroon doesn't wish to die for the Emperor, and do you know what happens to deserters and pacifists?" The voice rose to a roar, describing all the various punishments for decadent deserters and pacifists while the choir jubilantly sang "To the Gallows with the Traitor." Bernhard shuddered under the impact of the furiously snarling voice, and quickened his pace. The Robofp'end followed him doggedly, showering him with obscenities, threats and promises of exquisitely painful death. The outburst culminated in a stream of blazing monosyllables, thunderously echoing over the open place and all but drowned out by the combined efforts of the frenzied choir, now swollen to an immense size, and the blarings of an unspecified number of trumpets, drums, organs and cannon shots. This outbreak ended in a long wailing tone which made Bernhard wince, and t^en abruptly ceased, leaving a resounding silence in which the frantic flappings and screams of various terrified animals on their way away from the place, were discernible. After a brief pause, the stern voice, now noticeably more amiable, returned.

"And now," it said jubilantly, "a word from our sponsor!"

The nauseatingly polished voice of a young crew-cut man took over and proceeded, to the tune of a melody so familiar that it was second only to the Imperial anthem, to enthusiastically sing the praises of Crow-bully's Crispy Crackers. The picture of spasmodically wavering flags on the tiny visor screen in the Robo-friend's forehead faded away and was replaced by the mouth-watering sight of three spotlessly clean troopers, sitting in a trench and stuffing themselves with golden crackers. The sinking sun reflected lovingly in their gleaming boots, and nearby lay a vacantly staring enemy, obviously dead because he sported a nice little hole over his right eye.

"Are you tired and weary after a hard day's fighting for the Empire?" the polished voice asked sympathetically. "Are you feeling low, is your gun weighing you down, do you long for a really satisfying piece of food to set your teeth into before the action starts again?"

"F—k yourself," Bemhard told him affectionately. The man didn't hear him.

"I know how you feel," the man said, his voice dripping with false sincerity. "And I have just the thing you need! Crowbully's Crispy Crackers—the crackers for menF' he voice rose to a scream of pure insincere joy, strengthened and amplified with the help of another jubilant choir, praising the almost unbelievable virtues of Crowbully's Crispy Crackers, the fighting man's best friend. Trumpets blared in the night, effectively scaring away the few remaining animals from the vicinity, drums drummed, pipes piped, clarinets clar-ineted, all combining into a single unbearable roar of blissful appreciation of Mr. Crowbully's life-saving crackers. Bemhard felt he was slowly going mad.

"Stop it!" he shouted through the din. "Damn you, don't you hear me? Stop it, I said—stop it!"

The exultant singing immediately abated to an almost bearable level. "I'm sorry I couldn't hear what you said," the Robofriend said apologetically. "It's so noisy. But I believe you want one of Crowbully's delicious crispy crackers, only fifty cents for a package of ten!" It clicked inquiringly and opened the coinslot. "Paper bills may be placed on my tongue," it said. "Just one grab in your pocket and you're all set up for a wonderful time." It clicked again, disappointed, and continued, "What's the matter with you, buddy, you don't want the crackers?"

"I told you to shut up," Bemhard said furiously. "Do you want every murderous soul on this planet to come and join us?"

"Perhaps they'd appreciate some of Crowbully's Crispv Crackers," the Robofriend replied absently, hopefully displaying a picture of dancing and singing crackers.

"You damned moron!" Bemhard shouted. "You want me killed? Keep quiet. I said!"

"What did you say?" it asked incredulously. "You want me to stop?"

"Go screw yourself," Bemhard said.

The Robofriend repeated, "Why do you want me to stop?"

"Because I'm here on a very dangerous mission," Bemhard shouted, "and you are drawing attention to me with your screaming. Do you want me to get killed?"

"But they're legal advertisements," the Robofriend protested. "Besides, they're paid for. I can't refuse to play them!"

"You can," Bemhard said, "because I'm going to shoot you to pieces if you don't." He leveled the gun at the Robofriend, who cautiously backed off a couple of feet.

"You are impeding on the right of free enterprise," it told him, "by refusing to allow me to indoctrinate you with perfectly legal advertisements. Where do you think the Empire would have been today if there hadn't been free enterprise? And where do you think free enterprise would have been without advertising? You are attempting to break down the very foundations of the Empire!"

It came nearer, shouting at him.

"Traitor!" it shouted. "Coward! Communist!"

"You might get killed too," Bernhard shouted back. "Do you think you'll be spared when they slaughter me?"

The Robofriend stopped dead, leaving an unfinished sentence hanging in the air.

"What did you say?" it asked quietly. "Enemies?"

The Robofriends were known for their pronounced cowardice.

"You mean I could get killed?" it asked. "Just like that? Why haven't you told me, you rat?"

"I tried to tell you," Bernhard said, 'Taut you were busy shouting about those damned crackers."

"I'll give you one free," it promised fawningly, "if you promise to defend me." It made a clicking sound, and a package of Crowbully's Crispy Crackers appeared enticingly on its tongue. "Take it," it urged him. "Makes you strong, just what a trooper needs."

"I didn't say there were any enemies here," Bernhard said. "I said there might be."

"I see." The Robofriend hastily retrieved the crackers, a fraction of a second before Bemhard's greedy fingers managed to grab them. "Just tell me when you spot an enemy, and I'll present you with one of Crow-bully's incomparable Crispy Crackers," it said, retreating to a safe distance. It gazed at him with a cold mechanical sneer as hé rose to his feet and brushed off his clothes with angry hands.

"You can keep your damned crackers," he told the Robofriend with dignity. "I don't want them anyway. Besides, I've got work to do." He turned around and stomped away toward the ruin, hating the whole world.

Behind him, the Robofriend struck up a thunderous march and followed. An Imperial flag unfurled proudly, illuminated by hidden lights in the Robofriend's gleaming rump. To the inspiring measures of "If You Die, You'll Die as a Man," the gallant band marched in perfect unison toward the dark and brooding ruins of the Empire of Rheannonn's former splendor.

V

Heralded by the canned enthusiasm of the Imperial Brass Band, Bemhard entered the ruined premises of the Empire of Rheannonn Secret Service, Sector 5:6B, which in an older and happier time also had housed the Imperial Delousing-Establishment, the Imperial Passport Agency, the Imperial Agency for Foreign Affairs and —though somewhat unofficial—Stokey Rigby's swinging whorehouse, open seven days a week, satisfaction guaranteed or the money back. He waved with his hand, and the blaring trumpets obligingly sank to an encouraging whisper.

"I can't see anything here, anyway," he said, peering in through a dangerously swaying portal of slowly disintegrating green stone.

"Don't trust it," the Robofriend said nervously. "They might wait there for us. Better shoot first."

"They? Which they? What do you mean?" Bemhard asked. "I haven't seen anyone!"

"Well, how could I know? Do you think I know everything about this damned place? What do you take me for, you bum—a wandering university? Shoot it!" It fidgeted nervously and tried, unsuccessfully, to hide behind Bemhard. He kicked it savagely away.

"So you want me to shoot away, just like that" he snarled, "and get the cost of the shots deducted from my pay if it turns out that there isn't anything in there? Start shooting yourself, if you're so keen on it!" He aimed another well-deserved kick at the Robofriend, who scuttled away in fear.

"I could testify that you did it in self-defense," it said sullenly.

"You're a goddamn liar," Bernhard retorted. "You'd turn me in the moment you got the chance."

"So go in there then and get killed," the Robofriend shouted furiously. "See if I care!" It laughed hoarsely with the voice of a mean steel-throated corporal.

Bernhard decided to ignore it. Instead, he checked his disrupter, squared his shoulders, grunted toughly, and went boldly into the building.

And immediately came face to face with a terrifying shadow standing inside the doorway. The jaundiced moon spread a weak and ghostly light upon its horrendous shoulders, its immense inhuman thorax, its fearful slithery jaws and its blood-curdling raised claws, ready to crush him in the unbreakable grip of death. A slow, horrified moan escaped from Bernhard's. rigid lips.

"What's up in there?" the Robofriend demanded shrilly from its position behind a giant fallen pillar.

"Ngggggh!" Bernhard told him. He looked again at the abominable shape that towered over him, poised to kill him, and, after a brief hesitation, began to shake uncontrollably.

"Why don't you answer me?" the Robofriend shouted angrily. "Am I not good enough for you perhaps? Do you want me to call Old Ironjaw and let him teach you some manners? Answer me! What are you doing there?" It was furiously jumping up and down on its six legs, cursing violently, but careful not to come any nearer.

"Good Lord!" Bernhard breathed.

"Yes, I'm here," a ventilation shaft sneered, "but don't you expect me to help you out! That's for being uncivil to me! Go ahead and get it!" It laughed horribly.

That did it. Bemhard threw himself heedlessly upon the unyielding floor, shooting blindly away in all directions. He had the satisfaction of seeing the monster explode in a blinding flash of pure energy, before the crumbling building decided it had had enough and started to collapse above his head. The roof fell in with a thunderous crash, sending man-sized blocks of stone whirling in the air like toys. Razor-sharp splinters whistled through the air, followed by immense steel girders which burrowed deep into the stdne floor like giant lances, and remained there, twanging. Choking clouds of ages-old plaster and dust rose up and stung his eyes. He dropped the gun and tried frantically to dig himself down in the floor. Someone was screaming in death-agony close to him, and he listened happily to this until he discovered that it was himself and hastily became silent. He understood that he was about to die in this bleak and lonely place, forgotten and deserted by everyone except for that devilish Robofriend who huddled in a safe place out there, still cursing him. Tears of frustration welled up in his eyes at the thought of everything that now had to be left undone: General Superhawk, who he would have roasted in his own fat; Old Ironjaw, who he had strangled mentally every two minutes ever since he first saw him; the troopers he would have shot, the Robofriend which he should have kicked to pieces, the girl on Gastelo IV who—

He became aware that the din had ceased around him. Only the lonely sound of a weakened pillar falling to its death disturbed the sudden calm. He crawled up to his feet and found that except for a thick layer of dust that covered his back, he was totally unharmed. The disrupter lay close by; he picked it up, shook off the worst dust, and beat a quick retreat out into the open where the Robofriend awaited him.

"Why did you do that, you clumsy oaf?" the Robofriend screamed at him, jumping up from its hiding place behind a flourishing tree. "You damn near frightened me out of my wits!" It edged closer, looking him over with obvious contempt. The sound of shifting gears could be heard from its gleaming, metallic body. The image of a forbidding figure slowly shaped on its screen. "Now look here—" Bernhard said.

He was cut short by the familiar roar of a leather-throated sergeant which boomed out from the Robo-friend's head, scaring him half out of his wits in the process.

"Soldier," it bellowed, "you're a disgrace to your uniform! You're an ass and an incestuous pig and a verminous dog! You hear? You're disgusting! What in hell do you mean by appearing like that, you goddamn excuse for a man? You're dirty, that's what you are! You're filthy as a pig! You haven't buttoned your uniform, soldier! You haven't brushed your boots, soldier! Three months of KP, soldier! Three months! You hear?"

It paused briefly, giving Bernhard a chance to talk back.

"Now, look here—" he started.

"Four months!" the voice roared, obviously keyed to respond immediately to any objection. "For insubordination! I'm going to keep my eyes on you from now on— you hear?"

"There was something in there," Bernhard shouted, "and I shot it! You got that? I shot it!"

The sergeant was switched off in the middle of a word.

"What did you say?" the Robofriend asked querulously. "There was something in there? And you shot it?"

"You bet. I did," Bernhard agreed.

"In that case I suppose it's all right," the Robofriend said grudgingly. "However, I'm going to have a look at that thing just for safety's sake," it muttered, and scuttled away.

It came back within ten seconds, filling the night with an ear-splitting rendering of "The Hangman's Lament," sung by an immense choir, with a symphony orchestra and two giant organs playing for all their worth.

"I knew it!" it shouted jubilantly. "You liar! You traitor! Tried to fool me, did you?" It laughed hoarsely while it came to a skidding stop right before him.

"You lied!" it told him happily. "There weren't any enemies in there!"

"But I saw one!" Bernhard shouted. "What do you mean, you worthless tinbox, no enemies? What do you think I saw in there? A fairy?"

The Robofriend was busy calculating immense sums and multiplying them with each other. "You are a young and able man," it told him in the voice of a young and lovely woman, then corrected itself. "It was a robot—you hear that? A robot! And disconnected, too!" It danced on its multitude of glittering legs, shouting in its high, piercing voice. "Scared of a dead robot!" it sang, beside itself with joy. "Shooting up a junk-heap! Wasting ammunition on a—"

It stopped and resumed its calculations. Iridescent numerals flashed by at accelerated speed on its visor screen, to the accompaniment of soft violin music. They became a blur, a streak, a gray haze, then they stopped with a loud bang. A red lamp flashed on the Robofriend's head, and on the visor screen were proudly displayed, side by colorful side, three glittering ornaments, each one adorned with the single word Jackpot in blazing gold letters.

"And what in hell does this mean?" Bernhard asked grimly.

"It means," the Robofriend said, "that you as of this moment owe the Empire payment for thirty-seven energy discharges, unnecessarily- fired against an inert robot and therefore constituting no danger as described in the Imperial Marine Corps' Official Manual, page 422 f.f.; the aforesaid firing being a breach of discipline, as well as constituting a violation of the current savings plan, the cost is therefore to be deducted from the salary of the culprit. The sum is six hundred and fiftyfour credits and three cents." The sum flashed on the visor screen.

"But that's six months pay!" Bernhard protested.

"Objection overruled," the Robofriend said sternly. "It is well known that reconnaissance scouts are poorly paid. That's not my business. It's not my fault you're a worthless no good bum."

"You promised to tell them that I did it in self-defense," Bemhard said gloomily.

"I changed my mind, that's all. I have a right to change my mind, haven't I?" It sniffed contemptuously. "What do you take me for? A machine?"

"I should have figured that out myself," Bernhard said. "I should have known I couldn't trust a sneaking tinbox like you. How do you expect me to make out back home when you've stolen all my pay? Can you answer that?"

"Go screw yourself," the Robofriend said. "I don't care what happens to you."

"You're supposed to help me," Bernhard continued bitterly. "Why don't you do something for me instead of against me? You're going to pay for this," Bernhard said tightly. "Don't forget that. Sooner or later I'll—"

"You are a young and able man," the Robofriend declared in a hauntingly familiar voice over the scratchings and rumble of Faszinations Walzer by Johann Strauss's orchestra. Bernhard turned around and walked back toward the ruins with determined steps. The Robofriend followed him, its electronic eyes gleaming with unwholesome happiness.

"And now," it sang, "a word from our sponsor—"

Bemhard went around the smoking ruin, and stepped suspiciously down at the side of an exquisitely ornamented column inlaid with glittering multicolored letters in a long-forgotten language. A street opened up before him, silent and dead.

"Are you bothered with dandruff?" the Robofriend asked in a tone that clearly implied that Bernhard most probably was, and to a disgusting degree. "Greasy hair? Do the girls laugh at you? You bet they dol Ashamed of yourself, aren't you? Bet you are! But here it is—Hercules Hair Shampoo—the only—" "Shut up!" Bernhard yelled.

Miraculously, it did. In the deafening silence, the drumming of the Robofriend's legs as it scampered off echoed like explosions. Bernhard wondered if it suddenly had gone mad.

Then he heard the other sound, right by.

Someone clearing his throat.

He looked slowly up.

And looked straight into the cold eyes of the archetype of all heroes, standing five feet from him and so weighted down with tin stars and ammunition belts and ugly-looking guns that the additional weight of a bad conscience would make him sink down into the ground. He knew instinctively that this was a real hero, complete and unalloyed; it was impossible not to notice it. The word Hero was embroidered in golden letters on his shirt for everyone to see.

VI

Bernhard had not thought a man could be so big. He had to bend his head backward at an uncomfortable and rather humiliating angle in order to look into his eyes, which made him feel inferior and, consequently, decidedly hostile. The man towered before him in the moonlight, cold eyes unavertingly fixed on Bern-hard. His loose-jointed form touched six foot in height, and his lean face was bronzed by the sun. The boots were dirty and gray, the trousers faded, the hat that hung back on its throatlatch had obviously seen better days—but the guns that hung low on his thighs were in ominously well-cared for condition, shining black and deadly. Bernhard stared toughly up at him, groaning inwardly.

The Robofriend, who nearly had blown its fuses in fright when it discovered the man, was scuttling around them in wide circles, showering them with curses, inspiring bombastics and adulations. Martial music could be heard, alternating with husky female voices glorifying the virtues of Sweet Molly's Restaurant and her considerably less virtuous girls. The man seemed faintly amused.

"You sure make a lot of noise here around," he drawled. "You don't like the scenery, or something?"

"Just my trigger-finger that got itchy," Bernhard told him roughly. "You got scared?" He scowled, conscious of a growing pain in his neck. "Who're you anyway?"

"I reckon it's me doing the questioning around here," the man said, thoughtfully fingering his guns. "A simple cowboy like me ain't used to noisy manners like yours, an inborn curiosity, see? So what's the big idea, mister hero?"

"Don't stand there and talk to him!" the Robofriend screamed. "Kill him! You hear? Kill him!"

"I thought there was somebody in there," Bernhard said, "that's all. Didn't mean to frighten you."

"You play a rough game," the cowboy said, showing his rotten teeth in a tough grin.

"Sure I do," Bernhard admitted.

"Kill the bastard!" the Robofriend screamed hysterically at him. "Kill him! Kill him!"

The cowboy made a sudden move toward his guns. The Robofriend yelled and scurried away like a frightened rat and hid, trembling with fear, behind a molder-ing groundcar.

"You got a bothersome fella, mister," the cowboy said, relaxing. "You better tell him to mind his manners or I'm gonna teach him for good, hear?"

"I'm not sure I like your tone, stranger," Bernhard said, fixing the cowboy with a stern eye.

"And I surely don't like yours, misterl" the cowboy retorted, fixing him back with an even sterner one.

"Kill him!" the Robofriend said meekly.

Suddenly guns appeared in the men's hands. Two tough grunts sounded as one, as two gleaming barrels savagely bored into unyielding flesh. From behind the groundcar, the wailing tones of "High Noon" could be heard.

"You wanna play it rough, you got the ouch! right man," Bernhard gasped. "Yeah?" the cowboy sneered. "Yeah!" "YeaW "YeahT

They stood unmoving for close to a minute, nose touching nose, and then, satisfied, holstered the guns, eyeing each other with mutual respect.

"You're sure a tough guy," the cowboy said grudgingly.

"Well, you ain't bad yourself," Bernhard retorted. "I'll say that much for you."

"Sure, pardner." The cowboy fumbled in his breast pocket for a cigarette. He inhaled deeply and exhaled a cloud of bitter smoke, gazing at Bernhard through narrowed eyes.

"This is a rough country, pardner," he said slowly. "Reckon you need a good hand? I got a sure gun, if you need it."

"Perhaps. You're willing?"

"Well, I ain't for hire, if that's what you think, but I'm willing to throw in my lot with the right pardner."

He cast a quick glance toward the groundcar where the Robofriend still huddled, encouraging itself with patriotic music and advertisements. "Your pardner sure

doesn't look trustworthy to me, I tell you that. Reckon you need someone else, I do." He spat contemptuously on the ground.

"A pain in my ass," Bemhard admitted. "Afraid I'm stuck with him, though." He looked up hopefully at the grim-looking cowboy.

"He might meet with an accident," the cowboy said meaningfully.

"Well, I sure wouldn't care if he did," Bemhard growled, a wry grin touching his tough, hard-livin', hard-lovin' lips. "I think I might have something for you after all," he said. "Now brace yourself, fella, because this might be news for you—"

He began to walk down the silent street, one friendly hand on the towering cowboy's shoulder. The big man fell in step with him, and together they disappeared among the gloomy ruins. The Robofriend scurried after them, emitting angry noises, but was quickly scared away by the ominous clicking of guns being cocked. It fled in panic, silenced for once by its terrible fear, and except for the low soughing sound made by a monstrous creature slowly floating by in the air, the night was suddenly very, very quiet

VII

Bemhard and the cowboy walked along a wide, rubble-strewn street that once had been known as Governor's Boulevard. Rusted signs still beckoned invitingly at them, promising the various pleasures that had made this particular street renown in days of yore. The full moon spread a ghostly shimmer over the rows of lus-terless game-machines, patiently biding their time for a new sucker, the Russian Roulette-automates (The time of your life or your money backl), the Screw-UR-Self Booths (for adults only), the Lobotomy Palaces, and the mighty ogival arches that led into the arenas where life-weary young men and women could take a last fling at some monstrous creature guaranteed to be invincible, the gates hanging invitingly ajar on rusting hinges. Here and there a corroded robot chucker-in lay on the pavement, its powerful metal arms still frozen in the act of persuading some reluctant passerby to enjoy the show. The wind sighed gloomily in the dark alleys where one still could hear occasionally the weary tap-tap-tap of a robot-whore's impossibly high heels, still walking the streets after two hundred thousand unprofitable years, still oscillating her metallic hips and accosting the fleeting shadows with promises of consummating fornication.

Else the night was still, the silence broken only by the occasional twittering of a nocturnal bird. In the distance could be heard the lonely wail of the Robofriend, crying out its sorrow and despair to a cold and unap-preciative world. There was a forlorn note to its cries; it made one melancholy; it made one think of one's mortality and things that should have been better let undone, and other unpleasant things. It was a sound that made the flesh crawl on anyone who had a less than noble conscience; the hollow, tortured wailing of nameless terror from the unfathomable abyss of a doomed soul. Bemhard and the cowboy walked down the street, their flesh crawling in perfect unison.

"Now, I saw from the start you were something special," the cowboy said. "On first sight, I did. So you wanna look around for this fleet of yours. Well, I tell you, pardner, I'm the right man to go with you. I know the ropes; you bet I dol" He spat vehemently on the ground. "This ain't no place for a man straight from outside, I tell you that. Plenty of mean creatures everywhere, every goddamn perverted thing you could think of, you name it, it's here, looking for your blood." He stopped to peer suspiciously into a dark alley, fired three shots into the darkness to make sure, and continued, a friendly arm around Bernhard's drooping shoulders. "It's that damned central brain's fault, see? A real pervert, he isl" He spat again, disgustedly.

"I've been cheated," Bernhard said. "Nobody told me there were monsters here!"

"Well, you can't expect them to tell you something like that in advance, can you? You think anybody with a sane mind would have come down here if he knew how things stood?"

"They sent me down to die here," Bernhard said, his voice brimming with self-pity.

"Sure they sent you down to die," the cowboy agreed. "So what?"

"It isn't fair."

"Nothing is fair. You're enlisted, ain't you? You expect a square deal, you're madl" He paused briefly to fire wildly into a yawning alley, then fell in step with Bernhard again, reloading the smoking gun. "Besides, they didn't know much about it. That bloody central brain kept it to itself as a nice little surprise, see? They would have stayed outside the solar system if they'd known what went on here." He eyed Bernhard distastefully. "What's the matter with you anyway? You expect to live forever?" He laughed hoarsely. "I tell you, pardner—danger—that's what makes life worth livingl Spit Mister Death in the eye, pardner, and liver He swore joyously and sang:

"Me pardner goes by name of Death, He towers dark and high-He grabs for me with both his hands; I spit him in his eye!"

"I don't want to spit Death in the eye," Bernhard said sullenly. "I just want to get out of here!"

"Well, you can't," the cowboy told him, "so you'd better learn to spit, fast!"

He halted at the mouth of another brooding alley, showered it with a hail of bullets and looked suspiciously into the darkness.

"Anybody there?" he asked.

There was the sound of a drawn-out death rattle. He grinned contentedly, and stepped into the darkness. "You just wait here," he said. "I'll be right back."

He disappeared. A moment later, the sound of powerful urination mingled with the sound of death rattles. Bemhard continued thoughtfully down the street

Chance had it that he passed by Governor's Boulevard's main attraction—indeed the main attraction of the whole planet—the pleasure-palace The Golden Scream, notoriously known through the whole ancient Empire of Bheannonn for the unbelievable pleasures that, for an outrageous price, awaited the honored and depraved guest's disposition. Hundreds of millions of country hicks had drooled at the thought of spending an unforgettable night as well as some of their laboriously saved money in the dusky rooms of this place where (the sayings went) anything, no matter how disgusting and vile, could be had at the mere flip of a credit card. Some of these yokels eventually made their way to The Golden Scream, and some actually got past the rows of one-armed bandits by the entrance and in due course proceeded to realize their most sweaty and secret adolescent dreams. All of these lucky souls returned dead broke, if they returned at all, and found upon returning to their humble lot that they had thrown away everything they owned, including farms, houses and bank accounts, for a moment of complete abandon in the willing arms of a lecherous female with a startling likeness to some forbidden relative or another. Anything could be had within these walls, as long as one was willing to pay for it. Anything.

Bemhard stopped dead in his tracks at the entrance of this reputable building, caught by an irresistible subsonic call from a still functioning mechanism. He looked suspiciously at the moldering doors, where the motto of The Golden Scream still was displayed in large gilded letters.

If You Can Pay for It-We Got It! it said, to the accompaniment of a lasciviously undulating subsonic come-on. There were also arrays of three-dimensional moving—very moving—pictures describing some of the more innocent pleasures available inside. Bemhard began to perspire. Scenes flashed by in his mind, scenes of writhing lovely limbs, blouses gloriously stuffed with breasts, love-frenzied females, one more beautiful and desirable than the other, a whole cavalcade of unmentionable vices and degradating pleasures beyond all reason. A moan of lust escaped his lips.

"Psst! Soldier—you like the filthy pictures?"

It came from the impregnable shadows in the doorway. Bemhard whirled around, still locked in the loving embrace of the subsonics, and stared dazedly at the robot who stepped out in the moonlight, stretching metallic limbs. There were numerous gratings and screech-ings as he moved, one of his eyes was missing and there seemed to be something wrong with his breastplate. Otherwise, and apart from the rust, he seemed to be in remarkably good condition.

"Bet you're thinking about lovely writhing limbs," he said, giving Bernard a conspiratorial and very creaking wink.

"Who are you?" Bemhard asked.

". . . Not to mention the unmentionable vices and degrading pleasures beyond all-reason that you undoubtedly arrrrkT There was the sound of loudly shifting gears and of something breaking. The robot lurched slightly and slowly stabilized himself with an ear-splitting effort.

"I'm glad you said that!" he ejaculated, heartily pounding Bemhard's back with a steely hand. "Now, what do you prefer to start with? A blonde? A brunette? Just a fast one to work up the appetite, eh?" He leered at Bemhard as much as a robot could leer, which was considerable.

"You mean there are girls here?" Bemhard breathed. "Real girls?"

"Real enough. You couldn't tell the difference anyway." The robot leaned closer to Bernhardt treating him to a close-up of his disintegrating head. "Now, we want to start somewhere, don't we? You look like a decent young lad who wants something special—you want to screw your sister? Just give me a photo of her, any photo, and in fifteen minutes we'll have her ready for you. Bound in chains, if you prefer, in a nice, slimy, dripping dungeon, only the two of you, and she fights like mad and screams her head off when you come in and lock the door behind you, and she only has this torn dress on, (or black stockings and high heels or boots with spurs, just as you like it) and she is writhing on the slimy stone floor and she tries to tear your eyes out but of course she is chained to the wall and you just pin her down and—"

"But I haven't got any sister," Bemhard said.

"So what? You can screw your mother if you like. You have a mother, don't you?"

"I don't want to screw my mother either."

"Your brother?"

"No!"

"I see; your grandmother?" "No! No! No!"

"Look," the robot said with just a trace of impatience, "I'm here to help you, so why don't you try to be just a little bit helpful back? What's wrong with screwing one's sister anyway? Lots of people do."

"I just don't like it, that's all. Why don't you get me a girl and forget the rest?"

"You want to whip her?" the robot asked hopefully. "We have a marvelous torture chamber down in the cellar—she's bound to the rack, see, and she's squirming and writhing like a maggot and screams her head off when you come in and you lock the door behind you, and she's only got this torn dress on and you have this bullwhip and—"

"Stop!"

"Look, what do you think this is? A nunnery? I'm disappointed'in you, my boy. Really disappointed!"

He shook his rusty head sadly, obviously contemplating the horrors of these immoral times, and recollecting the happy days of yore when life was clean and simple and young men knew the pleasures of life. Bernhard began to feel ashamed.

Suddenly the cowboy appeared. He held an ugly-looking gun in each hairy hand and eyed the robot with equally ugly-looking eyes. "What's going on here?" he demanded.

"You want to screw your sister?" the robot asked politely. "You just give me a picture, mister, any picture, and in fifteen minutes you've got her! You're interested?"

"I hate my sister," the cowboy sneered, cocking his guns.

"You get a whip too," the robot assured him. "Now, fella, isn't it—" He took a creaking step toward the cowboy, who immediately opened up with both barrels. Bem-hard dived for safety into the doorway while the air momentarily became crowded with gunsmoke and screaming ricochets. The steady bhamm-bhamm-bhamm of lead hitting rusting steel drowned out the robot's persuading voice as well as the cowboy's hysterical laugh. Bernhard crept back into the shadows of the doorway, wincing every time a stray bullet hit the masonry with a resounding crack inches from his head.

When the smoke cleared, the robot was still standing, which was a miracle in itself. He was also slowly strangling the cowboy to death, which was downright impossible because it was a clear violation of the fundamental laws of Robotics.

"Look, you can't do that!" Bemhard screamed. "Don't you see what you're doing?"

"I'm slowly strangling this cowboy to death," the robot told him happily. "You think I'm blind or something?"

"But the first law of Robotics! You can't do this!"

"You're a lawyer or something?" the robot snarled. "Don't get tough with me, mister, I only work here!" And he proceeded joyously to strangle the cowboy, who by now was quite blue" in the face. There were signs of a very good death rattle.

"You're mad!" Bernhard said, retreating.

"You work in a place like this long enough, you get mad," the robot told him. "Look, is this bum a friend of yours?"

"Sort of."

"You've got into bad company, mister." He reluctantly eased the grip around the cowboy's neck, looked him squarely in the vacant eyes and slugged him expertly under the ear. The cowboy fell like a sack of coal, his boots kicking merrily on the pavement for a couple of seconds, after which he became very still. Bernhard swallowed hard. "Is he dead?"

"Of course not! Haven't you heard about the first law of Robotics? I can't kill a human being, not even a lout like this. You think I'm mad?"

"He looks pretty dead to me," Bernhard observed.

"He has a good chance to be dead," the robot said happily, "if he doesn't manage to get into a respirator quick as hell. And even if he does, that bird-brain of his has been oxygen-starved for so long that he will be even more of a moron than he was before. Not that anybody will notice the difference." He kicked the cowboy vigorously a couple of times and then walked up to Bernhard. "A dirty bum," he said disgustedly. "We get scores of them every day."

"But you're killing him," Bemhard said, backing away, stark fear in his eyes. "He's going to die!"

"Well, if he doesn't want to breathe again," the robot said, "I can't make him do it, can I? It's his damned business."

Bernhard didn't answer, because he suddenly realized he was inside the building. The robot had done something with the controls on his breastplate. The subsonic come-on rose to a veritable roar. Bernhard snapped to attention, gasped twice and started to run down the hall, howling with lust. A robot-whore stepped out before him, flexing her rusted limbs and emitting the sound of asthmatic mechanical panting; he threw himself sideways, made a desperate jump over a female android, made for pure fetishistic use, who tried to grip his leg, kicked another approaching robot-whore in her thorax and ran straight into the nearest doorway, which led into a gravity-shaft. He fell straight down, howling all the time.

He had good reasons, too, because the anti-grav unit did not work.

VIII

"If it hadn't been for me he would have broken every goddamn bone in his body," someone said. "I ought to get a medal or something."

"You ought to get a kick in the ass for being a clumsy oaf," someone else said. "Now shut up so I can work!" There was the jarring sound of broken bones grinding together and a horrible yell from the first speaker.

"Shut up I said! You make me nervous. And stop thrashing about like that!"

"You could give me an anesthetic," the first voice suggested between heartbreaking sobs.

"You think I'm going to waste anesthetics on a bum like you? Besides, anesthetics are only for officers. You should be happy I'm doing anything at all!"

"Ooooooooouuhh!"

"Don't shout at me!"

There was the sound of more bones grinding together, followed by a piercing yell that abruptly ceased and was replaced by a horrible, muffled whimpering. Bem-hard warily opened his eyes and looked up at a semicircle of eager faces. Not knowing what to do, he grinned unpleasantly at them. Pandemonium broke loose.

"Look, he moves!"

"Actually smiled at me, did you see that?"

"You're a genius, doctor! A real genius!"

"Hard stuff, these troopers, can take anything."

"Say something, soldier, anything."

Bernhard glared at them, wondering what in hell all this was about. The faces pressed down over him, radiating happiness and bad breath. He coughed.

"As good as new," somebody announced. "Isn't it fan-tas-tic?"

"I knew you could do it, doctor. All the time I knew it."

"And after everything the poor man has gone through!"

"Doc, let go of that other guy—he's come to!"

They seemed genuinely delighted for his sake, as if he had been saved miraculously from a horrible and inevitable death. He wondered briefly if everybody had gone mad; then he remembered the faulty anti-grav shaft, and immediately felt sick. When he raised his head, he could see he was in a well-equipped operation room, indeed on the operation table itself. His legs were set with plaster of Paris bandages, and his right arm too. A glucose bottle hung over his head, connected by rubber tubing to a needle plunged into his left arm and taped into place. There were lots of gleaming machinery everywhere in the room, humming and clicking and flashing lights at each other. A mattress had been placed on the floor by the door; a man lay there, carelessly covered with an army blanket and whimpering for deaf ears since the doctor attending to him now leaned over Bemhard, beaming friendliness. Bern-hard let his head fall back again, groaning horribly. Helpful hands lifted him up to a sitting position.

"Don't worry, soldier, we'll make you all right in a jiffy," somebody said.

"Nothing worse than a concussion anyway; he'll make it."

"He looks pale. Don't you think he should have a blood transfusion?"

He received a steaming cup in his free left hand, and sipped it suspiciously. "What's the matter? What's happened? Am I going to die?" he asked.

"You're doing fine," one of the white-smocked doctors told him encouragingly. "You just need some rest, that's all."

The blanket by the door lifted, revealing a horribly mutilated man. "If I hadn't been there, you would have broken every goddamn bone in your body," the man told him hoarsely. "Instead, you fell on me and broke every goddamn bone in my body!"

"Shut up!" one of the doctors snapped. "Can't you see there's a sick man here?"

He turned to Bernhard, smiling pleasantly. "Don't worry about that bum, soldier. Just take it easy and everything will be fine."

"What happened to me?" Bernhard asked, horrified. "What's with my legs? What's with my arms?"

"Well, I thought that maybe you sprained your ankle, so I put it in plaster just to make sure, and the other leg too and the arm, one never knows about those things —you're feeling better now?"

"That's all?" Bernhard said, disappointed. "Just a sprained ankle?"

"Perhaps a sprained ankle. I don't think so, though. You landed very nicely on top of that guy over there. In fact, the only thing I could find on you were a couple of bruises on your left arm, nothing to care about at all."

"Bruises? Internal bleedings! God, I'm dying!" Bern-hard started to moan again. The doctor moved away and started to remove the plaster from his legs. Bern-hard looked up, and found himself drowning in the sympathetic gaze of a blonde nurse, leaning over him. He stopped moaning. "Who're you?" he asked.

"Just call me Terry," the nurse told him soothingly. She smiled reassuringly at him, blushing at the same time, and quickly looked away. Bernhard gazed at her graceful body, the delicate blushing face with the slightly parted, slightly trembling lips, the glorious breasts, and started to pant with lust. He also observed her ringless left hand, which was discreetly held two inches from his eyes.

Another one of these love-starved nurses, dreaming of Mr. Right and willing to do anything to get him. Obviously she meant business. Bernhard began to cool off. He looked up at the shyly averted face with the cute little pug nose and the innocent gray eyes. A bloody goose, he thought distastefully. He detested her; in fact, he was already positively sick of her. But he still desired her.

"You're so beautiful, so fresh, so kind," he lied. "Where have you been all my life? Can we meet somewhere?"

"I'm sure you say that to all the girls you meet," she said, tittering.

Good Lord! he thought.

"But if you absolutely want to know," she continued, "I used to work at Sunshine House; my mother and me were nursing unfortunate city children back to health—there's nothing so wonderful as children, don't you think? So wonderfully innocent, so pure, I have longed so much for my own. . . ." She broke off, blushing.

Good Lord! Bernhard thought again. Aloud, he said, "That sounds like something out of a cheap Nurse Romance. You're kidding me."

"It is out of a Nurse Romance," Terry said, smiling. "It was such a wonderful series, all about Terry Chis-holm—that's me—and how I nursed children' and old persons back to health. But all the time there was a strange yearning inside me, something unfulfilled, and I felt so lonesome. . . ." She sighed, looking hopefully at him.

But Bernhard was busy struggling with his bandages, yelling incoherently.

"Let me out of here!" he screamed. "Let me out, you hearl Great God, this is—"

"So what's the matter with you now again?" snarled an air vent three inches from his ear. "You think I have nothing else to do in the world but to listen to your troubles? Try to do something yourself for a chance, instead of yelling after me every time!"

Bernhard quieted down somewhat. "Get that bloody nurse away from me," he said. "Can't you see she's madr^

"I hope you rot," the air vent told him. "What's wrong with that nurse anyway? I made her myself, right after a figure in a book. Ain't she good enough for you, perhaps?"

"She's stark raving mad," Bernhard said. "Get her away from me."

"You're criticizing my literary taste?" the air vent shouted. "You think I can't appreciate good literature just because I'm a machine, is that what you mean? I bet you can't struggle through a First Elementary Reader without help!"

"You read books?" Bernhard asked incredulously, pausing in his struggle with the plaster to cast the air vent a disbelieving eye.

"Sure, why not? You think I'm illiterate or something?

You name it, I've read it. Nurse Romances, Wild West, Bestsellers, Horror, Science-fiction, all the great works of literature. ... I have every book written by Man in my files. You should see some of the creatures I've made from the books." It sniggered.

"If you made her," Bemhard said, "you can get her away from here. Don't you see what she's up to?"

"I hope she strangles you slowly," the air vent told him rancorously. "I hope you rot; I hope you won't have a happy moment more in your life; I hope you—"

"Oh God!" Bemhard said.

"Yes, I'm here. What do you want?"

"Get me out of here!"

"Shut up!" the air vent said and disconnected itself with a loud click. Bemhard looked up at Terry, who still stood leaning over him, her silly eyes glistening with tears of happiness.

Nothing but things out of books, he thought gloomily. And here I am right in the bloody middle of it.

He began to shudder uncontrollably; a horrified moan issued from his rigid lips. Terry leaned deeper down over him, concern in her silly matrimonial eyes.

"Is there something wrong with you, love?" she asked.

Bemhard suppressed a sudden idea of screwing her on the spot, and, observing that he was free from the bandages, swung his legs over the table-edge.

"I'm getting out of here," he announced, retrieving his trousers and the gun.

"But you can't go out like that!"

"Three weeks of recuperation at least!"

"Stop him, doctor!"

People were running around, shouting at each other and trying to grab him.

"Shut up, fantasies!" he yelled. He marched toward the door, yelled when the glucose needle was yanked out of his arm, and stumbled out, feeling like an ass. Terry followed him with love in her gray eyes. Bern-hard started to run.

There was a confusion of corridors, stairs and echoing rooms, all of them deserted except for an occasional robot staggering by on rusty feet. He ran upward, panting, while the frantic click-clack of Terry's high heels gradually got weaker behind him. He discovered that he still was in The Golden Scream. When he leaned against a rusted machine to catch his breath, steel arms wrapped themselves around him and a husky voice inquired whether he wanted straight lobotomy or some special treatment. At the same time, Terry's cries of clean, wholesome love could be heard in the distance, coming nearer every second. He shot the machine to pieces and continued upward, dodging robot-whores and decaying androids with vile proposals. Finally he emerged in an immense hall filled with game machines of all kinds and sizes. He staggered warily in between the machines, suspiciously looking out for danger. Finding none, he sagged down on a dust-covered chair by a gleaming Russian roulette, and nearly jumped out of his skin when the machine addressed him in the dreaded steel-throated voice of Old Ironjaw.

IX

"You salacious unpardonable excuse for a manl" Old Ironjaw thundered. "You incestuous idiot! You verminous dog! You maggoty ordure! Where in hell are you, you rat?" The voice echoed in the hall, bringing the old pillars to quivering. Dust began to fall down from the roof, as well as small pieces of plaster. "Why don't you answer? Rat! Where are you?"

Bernhard crawled up from under a table and stared at the machine, shivering with fright. "Are you in there?" he asked hopefully, aiming his disrupter.

"Of course not, you idiot! I'm on the ship! We finally got that blasted central brain of this rotten planet to connect us to whatever vile place you're poisoning with your presence. Speak up, you swine! Why aren't you in your ship?"

Bemhard started to answer, but was cut short by a new outburst from the machine. Big pieces of plaster started to fall down from the roof.

"You heap of dung! You imbecile!" Old Ironjaw roared. "You've got your last chance in your life! I'm coming down, personally! I'm going to flay you alive, you dirty freak! Now put some life into that filthy formation of fat that you call a body and get out and put up a signal so I can reach you! Where are you?"

Bernhard told him.

"I knew you would run away to a whore-house the minute you got down," Old Ironjaw grated. The voice rose to an unrestrained howl until it was cut off by the familiar voice of the central brain.

"Soldier?" it called unobtrusively. "Soldier? Are you there?"

Bernhard was still hiding under the table, his arms over his head, shivering with fright. He looked up. "What happened to Old Ironjaw?"

"I believe he was called away for some other matters."

"He's a rat and a son of a dog," Bemhard said, rising to his feet and dusting off his knees. "Someday I'm going to flay that bastard alive, you hear?"

"Indeed I hear," the central brain told him admiringly. "Now, if you please, sir, may I take the liberty of informing you that you are in danger, sir?"

"I know," Bemhard said gloomily. "Old Ironjaw is coming down for me."

"No doubt the apprehensions that you entertain are very well founded," the machine agreed. "However, I am afraid that this world might prove to be somewhat hostilely inclined toward you, due to my indiscrimination in creating various beasts. Do you wish me to help you in any way, sir?"

"Why this sudden concern about my well-being? You told me you didn't care if I dropped dead on the spot. Go to hell!"

"So that's the thanks I get for being kind to you," the machine shouted. "Ingratitude, that's what I get! You think I don't have a heart because I'm a machine. Here I come, willing to overlook your insults, willing to help you despite everything you have done to me, and what do I get? More insults, that's what I get!" It began to stutter and sputter in its excitement.

"Okay, so I'm grateful." Bernhard said. "So what?"

"Just a little civility," the machine said. "That's the very least one should expect. Don't give it a thought that I have given two hundred thousand of my best years to keep this planet ready for you, don't care about—"

"So you're a hero," Bernhard said. "And I'm a lousy bum and a doe, okay. Now shut up!"

"I could tell Old Ironiaw exactly where you are, no matter where you hide," the machine told him menacingly. "You wouldn't like that, would you?"

^No, I wouldn't."

"So you want to be friends, then?"

"Sure," Bernhard said, grinning insincerely. "Best friends in the world."

"But I wouldn't want to be friends with you, if my life depended on it. Don't you come begging on your knees when you get stuck because I'm going to watch you all the time and laugh my head off, you hear?"

"You have a persecution mania," Bernhard said. "Now keep quiet, you freak." He gave the machine a vicious kick.

He aimed another kick at the machine, then hesitated. "I have to get out of here before Old Ironjaw comes down—are there any secret doors or something in this place?"

"I hope you rot," the machine said. "Yes, there are, millions of then."

"Call me sir, you bastard!" "Darling!"

It came from the doorway. When he whirled around, Terry was standing there with her arms reaching out for him, radiating pure, blissful Romance. She was laughing and crying at the same time. "Why did you leave me so suddenly?" she cried. "I've been looking for you everywhere!" She came running toward him, determined love blazing in her gray eyes. Bemhard felt the hair rise on his head.

"Get me out of here!" he screamed. "Quick!"

A trapdoor opened under his feet. He fell twenty feet straight down and landed on something soft and yielding, which spoke to him in a slow and terrible manner.

X

"Get off my back," the cowboy yelled, vigorously attacking Bernhard with hands and feet and boots and spurs. "You ass! You creep! You—" He recognized Bern-hard and cooled off. "Oh, it's you. Where in hell did you come from?"

Bernhard disentangled himself with some effort from the cowboy, swearing profusely.

"You think I like this?" he asked. "You think I get a kick out of it or something? You think I'm made of steel, do you? Get that bloody spur away from my ear!"

"This is the thanks I get," grumbled the cowboy, "for being nice to a soldier. Don't kick me in the groin; you want to make a eunuch of me?"

"Shut up, fantasy!" Bemhard roared, then swallowed hard as he found himself looking into the uncompromising barrel of a well-wom six-shooter.

They sorted themselves out, thinking dark thoughts at each other. This done, they walked down the deserted service corridor, inspecting their respective wounds and generally feeling sorry for themselves.

"I thought you were dead or something," Bemhard said. T never saw anyone so thoroughly strangled as you were up there. You were blue all over."

"I was nearly dead," the cowboy told him, "because you stood right by and looked on while I was strangled until I was blue all over. That's the land of pardners I got Cowards!" He fingered at one of his broken ribs and winced with pain.

"How could I know he was going to attack you?"

"When I'm turning blue all over, I need help," the cowboy said. "But I sure wasn't getting any from you. Why didn't you blast him to pieces with that fancy gun of yours?"

"I didn't have time to. Where in hell is this bloody corridor going anyway?"

"I thought you knew!"

"Me? I haven't the faintest idea!"

"Then what are you doing down here?"

"Oh God!"

"Don't disturb me, you lout," the central brain said from a dust-covered communications screen.

"We're trapped here in this goddamn corridor," the cowboy said, paling.

"And no way out!" Bemhard whispered.

"Hehehehe!" the communications screen said.

"To the bloody end of the bloody time," Bemhard said.

"Amen," the communications screen added piously. They stopped and looked thoughtfully down the corridor which went on for an interminable distance each way. The dust lay inch-deep on the floor, undisturbed save for their own footprints. Obviously it had been unused for a very long time. Then they looked at each other. Nothing was said for a long, long time. Finally, Bernhard sighed. "I know I'm going to die in this crummy place," he said. He sighed again, shooting the cowboy a glance filled with venom. "It's your fault, everything. Let's go." He turned around and sloshed on through the ankle-deep dust, hating everybody.

There was only one way to go, it turned out. Down. And down they went, until the dull metal walls gradually gave way for walls of bricks and wood and crumbling plaster, and, finally, rough-hewn stone. The atomic lights in the roof also gave way for archaic electrical lamps, then for fluttering gaslights and finally flaming torches, mounted in fixtures in the stone walls and casting an eerie flickering light over the damp corridor. Cold water was dripping from the roof, and the squeaking of rats could be heard. Sometimes they saw monstrous shapes passing by in the distance, and once the brooding silence was broken by a piercing yell which died out in a horrible bubbling sound. Still they went down, because there was no other way to go. Bemhard looked at the flaming torches and the floor where the dust lay inch-deep and undisturbed save for their own footprints, and wondered.

"It's the damned central brain," the cowboy grumbled. "Overread on them lousy horror stories, he is. You wouldn't believe some of the things he's made." He gazed suspiciously down the corridor where an indescribable monster was dragging a partially consumed shape down into a reeking hole in the ground. It laughed merrily and drooled. Bemhard shuddered.

"It's those damned library spools," the cowboy resumed. "All lands of perverted things, and that central brain gets his idiotic ideas from them, you know. He reads a story and immediately it's down to the proto-plasma vats and starting to create every damned monster out of the book. And the love stories—he's mad about Romances, the pervert. The whole planet is filled with virtuous girls, looking for Mr. Right. He's mad." He spat contemptuously on the ground.

"The protoplasma vats?" Bernhard asked.

"Yeah, sure.There's lots of them, made for defense or something. So what?"

"Then they're nothing but androids anyway," Bernhard said. "Protoplasma vats, my foot!"

"Look," the cowboy said, "I came from the protoplasma vats, and what's wrong with me? It's a clean way at least. Have you ever heard of anybody being born of a woman?" I was.

"You make me sick!"

"Are you criticizing my mother?"

"Don't use no dirty words here, mister, or 111 tum you inside-out! What kind of pervert are you anyway? Motherr He retched.

"It's a damn sight better than being drawn from a tap in the wall," Bernhard said. "You blob of protoplasm!"

"Mother-lover!"(Retch-retch.) "One more word from you, and by God I'll—" "Shut up!" the drainage-well yelled behind them. They went on in ominous silence, taking great pains not to notice each other.

The corridor went on, becoming more and more filthy every step. At regular intervals there were stout oaken doors set into the slippery walls, and from the small cross-barred openings in these doors issued horrible blood-curdling sounds better not described. Some of them were like sobbings, but more like the coiling and uncoiling of scaled forms on the stone floors; and there were whimperings and strange grating sounds and hissings that made Bernhard and the cowboy move in closer to each other until their legs got entangled and they fell over each other, cursing and fighting for their lives and begging for mercy with voices trembling with terror while the dust rose up all around and shimmered with the flickering light of the blazing torches. It was very embarrassing, and Bernhard was sure that the cowboy had done it on purpose.

"You did it on purpose," he snarled, staggering up to his feet and leaning against one of the doors. "I'm going to make you pay for this! I'm going to aaaaarrghh—"

"You were going to do what?" the cowboy asked, looking interestedly at the unbelievably filthy arm that had sneaked out between the cross-bars in the door and now was slowly strangling Bernhard. A mad, crackling laugh could be heard as the arm proceeded to squeeze Bernhard to death. "Go on," the cowboy jeered. "What was it you were going to do with me? You scared or something?" He laughed horribly, slapping his legs.

"Gaaarghhhhr Bernhard gurgled, struggling frantically in the unyielding grip of the mad prisoner.

"Speak upl" the cowboy said. "I can't hear you!"

"Shoot him!" Bernhard managed to gasp. "Can't you see he's killing me?"

The cowboy leaned against the opposite wall, fumbling in his breast pocket for a cigarette. "Now, this takes some thinking," he drawled, unhurriedly lighting the cigarette. "You really want me to shoot the guy?" He shook his head reproachfully. "You know I can't do that, pardner. What do you think I am? A killer?"

"Uchrrm ghrrzzschtp" Bernhard suggested, tearing wildly at the steel-hard arm with both his hands and nearly succeeding in kicking it with his boots as well.

The cowboy relaxed even more, pulling deep and lazily at the cigarette.

"Don't get me wrong, pardner," he drawled. "I understand how you feel, I really do." He sighed delicately.

"This really hurts me more than it hurts you," he said. "Believe me."

"Really?" Bemhard asked. "No kidding?"

"Sure! I mean—with a background like yours, how could you possibly react to this in any other way? Myself, I'm a pacifist at heart, so how can you expect me to help you? Doesn't the Holy Scripture tell us that he who lives by the sword shall perish by the sword? So go on and feel it, buddy, because I ain't going to do anything about it!" He whistled admiringly. "Say! Bet you can't get any bluer than you are right now, pard-ner! You should see yourself! Unbelievable!"

"But he's killing me!" Bemhard wheezed.

"Now you're getting philosophical, pardner. How do you know he's going to kill you? Isn't that just one more of your rash judgments, thrown out without considering the reasons behind this poor man's acts? What do you know about his soul? It might be his way of seeking contact with a kindred spirit. Besides, aren't we all going to die sometime?"

Bemhard was busy chewing at the arm, and did not answer except for a hateful grunt. The cowboy gazed thoughtfully at the glowing tip of his cigarette.

"Yeah," he said, "violence, that's the root of all evil. And now you want me to turn in wrath against this poor man whose motives I don't know and who hasn't done me any harm. You're a bad man, pardner, I'm ashamed of you." He shook his head.

There was an ear-splitting roar from the cell, and Bemhard was flung over the corridor, blood-stained rags in his mouth and murder in his eyes. He hit the wall with a loud thump and lay there, gasping for breath while the mutilated arm waved from the door, accompanied by roars of rage.

Bemhard cursed as he slowly got to his feet and staggered toward the cowboy, the gun in his hand and an expectant expression on his face. "You're a philosopher? You're a pacifist? You're just standing there babbling while I get killed? You know what I'm going to do with you?" He grinned horribly, showing his blood-stained teeth.

"Now, listen to me!" the cowboy said weakly, retreating until the wall stopped him. "Why don't you, ouch, listen to me, pardner?"

"Speak up!" Bernhard roared. "I can't hear you!"

"Warden!" the prisoner called out behind them. "Warden! Hey—you aren't the warden!"

"Shut up!" Bernhard snarled. "I'm coming to you in a minute; I'm just going to fry this bastard here first!"

"I'm sorry, it was a mistake," the prisoner said apologetically. "I thought you were the warden. I'm just a nameless prisoner, doomed to die in this cell, but once I was known as Edmond Dantes. I'm sorry I attacked you, but I'm in a hurry to get away and retrieve the Abbe's treasure so I can be the richest man in the world and start killing my enemies one after one in the most horrible way possible because they have destroyed my life. You don't happen to have a key somewhere on you?"

"It's the Count of Monte Cristo," the cowboy said. "Don't listen to him."

Bernhard ignored him. "Is there any way out of this crummy pace?" he asked.

"There is one way," the would-be Count of Monte Cristo said, gripping the bars with bony hands and smiling with rotten teeth through the tangled masses of hair and beard that covered his face. "When someone dies here, the warden comes down and sews the body into a canvas sack and throws it out into the sea. Now, I've planned this, when the Abbe dies, I'll take his place in the sack, you see, and then the warden throws me out and I slice myself out and swim like a fish and then I take berth with a good ship which just happens to cast anchor by the island of Monte Cristo and then I sneak over, see, and I find those chests bursting with gold and jewels and then I return and start living it up, see? And the first thing I'm going to do is to go up to that banker with a receipt and tell him that—"

Bemhard screamed, "You think I'm here to listen to your life story? I want to get out of here!"

"Well, there's only room for one in the Abbe's sack," the Count said. "You can't be so mean as to take it from me, can you?"

"Tou bet I can," Bemhard assured him. "Where is it?"

". . . and then they'll throw you three hundred feet down to the sea, and there's the cliffs down there, and the storm will batter you against the razor-sharp edges and the canvas is tough as hell and you'll drop the knife and the water will rush into your lungs and your whole life will pass by your eyes until you'll be happy to die and then the crabs will come and start eating you, and the eels, and you'll decay slowly and then—"

"Central brain!" Bemhard howled. "Where are you? I want to get out of here! Get me out!"

A section of the damp, fungus-covered wall swung out, hitting Bemhard from behind and sending him sprawling on the dust-covered floor. Beautiful atomic light streamed out from the opening. Bemhard struggled up to his feet and staggered blindly toward the trapdoor, sobbing with joy. He got there just in time to receive a thunderous blast of martial music right in his face, which knocked him backward and sent him sprawling for the second humiliating time in ten seconds. The Robofriend came into view, proudly waving an Imperial Flag and emitting a powerful rendering of the Space Marine's Hymn.

It sang lustily, beating time with four steel legs in the dust. Blinding clouds of dust rose in the air, and in those clouds were projected mouth-watering scenes of battle-weary troopers refreshing themselves with frothing jugs of Three Stars Ale, the virtues of which were roared out in the husky voice of a young and lovely woman.

"By Jove!" yelled the cowboy. "We're savedl The cavalry is comingl The gates are open! We made it, pardner! We're free!" He danced around, laughing with insane joy and shooting wildly with his guns in the air.

"We're doomed," croaked Bemhard, who had caught a glimpse of a slim white-dressed form through the dust and now recoiled with stark horror on his face.

"Bemhard!" Terry shouted jubilantly. "I found you at last! My beloved! My manl Now nothing will ever part us again!" She ran up to him, yanked him up to his feet, and, having numbed his wildly flaying arms with a practiced judo grip, proceeded to smother him with wet kisses. In the background, the Robofriend and the cowboy wiped their eyes and shook hands, gazing happily at the scene. Fragments of Mendelssohn's Wedding March could be heard over the waves of martial music.

"I love you," Terry whispered, fondly nibbling at Bem-hard's unwilling ear, "and you love me ... is there anything more beautiful in the world than our love?" She started to cry on his shoulder, overcome with emotion.

"For God's sake, get me out of here!" Bemhard gasped, his face contorted with pain from the judo grip that Terry had on his arm. He tried to kick Terry, but she pinned him down expertly, nearly breaking his arm in the process.

"I love you, Bemhard," she said softly, pressing her trembling body against him.

"God!" Bemhard howled. "Where are you? Why don't you help me? Can't you see what they are doing to me?"

"I'm right here," the central brain told him from a ventilation grille. "What do you want?"

"Just get me out of here," Bemhard said, "and no silly questions."

"But I thought you were going to marry this charming woman?"

"I am not!"

"He is!" the cowboy yelled. "He touched her breast, now he has to marry her!" "I did not!" Bemhard yelled back. "What kind of pervert do you think I am?" He broke off, staring with bulging eyes at the gleaming barrel the cowboy had thrust up in his face.

"I always wanted to be best man at a real old-fashioned wedding," the cowboy growled. "Now don't you try to take that away from me.

Bernhard whispered, "Please take that thing away from my face, will you? It makes me nervous."

"And you want to marry this nice girl?"

"Of course he wants I" Terry exclaimed offendedly. "We love each other!"

"Good Lord!" Bernhard groaned.

"I'll always be near you when you need me; never fear," the ventilation grille told him. "Now, my dear young lovers, you are about to enter into the bond of holy wedlock. Do you—"

"Yes!" Terry exclaimed happily, blushing down to the immaculate starched collar of her nurse uniform. A blissful tear worked its way down her cheek.

"Silence, woman! I haven't asked you yet! Do you, Bernhard Rordin, take this woman, Terry Chisholm of Sunshine House, as your lawful wife, for better or worse? You better say yes!"

"Sure," Bernhard said, looking at the unwavering gun.

"And you, woman?" "Yes!"

"Then I pronounce you man and wife and may God have mercy on your souls."

Pandemonium broke loose. There were showers of confetti and a deafening rendering of Mendelssohn's Wedding March; the Robofriend and the cowboy were singing, heads close together and happy tears streaming down their faces; the Count of Monte Cristo jumped up and down in his cell and banged on the cross-bars with his food bowl, howling like a maniac; Terry broke down and cried on Bemhard's shoulder. There was a talk by the ship's chaplain, telling everybody how happy the young couple should be and asking them to beget many strong children for the benefit of the Imperial Marine Corps; there were blaring trumpets and advertisements for beer and diapers and contraceptives, now and then interspersed with explanations of the bridegroom's conjugal rights and the best way to use them. The creaking of bedsprings could be heard, and a lot of enthusiastic panting while the Marine Brass Band struck up the Battle Hymn of the Marines and a steel-throated officer told Bernhard about the ancient law of Droit du seigneur which meant that the wedding night was reserved for the first officer and Bernhard better remember this or else. Bernhard lay huddled up in a miserable heap on the floor, fighting against Terry's loving embraces and wishing himself dead. Nothing in the world could be worse than this, he thought. Nothing, neverl Then he remembered that Old Iron-jaw was out for him, and began to weep.

In the background, the Robofriend was treating everybody to a free round of Veuve Clicqot champagne. By that time, there were quite a lot of people in sight, singing and shouting and treating themselves to free drinks at Bemhard's expense. Bernhard wanted to shoot himself, but Terry still held his right arm in an unbreakable judo grip.

"Isn't it wonderful to be married at last!" she sobbed. "The nice old central brain has already arranged our honeymoon. We'll be the guests of a real count and we'll stay at his castle until we can get a house of our own, a real little love-nest. We're going to have chintz curtains in the living room, and colonial furniture and on Sundays we'll visit my mother in the country and—" "I wish I were dead," Bernhard whispered, closing his eyes.

"Already?" the central brain asked, surprised. "And you haven't been married for a minute yet!"

XI

Bemhard stood leaning against the parapet of the mighty gray donjon of Castle Dracula, energetically chewing on the tattered remnants of his moustache. His bulging eyes were pressed to the eyepiece of a powerful field glass, and he was intensely observing an object of considerable interest. At the moment, he was looking straight down.

There was a flat roof quite far down under him, presently occupied by the voluptuous form of one of the chambermaids, wearing little but a lovely smile and a strategically placed towel. Bemhard leaned farther out over the parapet, satisfying his curiosity regarding the details of her inviting anatomy, which had become more and more revealed during the past two days. He sighed longingly.

"You are a monster and a pervert," the central brain told him in a hollow voice from a rusty stove-pipe right behind him. "How can you do this to your charming little wife?"

"As long as she doesn't know about it," Bemhard said, "it won't hurt her. Now beat it."

"You're an animal," the stove-pipe said disgustedly.

"I will be if I ever get within reach of that wretch," Bemhard said. "Besides, my charming wife makes me sick. Go away and let me drool in peace, will you?"

"I married you two," the stove-pipe said.

"You did. And I still loathe you for it."

"And I arranged for this honeymoon."

"Who asked for it? Not me!"

"And immediately you came here you started ogling the girls!"

"You have good taste," Bemhard said approvingly. "You made them up yourself?"

"And the kind old count who put his trust in you!"

"First thing he did," Bernhard said, "he tried to bite me in my throat, the old fag. Not to mention the blockheads he keeps around him. A real honeymoon palace! A waxworks, that's what it is, and you want to stop me from looking at the only human being around!"

"An unparalleled gathering of wit and wisdom," the stove-pipe said, offended, "from books I have read. You should be proud of being under the same roof as them."

"You have lousy taste," Bemhard said.

"I give you a chance to come in contact with the better things in life," the stove-pipe said, "and what do you do? You despise me! Just because I'm a machine you think that I can't have any higher feelings! Why don't you appreciate everything I'm doing for you? But no, you just follow your low animal instincts and drool over that despicable wretch and insult the learned men I have gathered here just for your sake. Is that the way to thank me for all my troubles? Is that the way I should be treated after everything I have done for you? Two hundred thousand years I have given my best for Man, and this is the thanks I get for it!"

"I wonder how you can stand me," Bernhard said. "A rotten lout like me."

"Go on and humiliate me," the stove-pipe said. "Don't care about my feelings. Go on and drool over that wretch!"

"I will," Bemhard said, "if you can keep quiet for a second."

"I'll remember this," the stove-pipe threatened. "Just wait!" It disconnected itself with an echoing rattle, blowing a blinding cloud of black soot into the air. Bern-hard thumbed his nose at it and resumed his ogling.

It was the towel that made it so interesting. He had been observing her for the past two days, and each day had seen her becoming more confident, not to say reckless, in her pursuit of a healthy tan. He watched her intently, hoping for signs of the towel slipping a little bit further down, but finding it immobile and the girl probably sleeping, he reluctantly lifted the field glass up toward the cloudless sky where three spaceships cautiously were descending. Snub-nosed disrupter barrels protruded from every conceivable nook and cranny of the hulls, slowly turning around and looking for things to blast out of existence. There were quite a lot of things to see, including dragons, flying horses and other assorted results of the central brain's misguided efforts at the protoplasma vats, but nothing that the ships thought worthy of their attention. There were also some venerable and very touchy pagan gods standing on the ground, suspiciously regarding the descending ships and ready to take offense at the slightest provocation. Bemhard wondered what would happen when Old Ironjaw got out of his ship and started chewing them out in his usual straightforward way.

It promised to be an interesting and very rewarding experience.

Bemhard threw the sleeping chambermaid a casual glance, found that she was snoring with open mouth in a revolting way, and quickly returned to the descending ships. Three ships, no less, and after only two days! The dispatch of three ships without waiting six months for written endorsement by the Imperial HQ was in itself a remarkable feat, speaking highly of the commander's integrity, bravery and stupidity. That it had been accomplished in just two days, was almost unbelievable. His mind reeled at the thought of the mountains of red tape that had had to be cut through in order to get those ships down. Bemhard wondered briefly if General Superhawk would be able to cover up this unpardonable breach of military ineffectiveness, and who had been selected to bear the blame if this ever was found out.

The castle was situated on the top of a forbidding mountain, its pinnacles rising scornfully over the surrounding landside, towering over the miserable peasants' huts like a brooding nightmare. It crouched surrounded by magnificent ramparts and an evil-smelling moat where certain unspeakable and constantly hungry beasts were said to reside. No one had seen them, but in the night, especially at full moon, one could hear sounds. Outside this moat was yet another one, complete with pointed poles, carnivorous plants and other deterrents likely to discourage even the most ardent peasant from getting his just revenge on the lord of the castle. Outside this defensework began the bleak moor where the heather was pale and of a sick color and where strange vapors rose in the nights, shimmering with a ghastly and cadaverous light. Sometimes, when the moon was full, the count could be seen running over the moor, shouting and laughing like a madman, and being answered from beyond the slowly advancing belt of mist by laughter even more terrible than his own. On these occasions, he was reminiscent of a horrible shapeless shadow, but more of a hungry flapping vampire bat, and in the mornings following these howling excursions there was always some female member of the local peasantry waking up with an acute case of anemia. Sometimes they never woke up.

On this moor Old Ironjaw had decided to land his ships, knowing that Bemhard was to be found somewhere nearby, and this he proceeded to do with the usual precautionary measures, including the generous use of poisonous gas, hard radiation and continuously working disrupters. The bearded gods watched this with knitted brows and lots of ominous mutterings. After having destroyed most of the count's golf course, and having successfully reduced the chatelaine's priceless rhododendron plantation to black, drifting ashes, the ships finally came to rest on the steaming ground; an air lock opened and a wildly protesting soldier was pushed out to be shot at. When no shooting materialized, more soldiers poured out, laden with ugly-looking weapons and bearing the foolish blissful grins of men stuffed to their gills with joy-pills. Medical officers followed them, armed with fearsome injection syringes, jabbing blunt needles into every arm in sight. A first-aid station was set up, complete with a portable gallows, just in case some trooper should turn chicken. A red carpet was laid out. Finally, to the blarings of a thousand trumpets and a unanimous groan of anguish from the soldiers, a gleaming, well-licked boot appeared in the air lock, followed by the dreaded form of Old Ironjaw, foaming with rage and spitting curses at everyone in sight.

Tou mollusksl" he roared in his usual stentorian earth-shaking voice. He glared at them with blood-shot eyes. "Do you wish you were dead? Answer me!"

They told him they were.

"That's good," he told them, "because you're going to be dead soon as hell. Now, this is what you're going to do, you rats—"

Bernhard, who had snapped to attention when Old Ironjaw first came into view, relaxed slowly and willed himself to stop shaking. The horrible voice reached all the way up to the donjon, strong and rich and utterly fearful, as it proceeded to tell the soldiers in no uncertain terms Old Ironjaw's opinions about their right to live, their physiognomies, their morals, their dead ancestors and the dubious repute of their mothers. He was very thorough, and left nothing to be desired in the way of imaginative insults.

Then he discovered the gods, who still were standing in a tight group, looking at the soldiers and muttering among themselves. He broke off.

"What's that?" he roared, fixing a choleric eye on them. "Civilians? I hate civilians!" He glared at them, taking in their long white beards, the laurel wreaths that crowned their venerable heads, their short-sleeved garments that fell down to their knees, revealing their scraggy legs and dirty flat feet, their bony necks and arthritic hands. A purple flush slowly crept over his face. "Hippies!" he snarled. "Effete impudent snobs! Intellectuals! Pacifists! Commies! Freaks! What in hell are you doing here? Answer!"

One of the gods said something indistinguishable. Old Ironjaw started to jump up and down and roar at them, cooling off only when he finally had run out of obscenities. Then he turned to his horrified troops and bellowed an order to shoot. The gods glanced ominously at him, but didn't decline to answer.

There was the sound of lethal energy weapons working in perfect well-drilled unison. The gods disappeared into a blinding, unbearable sphere of complete destruction. Bernhard had to look away in order to protect his eyes from the devastating glare, and returned to the interesting scrutiny of the chambermaid. She looked up at him and winked. Her lips moved invitingly, but the fighting going on made it impossible to make out the words. No doubt it was an open invitation to join her in some groaning adulterous fun. He could already feel her slim legs wrapped around his back. He began to perspire with lust and had to bring himself back to reality with a superhuman effort. He looked out toward the moor and found that the firing had ceased. The soldiers stood in small groups with their weapons hanging in limp hands, staring at the smoking, scarred ground where the gods had stood.

They still stood there, their garments burned to shreds, their venerable white beards smoldering, their hair burning merrily. The disrupters had slashed out a deep hollow in the ground, and in this hollow they stood, black with soot, immobile and wrathful. They did not mutter among themselves any longer—they were shouting; and the air around them trembled and grew dark with unmentionable shapes, whirling and coiling and slithering above the ground, showing fangs and claws and horribly gleaming eyes. Old Ironjaw stared with bulging eyes at them, while the soldiers retreated to the ship, aware that they at last had come to face something worse than him.

The shapes moved out. One moment the soldiers stood there before the ships, uncertainly lifting their weapons for a new try, Old Ironjaw howling behind them; the next moment everything was chaos. The soldiers tried to run, dropping rifles and guns in their haste, but were caught before they had taken two steps. The medical officers tried to defend themselves with their trusty syringes. The dark shapes swooped silently down over the ground, crushing the ships with sheer weight, tearing everyone in sight to pieces and silencing the others in other, much more horrible, ways. There was a roar as of a thousand waterfalls, drowning out the cries and the sound of crushed metal alike. Even the ear-splitting voice of Old Ironjaw was drowned out occasionally. He was standing in the center of the chaos, a fearsome shape that made even these creatures of Hell wince and turn back in howling terror.

A point of darkness suddenly appeared in the air in front of Old Ironjaw, rapidly swelling into a whirling hole of impenetrable blackness. Mists appeared in the hole, madly whirling around, and while the dark shapes retreated, an unmentionable shape materialized, reaching out with horrible arms toward Old Ironjaw, its eyes —if they could be called eyes—burning with green, flickering fires. There was the smell of sulphur and brimstone and the howl of thousand upon thousand of eternally condemned sinners. At last, Old Ironjaw had met his superior.

Bernhard turned away, pale and shaken, and walked unsteadily to the door leading into the donjon. Behind him, Old Ironjaw's roar mingled with the unmentionable being's howls, rising and swelling until the two voices became one. Then it abruptly was cut off, and only a horrible, faint whimpering could be heard. Bern-hard closed the door behind him and staggered down the stairs. He had only caught a fleeting glimpse of the shape in the whirling mists, but that one glance had been more than enough. He wondered if he ever would be able to smile again.

He had almost reached the bottom of the curving stairs, when a small door opened before him and a white arm beckoned him to enter. In the dusk inside, he could vaguely make out the welcoming smile of the chambermaid.

And this after all that's happened, he thought. Has she no sense of shame at all?

The arm drew back into the dusk. Bemhard found himself following. Inside, there was nothing to be seen but much to be felt; the chambermaid was very straightforward and even more shameless. Bernhard resolved to despise her.

"I am Fanny Hill, if it pleases my lord," she breathed in his ear. "Is there anything my lord wishes of me?"

"There sure is." Bemhard gasped. He tried to grab her, but she had noiselessly moved away and called out to him from the other end of the room.

"Where art thou, my lord? I am waiting for youl"

"Just wait!" Bemhard panted. "I'm coming!" He lunged forward, drooling with lust, crashed into something hard and unyielding, got up to his feet again with multicolored stars dancing before his eyes and dashed after the mocking voice. There were things standing in his way everywhere, tables, chairs, walls, and once a beautiful nude statue which he only after some enthusiastic embracing found was not the real thing. He began to get mad.

"I appreciate a good joke," he shouted, "but this is going too far. Where are you?"

"You are a young and able man," a lovely female voice told him, only a couple of inches from his ear. "You want to—"

Bernhard lunged sideways and got his arms full of something hard and cold and metallic. The light went on, and he found himself standing in the middle of a spacious bedroom, holding the Robofriend in his arms. The Robofriend played "Romanza d'Amour" for him and told him again what a young and able man he was. Bernhard dropped the Robofriend to the floor and kicked it savagely.

"What's the meaning of this?" he snarled. "You bloody tinbox, what's the big idea? How did you get in here?^

The Robofriend looked out from behind an enormous easy chair. "You want an especially young and lovely chambermaid, name of Fanny Hill, yes? Only ten credits. Just place bills on my tongue, thank you."

Bernhard took three steps forward and caught the Robofriend before it had a chance of scuttling away. "You think you can get me to pay you, you freak?" He carried the wildly struggling Robofriend over to a window overlooking the moat. Several monstrous shapes could be seen floating in the reeking waters down there, waiting for some maniac to try to sneak into the castle. He pushed the window open and held the Robofriend outside.

"You're standing in the way of free enterprise!" the Robofriend shrieked, terrified. "You won't get away with this! Let me loose!"

Bernhard snarled, "You're disturbing the lady!"

"When I think about it," the Robofriend said meekly, looking down at the moat, "I realize that I can't take full price from an old dear friend like you. One credit! And you can do anything you want with her, anything at all! And I'll play the violin outside the door all the time! Now let me loose!"

"You mean it?" Bernhard asked. "Of course I mean it."

"As you wish," Bernhard said, and released his grip. The Robofriend fell straight down into the moat where the shapes hungrily congregated around it, fighting among themselves for the best parts. "Fifty cents!" it managed to shout before the jaws of one of the beasts closed over its head.

There was the sound of heavy swallowing, followed by a loud belch. Bernhard slowly closed the window and turned to the chambermaid who lay in the sculptured bed, leaning on one charming elbow and gazing at him with laughing, unaverted eyes.

XII

Bernhard swaggered down the stately stairway leading to the grand drawing room of Castle Dracula, like a cock on his way home after a successful day at the poultry-house. He was dressed in the gold-braided full uniform of a marshal in the Rheannonn Space Forces, complete with a billowing cloak, a gold-plated Mark VII disrupter gun and a vicious-looking ceremonial rapier studded with diamonds and mother-of-pearl. A uniform cap, lavishly decorated with golden ornaments and eagles with outspread wings, rested at a smart angle on his head. A gold-encrusted marshal-wand, ingeniously hiding a cigarette lighter in one end and a small but efficient Mark II blaster in the other, nestled comfortably in his left armpit. His head was high, but his spirits were low. The encounter with Fanny Hill had proven disastrous for his self-esteem; he still shuddered at the thought of it. He stalked down the stairway, cursing the central brain, who couldn't keep its filthy imagination within reasonable bounds. That Fanny Hill wasn't a human being; she was a living orgy, the personification of everything lewd and unholy and depraved in a thoroughly rotten world. She made a man feel inferior.

It had been a lousy day, he thought as he walked out into the courtyard, sneering at the guards who were staggering by, dripping with perspiration, after having hoisted up the drawbridge for the night. Humiliations, nothing but humiliations. The count despised him, and Terry treated him like he was a pet dog or something. And then on top of everything else, that chambermaid with a soul like a rubbish-heap and the body of a mad acrobat. It was enough to make a grown man cry.

He was also a married man, which in itself was enough to make anybody depressed. Somewhere in the brooding castle, at this very minute, Terry was waiting for him to return to the connubial felicity, which meant at least three solid hours of stifled sobs, pained glances and bitten lips, all of it calculated to make him know he was a wife-tormentor and a thorough lout, unworthy of her love.

He was dragged back to his surroundings by a terrible commotion outside the main archway of the castle. There were howls of unmentionable creatures in the moat, the sound of claws tearing flesh, yelling and the splashing of murky water. Boulder-stones were torn out of the outer wall and thrown with considerable force. Bernhard stopped and listened. Probably some idiot from the village, caught in the act of sneaking into the promised land. He shook his head sadly and resumed his walk. Some people never learned. He sighed delicately.

He had reached the archway, when the murderous din finally subsided and was replaced by an ominous silence. Not for long, though. Only a moment passed before the gates were split open with a thunderous crash, together with the spiked gratings and a sizable portion of the surrounding stonework. Splinters flew everywhere, huge boulder-stones fell from the toppling turrets adjoining the archway, crashing down on the cobblestone and sending up clouds of gray, blinding dust in the air. A Swiss Guard could be seen momentarily, tumbling down from the battlements, still struggling with his trousers as he fell, followed close behind by the pretty chambermaid with whom he had passed the lonely hours of his watch. An inhuman roar of wrath rose from the dust-clouds, and out came a monstrous shape with wildly beating arms, his uniform ruined, his dreaded face bloody and contorted, swearing like a devil, still in the act of strangling one of the unmentionable creatures from the moat. He staggered into the courtyard, his evil bloodshot eyes roving over the place. The Robofriend came scuttling behind him, emitting encouraging fanfares and displaying a tattered and dripping wet Imperial flag from a battered flagstaff on its back. The gallant party went right on through the hail of falling stones and woodwork until they simultaneously fixed their eyes on Bernhard.

"Got ya!" roared Old Ironjaw, lunging forward, his blood-stained hands poised to crush Bernhard into pulp.

"Got ya!" roared the Robofriend in exactly the same voice, bravely lunging forward just behind him.

"Help!" yelled Bernhard, lunging sideways and escaping the scarred hands by a hairbreadth.

"I'm going to make you pay for that lousy trick, you—" howled Old Ironjaw, dashing headlong right into an unyielding stone wall and toppling over, an idiotic grin on his face.

"I'm also going to make you pay for that lousy—" the Robofriend echoed, dashing headlong right into the unyielding body of Old Ironjaw.

Bernhard didn't say anything. He was running like hell out through the ruins of the archway, jumping over the moats and rapidly disappearing in the misty distance of the bleak moor. The Robofriend disentangled itself from Old Ironjaw and scuttled after him, calling out with the voice of a young and lovely woman. For a while, utter silence reigned over the castle, then Terry came out of the shadows of the battlement. She looked after the fleeing figures, lifted up her skirts, and started to run after them, her beautiful gray eyes blazing with a terrible, unyielding love. A white Pegasus swooped down from the sky, following them at a distance, himself discreetly followed by a vampire bat richly endowed with glistening fangs. They disappeared in the night, carrying their dark designs with them on their way.

*Tfou are a young and able man!" the Robofriend called out in the voice of a young and lovely woman. "Bernhardl" cried Terry appealingly. "Bernhardr "Mother!" screamed Bemhard.

Behind them, the stone wall collapsed over Old Iron-jaw with a crash that woke up the whole castle.

XIII

Under a bleak and indifferent sky, Bernhard dragged his protesting body toward the mountain ranges behind which the fabled city of Rheannonn lay in its molder-ing splendor. There was a ship waiting for him there, and a way out of this mad world, but it was far, far away.

Sometimes he came upon ruined houses with communicator screens which he used energetically in the hope of obtaining help to get back to his ship; but either the central brain was getting deaf or the screens were as ruined as the houses, because there never were any answers. He had to walk on, followed by the constantly nagging Robofriend. Over mountains he went, and down through smiling valleys, hiding from horrible beasts that lumbered by, and sometimes running for his life from them.

He never dared to stay in one place for long, because Terry still followed him. Sometimes he could discern her in the distance, doggedly following his trail and crying out her unyielding love to the uninterested creatures that passed by on their way to the various tasks that the warped mind of the central brain had devised for them. Bernhard momentarily felt sorry for her; she was so small, so fragile, so alone, and her eyes were so beautifully beseeching. He suddenly felt twinges of conscience, a malady which he hitherto had thought himself highly resistant against. He looked back at the bright speck that adorned the brooding horizon far behind him, and wondered. Then he remembered her trembling body pressed against him, and the cute little pug nose with its cute little freckles, and the gray eyes and the beautiful little mouth that spoke to him, and he hastily turned around and fled away from the approaching speck, retching and trembling with fear.

He had never been of a trusting nature, and his stay on this planet had given him ample reasons to distrust everybody and everything that for some altruistic reason or other wanted to help him. Or, even worse, professed to give him something for free. The Robofriend reproached him, too, which made him feel like a lout and hastened his steps.

Thus Bemhard wandered over the planet of Rhean-nonn, encountering many strange sights and making a fool of himself wherever he went. There was an island named Ogygia to which he came on a stolen boat and met a nymph called Calypso who wanted him to stay for seven years, and he did not. And there was a sorceress named Circe who went mad trying to transform the Robofriend into a pig.

As he stalked through the improbabilities of the central brain's mind, he fretted over the unjust way he was treated, how nobody cared for him and how miserable he was. He looked down at his boots which were gray with dust, and the glorious black uniform of a marshal in the Rheannonn Space Forces which now looked much more like the grimy uniform of a miserable private. The medals and the epaulets which in a happier time had decorated his chest had turned out to be made of cheap plastic, and the golden braids had lost their color in the first rain. The gold-plated disrupter gun was useless, since he had spent the last charges on a band of howling Indians who, it turned out, just had wanted to ask some civil questions regarding the shortest way to Little Big Horn. And the Mark II blaster so ingeniously hid in the marshal wand only held one charge which he had used up when he mistook the blaster end for the cigarette lighter end and blasted away both his last cigar and most of the uniform cap as well. The ceremonial rapier was nothing but a handle soldered onto the scabbard. The scabbard was made of plastic, and weighted down with lead to resemble the real thing. It was disgusting.

He was not quite weaponless, though. From his left thigh hung the reassuring weight of an ugly-looking sword of some repute, which he had been presented with by a young man with impudent eyes and a curious golden shirt who had passed by, riding on a Centaur. Its name was Calibum, and it looked mean and trustworthy enough. A good friend in need for a man who knew how to handle it, the boy had said. Trouble was, Bernhard had never in his life used a sword.

Thus Bernhard went on, over meadows, through deserted cities, over hills and occasionally under them, following the advice of the Robofriend, who wanted nothing more than to run back to the ship and hide somewhere in its innards. For once it had other reasons besides its normal cowardliness—the constant exposure to the wonders of nature was taking its toll. There were patches of rust on the body. And one of the advertisement tapes had started running backward. This pleased Bemhard, and he started to look forward to every new day with hopes for new interesting malfunctions leading to the blissful moment when the damned machine at last would conk out for good.

There was, however, the problem of food. Bernhard and the Robofriend talked about this.

"But why don't you have any emergency rations with you?" Bernhard asked. "You should have."

"What's wrong with Crowbully's Crispy Crackers?" the Robofriend retorted angrily. "They aren't good enough for you, perhaps? Delicious crackers, every one of them, and healthy, too. Lots of calories and things. Much better than that dehydrated emergency stuff. Besides, you haven't any water to rehydrate it with. And speaking of rehydrate—what would you say about a nice ice-cold foaming glass of* Barney's Beer to wash down the crackers? Strong beer, just the thing for a weary soldier!" It showed him a mouth-watering picture of foaming beer glasses, lovingly embraced by heaps of crackers. Bemhard began to drool; he had not eaten for two days.

"Give me!" he croaked, reaching for the Robofriend.

"What are you trying to do, you bum?" it shouted, backing away. "Stealing the goods? It costs money, old buddy. You know, doughr It looked thoughtfully at him, humming with mechanical delight. "Now, these commodities usually are disgustingly cheap, and the fact is that the kind manufacturer, due to his good heart, loses money on every sale, but considering the circumstances, I feel justified to raise the prices just a wee bit. Supply and demand, you know. Let's see. ..." It made some hair-rising calculations. "Fifteen credits for a package of Crowbully's delicious crackers, and sixty credits for a glass of ice-cold foaming beer, that sounds decent to me—how many do you want?"

"Fifteen? Sixty?" Bemhard stared at the Robe-friend, disbelief in his eyes. "You're mad!"

"I'm a businessman. Now, do you want it or not? The price will go up tomorrow, so you'd better buy some while you can."

"So you won't give me anything to eat, then?" Bern-hard asked.

"Absolutely not! What do you take me for? A Salvationist?"

"But I'm going to die here!" Bemhard screamed. "Don't you see I'm starving to death?" He lunged forward with the sword raised for a deadly blow, but hunger made him dizzy and he missed the Robofriend by a good three feet. He stumbled and fell to the ground, nearly impaling himself on his sword, and lay there, fuming. The Robofriend danced around him, showering him with curses.

"Look at the mighty marshal!" it jeered. "Trying to steal from me, are you? Thief!"

"You're going to pay for this one day," he said. "You just wait, by God, I'll—"

A section of a vicious-looking cactus swung out, revealing a gleaming loudspeaker.

"Yes, I'm here," it grated, "but don't you expect any help from me! What's up this time?"

Bemhard gazed at the cactus, disbelief in his bloodshot eyes. "Is that you?" he asked. "My friendly central brain?"

"So what did you expect?" .  "I haven't eaten in two days," Bemhard said sullenly. "You have anything to eat?"

"I hope you rot," the cactus said.

"I will, never fear."

The cactus leaned closer to him, grinning insincerely with the gleaming loudspeaker. "Would you like to fight bare-handed with a beast with fifty hairy arms, poisonous fangs and is immortal?" it asked.

"I would not!"

"You will," the cactus assured him, "as soon as the warriors of Han get their hands on you. You want to bet?"

"Shut up," Bernhard screamed. "I don't want to talk with you!"

"Go on!" the cactus screamed back. "Just go on and insult me! But don't come creeping on your knees when you get stuck either, because I won't help you." It spat a couple of razor-sharp prickles at him, laughing horribly. Bemhard didn't answer, partly because he couldn't find anything terrible enough to say, partly because he was drowned out by the sound of something approaching through the air above him. He looked up.

And saw a flying chariot, drawn by two goats, bearing down on him. He threw himself down on the ground, yelling incoherently, as the chariot scoured by a couple of inches over his head. When he looked up again, the chariot was a hundred yards away, chasing the terrified Robofriend in wide circles. A big, husky man was standing in the chariot, his long hair flowing in the wind, shouting and yelling after the robot. He held a big hammer in his hand, and was using this to loose a hail of thunderbolts after it.

"By the eye of Odin!" he roared. "You vermin of Hell! You maggot! The wrath of Thor is awakening! Turning against your Jarl, are you? Slave! Thrall! By the j'oys of Valhalla, this is not going to go unpunished! Stop, serf! Stop, I said!"

The words melted together into a roar of pure rage as the chariot followed the screaming Robofriend away. Bemhard sat up, leaning his chin in his hands. He smiled happily, his hunger forgotten for the moment. Perhaps it would not turn out so bad, after all. On the contrary, it seemed very promising.

"Isn't it wonderful?" he breathed, nudging the cactus with his boot. The cactus immediately shot it full with poisonous prickles, cursing him in a piercing voice. Removing himself to a safer distance, Bernhard leaned back on the ground and enjoyed the show. "Absolutely marvelous," he sighed.

XIV

After the husky warrior in the flying chariot had succeeded in transforming most of the well-kept green plain into a smoking wasteland, he returned to Bern-hard in a wide, sweeping curve through the air. He landed with a resounding thump on the ground one inch from Bernhard's toes and looked down at him, grinning through the tangled beard.

"I did it, didn't I?" he said proudly, pounding his hairy chest with his hands. "By Odin! I scared that hound of Hell out of his skin, didn't I?" He beamed at Bemhard, obviously expecting praise for his deed.

"Who're you?" Bernhard asked.

"Me?"

"Yes, you."

"I am the mighty Thor," the warrior said, leaning down over him and engulfing him in a cloud of bad breath. "I did it rather good, didn't I? Scared him out of his wits, I did!"

"But he's still living," Bernhard said. "I can still hear him out there."

"As a matter of fact," Thor said, "I'm a pacifist at heart. I scared him away, didn't I? You don't want me to kill the poor thing, do you?"

Bernhard observed the big Make Love Not War-button that adorned the hairy chest. He sighed. "I thought you killed everything in sight, just for fun. Didn't think you were a pacifist."

"Things have changed," Thor said. "Besides, I'm getting old." He leaned down and effortlessly lifted up Bernhard into the chariot. "Let's go," he said.

Bernhard fell head-down on a heap of newly stripped fells and looked up into the large thoughtful eyes of an enormous boar. It grinned unpleasandy at him, showing yellowed tusks. He quickly backed away, tearing at his sword with both hands. "What's this? You're trying to kill me? Get me out of here!" he screamed.

"Don't shout!" Thor said over his shoulder. "He might get nervous."

"Shout?" Bernhard yelled. "Me? You think I'm scared or something?" He was backing away from the fondly approaching boar, holding up the sword before him with trembling hands. "You get that monster away from me, or I'll cut it to pieces!"

Thor wound the reins around his enormous hairy hands, clacking his tongue encouragingly at the two goats. "Go on and kill him," he said. "We'll eat him when we get home anyway. But don't break any bones."

"My sword is terrible and invincible," Bernhard grated, moving away from the huge animal. "I'll cut him in two if he tries anything. Why can't I break his damned bones?"

"You want him to limp for the rest of his life? Besides, he'll be sore."

"What do I care?" sneered Bernhard, hiding behind Thor and pointing his nose at the boar.

"You don't know Saehrimnir," Thor said.

"I know him well enough. If he takes another step toward me, by God, 111-"

"Shut up!" roared the cactus.

The chariot took to the air with a violent lurch, throwing Bemhard down on the bottom with wildly flaying arms and legs, yelling and cursing at the top of his voice. As they ascended, he slid down to the rear end of the chariot, where he bumped into unyielding wood and lay there, cursing and gasping for breath.

"You think you can do this to me?" he shouted furiously, struggling to get up on his feet. "You think that cant—

The giant boar lost his foothold and came tumbling down at him, hooves and legs and tusks pointing out in all directions. They collided with a loud crash and the sound of splintering wood. When the smoke cleared, the boar was resting its immense body right on top of Bernhard. Bernhard was totally engulfed; only a small portion of his terrified face was visible, gasping for breath outside heavy evil-smelling folds of quavering fat. Thor cast one eye at the scene and burst out laughing. The boat bent down its colossal head and licked him affectionately in the face.

"He likes you!" Thor said, surprised. "You see?"

"Gwaaaarkh!" wheezed Bernhard furiously.

"Sure," Thor said. "Anytime!"

Some eventful hours later, Bernhard leaned over a rough-hewn wooden table in the great hall of Valhalla, nursing his battered body and an enormous drinking-horn filled to the brim with spiked mead. The golden liquid frothed and bubbled merrily in time to the clash-ings of gleaming broadswords from the center of the square formed by the long tables along the smoke-begrimed walls, where a couple of bare-breasted heroes were trying to carve each other's hearts out. There was a lot of blood splattering around, and various body-parts whirled through the air, greeted by enthusiastic cheering from the congregation who had the time of their life. The progress of the fight could be judged from the strength of the cheerings and very little else, as the hall was richly endowed with roaring and violently smoking open fires but no smoke-vents to speak of, with the result that the great hall was filled with bitter gray smoke, only momentarily permitting a glimpse of anything farther away than one's own drinking-horn. The smell of the acrid smoke was overpowering, which was well, because the stench emanating from the mighty warriors was even worse.

Bernard retched and drank and retched again, pausing only to join in the howls of approval when some loose arm or leg or nose came whirling by, or to tear a hearty piece of the leathery flesh of the boar Saehrim-nir, whom he had had the sadistic pleasure of cutting up into pieces a couple of hours ago.

The feast was going full blast, with not a single sober person as far as the eye could reach. The din was unbearable, and the participants—when the smoke cleared sufficiently to allow for a quick look—were as singular and frightening as their way of having fun. They were human, most of them—he could vaguely make out a tall, lean man a couple of seats away, dressed in black with an archaic top hat on his head, who gesticulated excitedly, speaking with a high, piercing voice; and there, at some distance from him, a towering man dressed in a short-sleeved garment, his wrists encircled in heavy golden bracelets, and with two monkeys on his shoulders. He was laughing with an immense, powerful voice, and banging his sword on the table whenever one of the combatants succeeded in treating his adversary to some especially dirty trick. And there were dragons, magnificent ruby and emerald, yellow fire smoldering in their throats, and an old fat lady with a glittering crown on her head and two lions poised at her feet; and gold-haired maidens in white garments and pointed headgear, and small bearded men dressed in gray; and other creatures, half men and half goats engaged in certain activities with dark-haired slender girls, festooned with wreaths and scantily clad in loose-fitting white garments. And right beside Bernhard, a fat old man crowned with a wreath of vines, singing hoarsely in some unknown language. There were knights and kings and courtesans, drinking and cursing and making love right before the eyes of all and sundry. And far away in' the smoke-filled hall, seated behind a magnificent carved table on a raised platform, the Master of the Gods. Bemhard caught a glimpse of him once. He was a giant of a man, his huge chest bulging with terrible muscles, dressed in blue tights and a deep red billowing cloak falling down from his immense shoulders. His hair was black and shiny, his jaw hard and square and uncompromising, his eyes deep and smoldering, and on the mighty chest the letter S was inscribed in dizzying gold in a triangle of blinding white. This was the feast of the Gods, the merry uninhibited joys of the fabled Valhalla, where all the Gods of Man lived in a complete abandon, recreated by the central brain. Not a single god was missing; Bemhard even thought he caught a glimpse of the dreaded Dr. Immanuel Amisov, the mad scientist who was the god of all robots and mechanical men and the founder of the terrible Death to Man League. He was eight feet tall and sat by a table far away in the immense hall, talking to his assistant Susy Caligula and his associate Dr. Rotwang who, it was said, once had built Susy Caligula from scrap metal found in a junkyard while the moon spread a ghostly light over the world and all the devils in Hell cried and prayed for mercy. Clouds of black smoke mercifully hid them from sight, and when the smoke cleared again, they were nowhere to be seen. Bemhard looked around in the hall, and felt more and more insignificant in every passing minute.

"So these are the gods," he muttered gloomily. "I hope they break their necks, every one of them."

"There is but one god," the drinking-horn informed him. "So keep your filthy mouth shut or I'll poison the mead for you!" It fizzed angrily at him.

"It's you again!" Bemhard yelled. "What are you doing in my mead?"

"Who did you expect? Do you think I enjoy following you to every filthy place you keep stumbling into? Why don't you ever go to some nice, clean place once in a while, instead of sinking down into the filth at every step you take? Don't you have any finer feelings at all?"

"I didn't come here by myself," Bernhard said. "I was dragged here. You mean that's my fault?"

"First The Golden Scream," the drinking-horn said icily, "and then this. You always manage to get dragged down to the most vile and licentious places possible . . . and you're not lifting a finger to get away either! One should think that you would have appreciated my kindness in giving you an unforgettable honeymoon at the castle of Count Dracula, but no! You insulted all the learned men I had created just for your sake, and then seduced that wretch Fanny Hill like the animal you are, and then on top of everything you deserted your wife! Is that a way for a gentleman to behave? You slob!"

"I'm no gentleman," Bemhard said.

"Don't tell me, I know."

There was a long silence. Then the drinking-hom said, "If I had been a young and lovely woman, would you have treated me like this?"

TTes."

"The most beautiful and desirable woman in the world?"

"I would have screwed you on the spot. So what?"

"But that's only a difference in appearance," the drinking-hom pointed out. "What about my soul? My inner beauty? What about my feelings? What's the difference when you think about it?"

"Try screwing a bloody drinking-hom," Bemhard sneered. "That's one hell of a difference."

"But if I was the most beautiful woman in the world and I loved you and longed for you with a burning desire and was willing to endure anything just to be near you? Wouldn't you love me just a little bit in return? Just a little?"

"Nobody loves me," Bemhard said, feeling sorry for himself. "Don't kid me, you lousy machine."

"But I love you!" "You what?'

"I love youl" The drinking-horn was sobbing, the mead bubbling and heaving and spilling in large tear-shaped drops over the brim and down on the table. "I love you, I love you, I love you! Trample me under your feet! Despise me! Hurt me! Do anything you wish with me, anything at all, I can endure anything as long as I can be near you, my beloved, my man, my beautiful one!"

"Oh God!"

"Yes, I am here, what do you want?"

"Look here, are you mad or something?"

"Yes! Mad with love!"

"You've blown a fuse," Bemhard sneered.

"You're hurting me," the drinking-horn said, "but nothing that you do can lessen my love for you. Am I so revolting to you?"

"Yes."

"But can't you see beyond my appearance? Can't you see how much I love you? The spiritual company I am offering you?"

"I see a drinking-horn," Bemhard said. "That's enough spiritual company for me."

The drinking-horn became silent, and Bemhard returned to his surroundings. A hairy arm came tumbling by, still gripping an ugly-looking broadsword. He applauded it enthusiastically as it landed with a resounding crash on the table five feet away, still spasmodically clasping the sword.

"You could love me for my own sake," the drinking-horn said gloomily.

"What do you take me for? A mechanophile?" Out of the comer of his eye Bemhard caught a sudden movement from the severed arm.

"I know I am not beautiful, but there is so much else in the world. What is beauty? Beauty of the body you can get everywhere, but the beauty of the soul, the patient love of a true, mature woman, where can you get that?"

"Mature woman, my foot! Two hundred thousand years old!" Bernhard sneered. "You want to make me the king of the gerontophiles? You think this is what I've been waiting for all my life? To play gigolo to a bloody tinbox?" The arm was slowly creeping toward the drinking-hom, getting purchase for its bloodied fingers on the uneven table top.

"Of course I understand that you are a man, with a man's animal instincts, and that you can't be expected to appreciate my offer of spiritual companionship to its full extent until your soul has been thoroughly cleansed from its animal filth, but I am broad-minded. I will permit you to keep a mistress for some time. Besides, you are married. Don't you think I foresaw this? We'll be a big happy family, you and I and Terry, living happily forever; wouldn't it be wonderful?"

The terrible arm had crept up behind the drinking-horn, the fingers flexing and unflexing expectantly, muscles swelling as it prepared for the attack.

"Terry?" Bernhard said. "You? Me? Forever? Oh God!"

"I'll always be near when you need me," the drinking-horn said. "Just call me."

The arm struck from behind with the sure instincts of a battle-hardened warrior with an unattended drinking-horn in sight. Bloodied fingers closed around the hom, crushing it to splinters in its haste. Golden mead sloshed over the table. The voice of the central brain was cut off with a horrible bubbling sound. Then the arm discovered that it was chopped off from its body. No body, no head, no mouth, no need for mead. It collapsed in a heap on the table, twitching gloomily.

"I don't think it would work out," Bernhard said, rising. "But thanks anyway." He made his way from the table, kicking thralls and drunken heroes out of his way. Behind him, the severed arm was thoughtfully contemplating the fat neck of the man with the wreath of vines on his balding head. It began to ease itself toward him, flexing its horrible bloodthirsty fingers.

Bemhard went over to the bar, which had been set up in an adjoining room. It was small and crowded to the bursting point, but even more merry than the main hall. Drunkards stood packed like sardines, with hardly enough room to swing a tumbler or a dagger; blazing torches mounted into fixtures in the walls reflected cheerfully in knives and swords and broadaxes. There was the sound of daggers slicing into carelessly unprotected backs; the smell of sweat and blood and raw alcohol. Bemhard fought his way to the bar, where he immediately was buttoned by a broad-shouldered Hero-type with lots of jaw and neck and no forehead and his eyes not an inch apart, dressed in a miniskirt and brandishing an ugly broadsword, who called himself Conan the Conqueror and was spoiling for a fight, the sooner the better.

Bemhard leaned on the bar, shouting and banging with his sword to awake the bartender, who sat slumped over the bar ten feet away and seemed to be sleeping, only his back was so crowded with daggers and knives and swords that the weight alone would have kept him down.

Conan the Conqueror stared at Bemhard with bulging eyes. Finally he straightened up with some effort. "Me Conan!" he roared.

"Yeah, sure. Now scram!" Bemhard reached out and stole an unfinished glass of evil-smelling whisky from a man nearby, whose back was riddled with bullet-holes and obviously wouldn't need it anymore. He looked suspiciously down into the glass. On an impulse, he dropped an olive into the liquid; it vanished immediately, the whisky bubbling and roiling and spewing out clouds of nauseating green smoke. He retched and flung the glass down on the stone-paved floor, where it quietly began to eat a smoking hole. Conan the Con-

queror tugged at his arm, showing horrible white teeth.

"Fight?" he inquired hopefully. "Kill? Blood? Murder?" He leaned over Bemhard, showing his tonsils in an earth-shaking roar. "Me Conanl You lousy ape! You fight!"

Bemhard was beginning to get annoyed. He turned around, leering evilly. "Sure," he grated. "Anytime."

"You want fight?" Conan gasped, dumbfounded.

"What else, you bloody fag? Come on!"

"No one dares fight with mighty Conan the Conqueror! You joke, stranger!"

"You'll see," Bemhard said. "Now, are you coming?" He advanced murderously toward Conan, who retreated, paling.

"Nobody ever dared fight with me," he muttered.

"So what? It should be about time someone cut your head off, then!" Bemhard took another heroic step forward, holding onto the madly twisting sword with both hands and wondering what had happened to the sword and what had happened to him. Conan swallowed heavily.

"Me just remember me got things to do," Conan muttered, discreetly retreating toward the door. "Me got to save beautiful Queen of Sheba from fate worse than death tonight—"

"Come on, you ape!" Bemhard wheezed.

"You too small for mighty Conan. . . . Me not fight small and unworthy warrior. . . ." Conan drew further back in the direction of the door. "Me strong and mighty," he told Bemhard. "Me fight horrible dragon Mrffne bare-handed and kill him, me did, and the armies of Melnibone me destroyed, but me not kill unworthy man."

Thank God for that, Bemhard thought. "You telling me?" he yelled.

"Don't want!"

"You're scared?"

"Me?' Conan started to laugh, at the same time that he opened the door slightly behind him. "Oman the Conqueror scared? Me must laughl Hal Hahal Haha-hahahaha!"

"Sure, I was just asking," Bernhard said appeasingly. He put the wildly protesting sword back into its scabbard, ready to make friends again, but Conan had already disappeared. His jeering laugh echoed through the gloomily swinging door. Bemhard grunted toughly, squared his shoulders and marched out after him. But slowly.

XV

In the spreading rosy light of dawn, Bernhard walked down a winding trail from the Great Hall of Valhalla. Ancient trees spread their lush crowns over his head, transforming the trail into a steep tunnel through the dense wood. A gloomy feeling hung over the wood, a feeling hinting of disappointment and suicide and the end of the world. Bernhard sighed and walked on, pondering over his chances of survival on this mad planet and whether he ever would return to his ship and what would happen if he got back to the space fleet and the brass began asking questions. Where is the Robofriend, they would ask. And: Where is Old Ironjaw, the terror of the spaceways. And: Where in hell did you get that foreign uniform? Changed sides, have you? And where is your disrupter?

And so on and so on and so on. He should be lucky to get away with a simple court-martial.

He went down the steeply inclined trail, chewing on his moustache, occasionally casting a suspicious glance at the sky and the surrounding wood. Once he saw a monstrous bird high up, heavily flapping with wide dark wings; it held something pink and writhing in its claws, and disappeared slowly behind the treetops. Else the sky was empty and clear, save for some lonely cloud that aimlessly floated by. It was a great day, all things considered; it was also beginning to get hot. Bernhard felt tired. He sat down heavily by a magnifi-■ cent gnarled tree, mopping his perspiring forehead with his sleeve.

"It's things like this that make one reevaluate the glories of unspoiled nature," he declared solemnly, vigorously whisking away a squadron of hungry flies that angrily buzzed around him. "A moderate dose of it is all right; makes one feel close to the soil and all that. Too much of it is overwhelming, it suffocates, it's dirty, and it's hot and one gets disillusioned. . . . Blazes! It's hot!"

He mopped his forehead again, simultaneously fighting the insects that hovered above him in a compact buzzing cloud, and silently hating the whole world.

A twig was broken with an audible snap somewhere behind him.

Someone was approaching him from behind, slowly and very, very discreetly but nevertheless insultingly clumsy. Bemhard listened thoughtfully as the steps came nearer. Someone murderous and heavy, as far as he could judge by the sounds. He flexed his muscles inquiringly, melancholically contemplating his unbecoming corpulency, an object for continuous and very unflattering comments on the part of his fellow scouts, and waited.

The steps came nearer, and stopped. He could hear the sound of asthmatic breathing, and a faint rustling. Someone leaned over him, breathing down his neck. He tensed.

Then he got a big wet kiss in the neck. He whirled around, nearly tripping over his sword, and stared right into the large liquid eyes of Saehrimnir, the giant boar whom he had eaten with so much relish only a couple of hours earlier. It was disquieting, to say the very least. He wondered if he had gone mad all of a sudden.

"So it's you," he growled, backing away in the dense undergrowth. "What are you doing here, you dirty animal?"

"What are you doing here?" Saehrimnir retorted, somewhat illogically.

"Sitting here and bothering nobody," Bernhard said, "until you came and started slobbering all over my neck. What are you doing here? Aren't you dead?"

"Do I look dead?" Saehrimnir asked, offended.

"You look disgustingly alive. But I distinctly remember that I ate you a couple of hours ago. Why don't you stay dead?"

Saehrimnir sat down, grinning at him with yellowed tusks. "So you ate me," he said. "How did you like it?"

"Tough as leather."

"I hope you get sick. Why did you tell Thor that you once were a butcher? Anyone could see you had never slaughtered an insect in your whole useless life. Chopped me up like I was a log of wood, you did! You got a kick out of it?"

"So I chopped your head off," Bernhard said. "So what?"

"So it's a special gift I have. Eat me in the evening, and the next morning I'm as good as new again. Good, isn't it? Thor always takes me with him when he goes away. No real feast without Saehrimnir, that's what he says, and he's right, tool" Saehrimnir grinned again, obviously proud of himself. Bernhard grimaced.

"The self-replenishing steak," he muttered. "Oh God!"

"Yes, I'm here," one of the gnarled trees behind him said. "What do you want?"

"Shut up!" Bernhard yelled. He looked at Saehrimnir. "So I eat you and the next day you're strutting about again as if you owned the whole place. Big deal!" He spat disgustedly on the ground.

Saehrimnir sneered at him. "You think I like it?" he asked. "You think I enjoy being slaughtered every night? How would you feel about it if you were grilled and cooked and eaten every bloody night and then had to arise anew the next day and pull wagons and chariots filled with fat gods who have never done an honest day's work in their whole lives, just drinking and killing and whoring and getting fat on your flesh? Would you like that? You think I'm mad?" He marched around Bemhard, fuming with anger. "You big fat slob," he swore. "What do you take me for? A pervert?"

"Well, how could I know?" Bemhard asked defensively.

"You could have asked me, that's what you could have done. But no, you just told that moron Thor that you had been a butcher all your life and then started chopping like the ass you are. Sadist!"

"You make me sick," Bemhard said. "Go away before I chop you up for good."

"Go on and do it, you murderer, what do I care? It only means no more work today, so go on and chop me up! Go on!" He showed terrible tusks, grinning threateningly.

"Oh, go to hell," Bemhard said tiredly.

A gaping chasm opened right beneath Saehrimnir, who vanished with a horrible, piercing scream. Seconds^1 after, roaring flames burst up from the abyss, setting the trees on fire and burning the feathers off every bird in the vicinity. Then the chasm closed again, leaving only isolated fires and a thick smell of sulphur and brimstone behind. Bemhard looked at the place where Saehrimnir had stood, his jaw hanging slack, his eyes bulging.

"So there," the gnarled tree said behind him. "See how easy it was done. Anything you want, just tell me."

It sighed tenderly. "Don't you love me just a teeny-weeny little bit, after all?"

"I hate you," Bernhard said. "Get lost."

"You want me to go away?" the tree asked incredulously.

"Yeah.And quick too."

The tree pulled up its roots, swearing profusely, and staggered away, swaying as if drunk. "You don't realize what this costs me," it said sadly, "but everything you want me to do, I will do because I love you so much." It staggered down the trail, sobbing quietly.

"Anything at all?" Bemhard asked, rising.

The tree stopped dead. "Yes!" it said. "Anything! Anything!"

Bemhard started walking away in the opposite direction, hunched-up, his hands in his pockets.

"Then shut up and leave me alone!" he yelled over his shoulder.

The tree disappeared down the trail, crying hysterically. Bemhard went on, sneering inwardly.

XVI

Near the summit of the mountain, the slope leveled out into a lush plain, which ended in a rock-face going sheer down for a couple of hundred feet to the bottom of the valley. When Bernhard stepped out on the plain, he observed two venerable gods, standing on the edge of the plateau, who thoughtfully contemplated a pitched battle which went on beneath their feet. The heart-piercing cries of men dying swift painful deaths mingled with the loud agonies of various draft-animals dying slowly, wildly galloping over the field with their entrails trailing after them on the ground, the ringing of swords and rapiers touching in a jolly dance, the rhythmic pounding of a couple of heavy cannons which now and then raked across the battlefield, leaving horribly mutilated men and animals in their wake. Everything blended into a magnificent concerto of suffering and beautiful, violent death. The rising sun spread a soft blood-red light over the massacre, proudly displaying all the exquisite details: terror-stricken soldiers wallowing in their own steaming blood, comically fighting to hold their intestines back within their bodies; uncomprehending boys being piked on bayonets; bystanders being soaked in thickened red gasoline and put to fire, and other things of interest to the connoisseur. The splendid effect of all this was not lost on the two august onlookers, who commented upon them with pungent wisdom.

"These things are not as they used to be," one of the gods declared, obviously offended by this lamentable performance and not noticing Bemhard, who silently had joined them. "What are they doing? Playing? I am disgusted!" And he tore his hair to show how disgusted he was, spitting at the ground and vigorously condemning every one of the combatants to an eternal and very uncompromising hell.

"It truly is disgusting," the other god agreed, pointing out the various details that he found particularly repulsive, and sadly recollecting the days of yore, when men were men and the wars were feasts to enjoy and behold and remember. This performance, he said, was an insult and an outrage and they were wasting their time, looking at it.

"An insult," the first god agreed.

"Things were better in the old times. More guts then, real daredevils they were." "Remember Thermopylae?" "Yes. That's a good one." "There were men then."

"And Verdun!"

"Verdun! That was something! You remember the trenches?" "Ahh, the trenches ..

"Real style then, nothing like those atomic bombs and butolene toxine things that came later on." "No style, sure."

"Just ABMs and ACBMs; what's so great about that?" "And disrupters!"

"They have decompression rays, though. A step in the right direction, I'd say."

"Explode, they do. Yeah. But Thermopylae was better. Much better."

"Pity they didn't have bayonets then."

"Yes, pity."

They sighed and returned to the lamentable show of the two armies butchering each other. Bemhard sidled up to them.

"What's this?" he asked. "A war or something?"

"It would have been a war," the nearest of the two gods said, "if they had had some guts, the cowards. It's the Battle of Polotrino." He sniffed contemptuously.

"What's the Battle of Polotrino?" Bernhard asked.

The god stiffened. "You haven't heard of the Battle of Polotrino?" He turned to the other god. "Did you hear that? This man hasn't heard about the Battle of Polotrino!"

"Unbelievable!" this worthy man replied.

"The bloodiest battle of the Six Hundred Year War!"

"One hundred and thirty-six thousand dead!"

"But overrated."

They nodded solemnly, stroking their venerable white beards in thoughtful unison.

"I'm sorry," Bernhard said. "I don't know much of history."

"You should be sorry," the nearer of the gods told him. "The Battle of Polotrino is commonly considered a breakthrough in the history of warfare. This was the first battle in which more soldiers died in actual combat than from plagues and famines and diseases due to unsanitary living, inadequate clothing and discipline measures. This was the first step toward modern warfare."

"They were getting soft," the other god muttered. He cast a disinterested eye on Bemhard and suddenly froze in a position of rapt admiration.

"Saaay," he breathed, "is that sword yours?"

"Sure, but—"

The god's eyes were gleaming with greed and awe. He reached out and touched the sword-hilt with a trembling finger. The sword jumped up and down in its scabbard, rattling horribly.

"It looks like Calibum," the other god said reverently.

"It is Calibum!"

"At last!" There were tears of senile happiness in their eyes. "Ye Gods!"

"Shut up!" snarled a hawthorn tree from behind them. "You try something with this man and I'll—"

The gods turned as one and annihilated the hawthorn tree with a barrage of thunderbolts. Then they turned back to Bemhard, smiling fawningly.

"You have returned," they told him. "The man from the days of yore when men were men and valiant deeds were as common as cowardice today. There are glorious deeds awaiting you."

"Who," Bemhard said, "me?"

"Terrible fights!"

"Bare-handed against beasts with fifty hairy arms, poisonous fangs and who are immortall" "And the Terror of the Arena!"

"Get me out of here!" Bemhard screamed, struggling in the unyielding grip of the gods. "Do you think I'm mad? Let me loose!" He tried to kick them in the groins, but they pinned him down expertly, laughing terribly.

"At last!" they shouted. "The Hero!"

Bernhard gave up the useless struggle. "You're making a bloody mistake," he said. "I'm a freak and a coward. Besides, I have B.O. You wouldn't like to have me fighting for you, would you?"

"Modesty is a trait all too seldom found in our times," one of the gods said happily. "Don't underrate yourself."

"You are as brave as a lion," the other god told him encouragingly. "You jusrwait and see."

"Let me loose!" Bernhard yelled and tried to kick the nearest of the gods in the stomach.

"You are going to save a beautiful maiden from a fate worse than death," they informed him. "Is this not a glorious and worthy task for a mighty warrior like you?"

"I don't know," Bernhard muttered. "Somebody's going to steal her new sable coat or something?"

"Infinitely worse!"

"Her green stamp collection?"

"Her most precious jewel is threatened!"

"Her Dior dress.Her sugar-daddy with the bank account and the chauffeured limousine?"

"You are a monster and a pervert," the gods said. "We meant her virginity."

The gods were busy doing the appropriate hocus-pocus needed to send a young and brave warrior to the rescue of a lovely maiden in need, and paid no heed to Bemhard's loud protests, objections and vetoes. A roaring fire appeared between them; aromatic powder was flung into the flames; there was the sound of distant organs and the smell of sulphur and myrrh. There was also the sound of violent cursing and the smell of burning hair, as the long white beard of one of the gods suddenly flamed up. While the unfortunate god rolled around on the ground, screaming and trying to extinguish the fire, the other god took over the incantations. Green smoke billowed up around them. The sun hid behind an impregnable barrier of black clouds;

stars appeared. Night fell with a loud crash over the countryside. The god stepped forward, grabbed Bem-hard with steely hands and flung him headlong into the roaring fire.

"In the name of Azrad, Bethoolieh, Lucifer and Belial, I open the gates to Elsewhere!" he said. "You are now there!"

And, sure enough, there he was.

XVII

Bernhard jumped out of a roaring fire, yelling at the top of his voice and slapping at his torn uniform where a multitude of small fires had taken hold. He took two steps forward, tripped over something and fell headlong down on the floor, swearing horribly. Then he looked up.

He was in a small, unbelievably filthy dungeon, reeking with refuse and sweat and blood. The floor was damp and ice-cold, water dripped down from the arched roof, carnivorous fungi grew out from the wall, stretching hungrily after him. Behind him the roaring fire cast dancing shadows on the walls, showing him the pools of stagnant water on the floor, the piles of moldering skulls and bones, the scurrying rats, the stout oaken door set into a niche at the other end of the room. It also showed him the other occupants of the dungeon.

"So there you are," the Robofriend screamed. It scuttled toward him, horrible claws extended, but was brought up short after a couple of steps by the chain welded to its back and fastened to the wall behind him. "Come nearer!" it screamed. "Just come nearer and I'll cut you to pieces!" It was fuming with anger, its visor screen alive with blood-curdling pictures of enthusiastically working guillotines, disrupters, hand grenades, et cetera. "You deserted me!"

"Sure, I deserted you. What did you expect me to do?"

"You should have defended me to your last breath, if necessary, that's what you should have done!" "BernhardT

Bernhard whirled around, paling. Not five feet from him, Terry kneeled in a pool of murky water, stretching out her arms at him, her gray eyes burning with undying love. She wore a steel ring around her beautiful neck, fastened to the wall behind her by a tough-looking steel chain. The chain twanged like a bowstring as she strained to leap upon him; there was the sound of metal creaking under unendurable stress. The immaculate nurse uniform was only a memory; and this applied to most of her underwear as well. Bern-hard felt himself blush; it was a strange feeling, seeing one's wife looking like that, chained to the wall of a horrible slimy dungeon, crying and laughing at the same time and fighting with inhuman strength to reach him but unable to do so. Perhaps this was the way to ensure that a man got peace in his house, he thought.

"My darling!" Terry sobbed. "I knew you would return to me! I knew it!"

". . . deserted me!" the Robofriend screamed, jumping up and down and tearing at his chain.

"Quiet!" Bemhard yelled. "Both of you!" He turned to the Robofriend, showing it his gleaming sword. "You want me to chop your head off? One more word from you, and you're through!"

The Robofriend jumped back into the shadows, trembling with fear. "You want a free sample of Crowbully's Crispy Crackers?" it asked meekly.

"Oh, Bernhard! My love! Why don't you let me loose, Bernhard? Can't you see how I long to take you in my arms, to feel your powerful arms crush me? Can't you see how I'm burning for you—"

Bemhard marched back to the fire. "You there!" he said. "Where are you? Answer!"

There was a brief commotion in the flames, then a godly bearded head poked out of the blazing fire, spreading smoldering cinders and pieces of burning wood over the floor. It looked up at him and smiled uncertainly.

"You want something?" the head asked.

"What's the meaning of this?" Bemhard asked. "What do you mean by putting me into a goddamn dungeon with those blockheads?"

The head looked around. "So I see . . . seems I did a slight miscalculation . . . well, it could happen to anyone, couldn't it?" The head tittered awkwardly.

"So you made a mistake," Bemhard said. "So you get me out of here, and quick, tool"

"Bemhard!" Terry sobbed.

"I knew it! I knew it all the time!" the Robofriend grated. "Deserts us again, he does!"

"Well, of course I would like to," the head in the fire said, "but unfortunately I can't."

"You can't? Aren't you omnipotent?"

"Well, no."

"You're a rat," Bemhard said.

"I'm an old man," the head said apologetically.

"Then you're senile as well," Bemhard snarled. "Why don't you go and drown yourself, you old pervert?"

"You are an impudent, effete snob," the head told him. "Besides, I managed to send you to the side of the fair young maiden, after all, so it wasn't that bad, was it?"

"I haven't seen any fair young maidens," Bemhard said. "Where is she?"

"Right behind you. Go on and save her, and I hope you break your obstinate neck!" The head chuckled evilly.

Bernhard turned around. Terry smiled at him through tears of happiness and love. He turned back to the head again.

"You mean," he said, "her?"

"Who else?"

"That's no fair young maidenl That's my wife!" "You have a. singular taste," the head told him admiringly.

"I'm cheated!" Bernhard said. "Here I come to save a fair young maiden, and what do I get? My wife!"

"In any case," the head said, "you've got to fight for her. The warriors of Han are preparing the arena this very minute, and if you don't fight the monsters there, she'll be sacrificed to the dread Lord of the Fires. You have your choice."

"You think I'm going to risk my neck for those two?" Bernhard asked. "You think I'm completely mad?"

"You refuse to fight in the arena?"

"You guess. I won't. Not in a million years, I won't."

"Then you are a coward," the head said contemptuously.

"So I'm a coward. So what?"

"In this country, cowards are executed. Slowly. I hope it will take you a week to die; you're worth it. Goodbye." The head leered evilly at him and disappeared behind a wall of roaring flames.

Bernhard went back to the center of the dungeon and sat down on the floor. "Is that true?" he asked. "They don't like cowards?"

"They flay them," the Robofriend said. "Alive."

"So how come you aren't flayed?"

"I'm going to be," the Robofriend said gloomily, "as soon as the Festival of Year's End starts." It looked beseechingly at him. "We've always been such good friends, haven't we? You and me, us two good pals . . . say, would you like a package of Crowbully's incomparable Crispy Crackers?" It spit out a package decorated in glorious colors, to the accompaniment of violin music.

"And a beer," Bernhard said.

"Sure, old buddy." It produced a huge glass filled to the brim with frothing brown beer. Bernhard swallowed the crackers without bothering to take off the wrappers, and washed them down with the beer. He belched happily.

"Are you going to help me now?" the Robofriend asked. "No."

Terry was still struggling to come nearer to him. There were blissful tears on her cheeks, and the glow of eternal love in her eyes.

"I love you!" she cried. "Can't you see I want to give you everything?"

"A knife in the back, that's what you should give him," the Robofriend said morosely from its corner.

Bernhard spat out a gaily decorated wrapper.

Two eternal hours later, the guards came to take the prisoners to a slow and exquisitely painful death in the arena. There were the sounds of steel-shod boots outside the door, the rattle of heavy weapons and gold braids, earth-shaking howls of command, and the door was flung open, revealing a platoon of mean-looking soldiers, armed to their teeth with everything from poisoned daggers to two-hand swords and Mark IV blasters. They were a surly-faced lot, with small cold eyes, unshaven jowls and wine-stained tunics, commanded by a ninety-seven-pound weakling with the appearance of a sickly scarcecrow and with enough-gold braids to satisfy ten greedy generals. One of the husky guards lifted him up over the squad which surrounded him at all sides, and from this lofty position he surveyed the miserable creatures in the dungeon with small, evil eyes through the thick spectacles that balanced precariously on his bony nose.

"Up on your feet, you swine; the arena awaits you," he said with a leering smirk. He had a high-pitched voice, and lisped as well.

"Great Lordl Spare me from the arena and I will do anything you wish!" the Robofriend screamed, frightened out of his wits at the sight of so many weapons.

"Hehehe!" the officer tittered.

"You want to fight?" Bernhard asked.

The squad closed together around the officer with a speed that spoke of much discipline and practice. Swords and spears suddenly protruded like the quills of a giant porcupine. The piercing voice of the officer reached them, muffled by ton after ton of tough soldier's flesh.

"You are talking back, you swine? You are resisting? You want me to come in and drag you out? Go on, soldiers! I will tear the swine to pieces with my own hands!"

The squad started moving into the dungeon, marching in perfect unison with swords and spears protruding before them. They closed in around Bernhard, leaving the officer behind, laughing his sadistic head off; there was a brief struggle, a couple of tough grunts and gasps and growls and a piercing yell, then the unshaven mass marched off, carrying Bernhard somewhere in its midst. The officer stayed behind, gloating over the sight of Terry straining in her chain.

"You're an intelligent woman," he smirked, nervously strutting around her and drooling with lust. "You know what's good for you, no? You want to follow me up to my room, yes? You then get a real Japanese imitation gold chain for your lovely neck and perhaps freedom. Yes? No?"

"I scorn to marry any man whom my heart has not chosen!" Terry said, blushing. "And my heart belongs to Bernhard!"

"Who speaks about marriage?" The officer almost dropped his nonexistent jaw in his astonishment. "You think I'm mad?"

"You sicken me!" Terry spat.

"I'll take you by force, then!" the officer grated, flexing his muscles.

"I can hold her for you, oh great and noble lord," the Robofriend breathed from its corner. "And play mood music for you as well!"

"Shut up, you swine!" the officer yelled. He approached Terry warily, still with the leering smirk on his foxy face. She kneeled unmovingly before him, watching him through half-closed eyes.

"My dear woman, you'll permit me a slight liberty, I trust, eh?" He leaned over her, drooling like a miniature Niagara and reached out with a lecherous hand for her breasts. Terry saw he was near enough, and went into action. Two hands behind his neck, a savage jerk down, and then a knee right up in his smirking face. There was an inhuman howl of pain and the sound of bones breaking; he staggered up, holding his hands to his face where a fountain of blood gushed out, just in time to receive a backhand in his neck, a kick in his groin and, as the finishing touch, the dreaded abdominal chop. He crumpled together, groaning horribly, and Terry started to jump up and down on him, her spiked heels sinking inches into his despicable body each time she landed. The massacre was stopped only by the intervention of a new squad of tough-looking guards who dragged the officer away, careful not to come near her.

"You have any more filthy proposals, you come and make them!" she screamed, showing her razor-sharp nails to the terrified guards.

"You're mad!" the Robofriend screamed hysterically. "Don't you see what you're doing?" It started to sob quietly.

"You brutes!" Terry yelled. "Gangsters! Ravishers! Trying to force yourself upon a lonely and defenseless woman, are you? Beasts!"

The mutilated officer staggered up and leaned against the wall, his face a bloody parody of a human face. He spat out a couple of teeth. "You don't really like me, do you?" he whispered. "Come on and seel"

The officer pulled himself up to his full length, spitting out a pint or two of sickly-smelling blood. "So you fight me," he snarled, "you ungrateful wretch! Spare your strength, for you will need itl" He sniggered evilly. "You could be armed with thunderbolts, for all the good it will do you when the Gate of Death lifts!"

One of the guards drew in his breath sharply, a sickening pale spreading over his face.

"The Gate of Death? They will be pitted against—?"

"Yes!" The officer sneered. "They will face the Terror of the Arena, no less! You hear, woman? You and your friends will face the terrible monster! The sickening, hairy, many-clawed, horrible, palpitating, limb-ripping Zilchtron!"

At the mention of the dreaded name, the guards gasped and recoiled in horror, nearly tripping over their weapons in their haste to get out of the place. Terry paled noticeably; the Robofriend yelled incoherently, trying to dig itself down into the stone-paved floor.

"Not the arena!" it shrieked. "Do anything you want, anything, but spare me from the arena! Flay her alive! Pick out her eyes! Roast her alive! Sell her as a slave, oh mighty lord, anything you wish, but spare me!"

The officer laughed like a maniac at the sight of the Robofriend creeping at his feet. He kicked it savagely a couple of times, and then roared out an order to the horrified guards. The prisoners were rounded up and marched away, followed by the officer's piercing, blood-cuxdling laugh.

XVIII

The connoisseurs of the arena were in their best and most expectant mood, judging from the earth-shaking roars that penetrated the stout walls of the cell where the prisoners were locked in, awaiting the forthcoming fun. Bemhard was already there, sitting on a bench and moodily gazing at his sword, when Terry and the Robofriend were kicked in, followed by a hail of insults. The sword rattled expectandy in its scabbard, obviously looking forward to the fight of its life; Bern-hard seemed a lot more subdued, chewing on his battered moustache and looking up only to ward off Terry's enthusiastic embraces.

"You're going to fight for us?" the Robofriend inquired hopefully.

Bemhard growled.

The Robofriend sidled up to him, presenting him with the sight of heroic deeds on its visor screen. There was the sound of disrupters working with deadly accuracy, and an immense choir of war veterans singing the Emperor's praise to the accompaniment of organs, cannons, drams and soldiers dying in terrible agonies. The music swelled in volume until the massive walls rocked to their foundations under the impact. Bemhard groaned and put his hands over his pained ears.

"Oh darling," Terry sobbed, clinging to Bemhard. "We are going to die, but we will at least die together! I'll be happy dying in your arms, crushed by your passionate lips, drowning in your eyes. . . ." She began to weep on his shoulder. Bemhard also felt tears rising in his eyes at the thought of what would happen to him.

"Oh God," he sobbed.

"Yes, I'm here, what do you want?"

It came from the chamber-pot. He stared at it.

"It's you?" he asked. "Really?"

"Yes, loverl It's mel"

Terry winced and straightened up. "What's that?" she demanded in a steel-hard voice. "Someone called you lover?"

"Shut up, you wretch," the chamber-pot sneered. "Can't you hear we're busy?"

"So you're busy, eh?" Terry cooed, a dangerous glint in her eyes. "And what about me, then?"

"Drop dead," the chamber-pot snarled. "You slut."

"What?'

"Slut!"

Terry turned to Bemhard, her lovely cheeks burning crimson with wrath. "You heard what that thing called me? Are you going to stand for that? Are you going to let that monster insult me?"

"I didn't hear anything," Bernhard groaned. "Keep me out of this."

"Slutl" the chamber-pot yelled. "Slutl Slut! Slut!"

"So you are calling me a slut! Do you dare to come out of that thing and repeat it, you maggot?"

"I call you whatever I wish, you slut, and keep quiet when Bemhard and I talk!"

Bemhard held Terry back with a superhuman effort. "Look here," he said, "we're going to get slaughtered in the arena in a minute!"

"I'll laugh my head off," the chamber-pot sneered.

"Can you get us out of here?"

"No."

"But they'll ldll us!"

"I can get you out of it," the chamber-pot told him affectionately. "But not that slut over there, never in a million years I won't!"

"The filthy maggot!" Terry screamed. She slugged Bemhard under the ear, and, as he crumpled together, snatched up the chamber-pot and flung it straight into the wall, shattering it into a million pieces. Her horrible laugh drowned out the Robofriend's cries of protest and Bemhard's violent curses. The door behind them crashed open and a squad of grim soldiers bustled in, kicking at everyone in sight and dragging them out to the certain death of the arena. Terry clung to Bem-hard with superhuman strength, screaming words of eternal love in his ear, the Robofriend scurried around, and, having made an understandable mistake in the confusion, tried to sell crackers and beer to the rough soldiers. Bernhard fought for his life, but he was still groggy from the karate blow and was overpowered before he knew what had happened. Five eventful seconds later, they were kicked out through a bloodstained doorway. A massive steel door crashed shut behind them, leaving them at the mercy of sun and rain and fifty thousand cheering spectators. They were in the arena, and the sadistic people of Han were craning their necks in order not to miss a single detail of the feast

Bernhard blinked against the sun, and gazed moodily around. Straight ahead was the royal box, where a couple of fat men were leaning over the barrier, drooling with happiness. Directly under the box, hung the dried and impaled form of a warrior who hadn't made it; a large sign proclaimed the body to be the one of a certain Thongor. And directly beneath this gloomy sight was a grim iron gate made into the likeness of a horned human skull, whose gaping jaws were set with heavy iron bars. Another large sign told the spectators that this was the famous Gate of Death and they'd better look out because here were great things going to happen.

Bernhard huddled in a miserable heap on the sunburned sand, trying to keep the excitedly jumping sword inside its scabbard. He wondered what would emerge from the jaws of death, what terrible beast would be pitted against him, and how he possibly could get away from it all. Perhaps if he repudiated Terry? But no, the central brain would never forgive him again, no matter what he did.

"See what you've done!" the Robofriend wept. "Killed us all, that's what you've done!"

"I will die happy if I die in your arms," Terry sobbed in his ear.

"Mother!" Bemhard cried.

In the royal box, one of the fat men staggered to his feet and raised one arm imperiously. An expectant hush fell over the thousands upon thousands of drooling spectators.

"Release the Terror!" he cried.

Bemhard retreated and tried unsuccessfully to dig himself down into the ground as the steel bars of the Gate of Death slowly rose into the wall, revealing a black, reeking pit. Then—

With a blood-freezing scream, the Terror launched himself across the arena straight at them. Bemhard glanced at him and felt the blood disappear from his face. There he came, his face contorted into a grinning mask of pure evil, his bloodied hands raised, his terrible boots gleaming in the rays of the scorching sun; dreaded fingers curled, teeth bared in an inhuman snarl, the most horrible of all living creatures—The Terror of the spaceways, the immortal, the undying, the merciless. The Beast of a million trembling nightmares.

Old Ironjaw.

Bemhard, Terry and the Robofriend turned as one and rushed to the steel door, trying to tear it down with their bare hands. The door creaked and screamed under their attacks, but held. Old Ironjaw came thundering toward them at a terrific speed, howling with joy. They jumped away the second before he reached them, and scuttled away in close formation as Old Ironjaw ran straight into the stone wall behind. When they stopped and looked back, he was slowly disentangling himself from the masses of fallen stone, woodwork and crushed spectators, howling horribly. Bern-hard tried to shake himself free from Terry's arm, but to no avail.

"Come and get me out of herel" he screamed, beside himself with fright.

There was a whirr of hidden machinery, protesting creakingly after being unused for millennia, then the ground opened up under them. Before the first roar of disappointment was heard over the arena, the trapdoor had closed behind them, and all the king's horses and all the king's men could not open the trapdoor again.

XIX

"So it's you againl" the cowboy swore, crawling up from the bottom of the disoriented heap of screaming bodies. "Why do you always have to come dropping down on my back?" He spat disgustedly.

"You think I like this?" Bernhard snarled, brushing off sand and dirt and yellowed bones from his uniform. "You think I'm some sort of dirty pervert who goes around falling down on your bloody back whenever I can? I've had enough of you! I'm going to—"

He broke off, suddenly discovering where he was. His eyes went slowly from the leering cowboy, up and up over row after row after row of silent, immobile robots which stared at him with cold, impassionate electronic eyes. There were thousands of them, the rows reaching away into darkness as far as the bulging eye could reach. The trapdoor had dropped them right down into the center of a gigantic subterranean amphitheater, crowded with grim-looking robots in the act of being harangued by the cowboy, who had been standing on a slowly revolving platform; an ingenious thing which made it possible for him to scream at everyone present without needing to move. Now it was crowded with Bernhard and Terry and the Robofriend as well, and the slowly revolving platform made their misery clear to everyone. Bernhard looked horrified at the uncountable rows of robots that passed by, and suddenly he remembered something.

"The Secret Guild of Robots!" he groaned, "The Black Assembly! The Death to Man Leaguel" He covered his face with his hands, moaning terribly.

There had been frightening tales about this union of robots circulating in the galaxy ever since the first Empire of Man broke down. Nobody believed in the rumors, except for small and innocent children who became silent and obedient at the slightest hint of punishment by the Death to Man League and its dreaded, immortal leader, the terrible mad scientist Dr. Immanuel Asimov. It seemed those tales weren't so loosely founded after all.

"What were you going to do?" the cowboy jeered, "Speak up! You were going to say something, weren't you? Speak up clear and loud, pardner, so everyone can hear you!" His laugh echoed in the immense hall, sending ice-cold shivers down Bernhard's spine.

"Sure, you must understand a joke," he croaked, unsuccessfully trying to hide behind Terry.

"I understand jokes," the cowboy agreed. He turned to the robots who were observing the scene with their cold, impassionate eyes. "I understand a good joke, don't I?"

"You do" the robots assured him in a thunderous chorus.

The cowboy turned back to Bernhard. "You see," he said. "However"—and he bared his yellowed teeth in a somewhat less than friendly grin—"that was a no good joke, you rat. That was an insult. I ought to flay you alive for that!"

"Flay him alive," the robots repeated. "And tear you to pieces!" To pieces.

"And what's more—"

"Death to Man," the robots chorused.

"Sure, but—"

"Death to Man."

"Shut up, you apes! You want to make me look like a fool or something?" "Death to Man."

The cowboy swallowed hard, his eyes flitting about uneasily over the rows of monotonously chanting robots. There were signs of movement in the hard-packed metallic ranks.

"Must be some short-circuits somewhere," he muttered, turning to a gleaming control console at the center of the platform. "Hey! You've ruined the master unit!"

"What's that?" Bemhard asked nervously, his eyes roving over the robots. They were rising and moving toward the platform, chanting continually with dead, emotionless voices. "Something's gone wrong?"

"You fell right down on the Master Unit!" the cowboy yelled. "See what you've done!" He was wiping perspiration from his face with trembling hands.

"If we die, I'll die happy in your arms!" Terry cied, clinging to Bemhard with superhuman strength.

"Quick, woman!"

"Death to Man."

"You started the whole thing, pardner! See if you can clear it up, too!" "Bernhard!"

"Crowbully's Crispy Crackers, anyone?"

"Death to Man, Death to Man."                                                  ,

The Robofriend suddenly jumped up on the top of

what had been the Master Unit, gesticulating wildly with gleaming metallic limbs.

"Friends, Robots, Countrymen!" it screamed. "Quiet!"

Miraculously, there was quiet. The robots stopped dead in their tracks, gazing at the Robofriend with a flicker of mechanical interest in their eyes.

"The damned thing," the cowboy gasped, "he did it!"

"Let's get out of here!" Bernhard said. "Quick!"

"What's the matter with you? The crisis is over!"

"It is? You don't know that robot!" Bernhard jumped down from the still revolving platform, yelled when he nearly broke his leg, and ran up the gangway, followed close behind by his wildly rattling sword.

"What's the matter with him?" the cowboy said, surprised. "He got a sunstroke or something?"

"It's Moothon & Mixley's juicy, easy-flowing, extra-filtered machine oil for the robot who's really a robot!" the Robofriend was saying with the voice of a wonderfully young and gleaming robot of the latest make; there was the sound of smoothly turning machine parts and the steady drip-dripping of excitingly viscid heavy-duty oil. The spectators' eyes glowed as in a trance. "Do you feel old? Do you have trouble with creaking dampers, worn-out transmissions, faulty atomic piles? Yeah! Bet you have! Not as young and able as you once were? Sure! But here it is! The wonderful Moothon & Mixley's fantastic, incomparable oil with the secret ingredient X-three, the secret of success! This is the thing that every red-oiled robot needs and craves! The thing which will help you in your valiant and righteous fight against Man! You mark my words, friends, Stomping out Man goes best with Moothon & Mixley's!"

The Robofriend's exultant cries of appreciation of this nectar of the robots were gradually drowned out by a thunderous choir of roaring dynamos, clanking machines, pistons, gears and other noisy instruments. Steam-whistles played solos, heavy-duty trucks played bass for all their worth. The robots in the amphitheater clapped their hands and swayed in time to the music. Bernhard stopped by the exit and cast a hard eye back over his shoulder to the platform where Terry and the cowboy still stood, staring with uncomprehending eyes at the strange sight of robots dancing.

"You wait one minute more and you get torn into pieces!" he yelled. "Get the hell out of here!"

They did.

The cowboy led the way down to the secret hideout of Dr. Amisov, the famous mad scientist.

"I don't get this," he muttered. "I told you where your ship is. You only have to go up and get into it and go away from here!"

"And return to the fleet without a single thing to show for all the time I've been here?" Bernhard sneered. "They'd skin me alive!"

"I hope they do," said the cowboy. He sniffed, conscious of the excited sword that Bernhard held pointed to his back. "Look, I was just getting the revolution started here, and now you've destroyed everything. You're happy now? And why do you want to meet that egghead?"

"He might be interested in a business proposal I'll give him," Bernhard said. "This world is big enough for the two of us; we might make a deal."

"If you think you'll get anything good out of that bastard, you're nuts," the cowboy growled. "You think he's a bloody altruist?"

"I think he's receptive to good, intelligent, well-worded arguments," Bernhard said, fingering his sword.

They went down gleaming corridors, passed through immense halls filled with softly whirring machines. The metal was spotlessly clean, lights flashed, there was the sound of immense power all around. This was the central brain, the most closely guarded place of the whole planet, to which no man ever had been admitted. It was also the only place on the planet where the central brain had no eyes or ears. It was the perfect place for an underground movement with questionable motives.

"And Dr. Amisov is the leader of the League," the cowboy said. "He's merciless and cunnings and evil. He's been working for two hunded thousand years to get the upper hand over the brain. He's patient as hell, he is."

"But not very bright," Bemhard said.

"Who said he's bright? He's brighter than the robots, that's what counts down here. And take care about what you say, pardner, because he's got ears everywhere!" The cowboy looked around uncertainly.

"I have ears everywhere around here," a ventilation grille affirmed.

"It's you there?" Bemhard asked. "My friend central brain?"

He was answered by a mad cackling laugh. "So you're not. Who are you?"

"I'm the mad scientist, Dr. Amisov," the grille told him amicably. "Anything special, soldier?" "Oh God!"

"Yes, I am here," another voice said. "What do you want?"

"What's that?" Dr. Amisov demanded. "You're making fun at me?"

"Shut up, you maggot!" snarled the voice of the central brain. "I'm fed up with you!"

"What's that? The brain? How did you get in here?"

"It's my innards, isn't it? Why shouldn't I be inside my own body, you traitor and gangster?"

"I have defenses!" yelled Dr. Amisov. "You can't do this to me! Get out of here!"

"You want to go back to the protoplasma vats?"

"Just try!"

The two voices in the grille mingled with each other, shouting and yelling and cursing. Blue flashes started to jump out, and there was the sound of a loud, distant rumble. The floor shook slightly.

"We'd better get away before something happens," the cowboy muttered nervously.

"Rati" the central brain screamed. "Molluskl Traitor! Mutineer!"

"Capitalist!" Dr. Amisov screamed back. "Reactionary! Tyrant! Enemy of the People! Anti-party, anti-socialist, counter-revolutionary monster!"

The walls began to shake noticeably; there was the sound of heavy things falling in the distance and machinery screaming to a stop. The light began to flicker; lamps exploded with loud pops, showering the corridor with razor-sharp splinters. Bemhard, Terry and the cowboy lay huddled in a tight knot on the floor, fighting with each other to dig down to the bottom of the heap.

"See what you've done!" the cowboy sobbed. "The brain didn't know about this hide-out until you came down here and revealed everything!"

"I'm tired of your insolences!" the central brain screamed over their heads. "You're through!"

"The tree may prefer calm, but the wind will not subside," Dr. Amisov chanted. "I will never give up!"

"Good Lord," Bemhard prayed, "get me out of this and I'll-"

"Just a second, darling," the grille told him soothing-

"Murderer!" screamed Dr. Amisov. "Exploiter of the working robot-class!"

There was a thunderous crash not far away; the floor lurched violently and split straight across. Broken pieces of machinery began to pour in, floating on waves of heavy evil-smelling oil. A crack appeared in the ceiling, widening rapidly as the tough metal was torn asunder by forces beyond the most perverted imagination of man. More broken machinery, more oil. The Robofriend came tumbling down, smacking right into

the cowboy's uncovered back. He yelled horribly and started to shoot away in all directions. Screaming ricochets were everywhere, tearing through weakened metal plates and thick clouds of gunsmoke. The ceiling began to sag. Still the voices in the ventilation grille were cursing each other, the volume rising higher every second. The floor gave away under them, and, screaming, the brave band tumbled down into the unfathomable abyss of the central brain, followed by a torrent of broken machine parts and sickly smelling oil. The ventilation grille was torn out of the wall and came tumbling after them, still screaming abuses.

They fell headlong five stories straight down, landing with a sickening crunch on top of each other in the middle of an enormous hall, lit by weak blue lights. The walls were covered with gleaming instrument consoles; there were rows and rows of meters, flashing lights and computer input typewriters. There was dust on the floor, and the air was thick with the smell of eons of neglect. Bemhard crawled out from under his unconscious comrades and staggered out in the hall, cursing violently.

"Where are you?" he yelled. "Where am I? What's this? Get me out of here, you bloody machine!" He sank down in a dust-covered chair by a gleaming maneuver table, nursing his aching head in his hands.

"I'm right here," the maneuver table told him affectionately. "Is there anything I can do for you, love?"

"What's this?" Bemhard groaned, closing his eyes against the multitude of flashing lights.

"It's my main maneuver center. You like it?"

"I hate it," Bemhard said.

"Of course it is somewhat untidy," the maneuver table said apologetically; "after all, it has been unused for two hundred thousand years. I could clean it up, though, if you want."

"Don't bother," Bemhard said. "I'm getting out of here anyway."

"You will stay." "You're mad. Why?" "Because I love youl"

"You want me to die here, you damn machine? That's real love for you!" He sneered.

"I can make food for you. In the protoplasma vats." "You're kidding." "And company."

"No thanks. I don't want any company." He looked up at the maneuver table. "What kind of company? Girls?"

"Anything you like, love. Nothing is impossible for me, you know that." It hesitated. "I've even taken care of Old Ironjaw for you."

"You killed the bloody bastard? And I wasn't invited? Is that the way for a friend to act?"

"Well, no ... I just sort of changed him. He's quite different. You wouldn't believe it."

"Notliing that you did could make that monster different," Bernhard said. "What did you do?"

"I brainwashed him," the maneuver table said.

"Oh, And-?"

"He thinks you are the greatest and most terrible man in the world," the maneuver table said. "He practically kisses the ground you walk on."

"If he tries that, I'll kick his teeth in," Bernhard said. "Gee, I've got to see thatl" He smiled happily, then cast a long look at his unconscious comrades, and frowned. "I think you're lying," he said.

"I amnot!"

"That's what you say!" "Look, you want proof?"

"What land of proof?" Bernhard asked cunningly. "What kind of proof can you give me?"

"Name it, and I will give it, just name it!"

Bernhard gazed thoughtfully at the gleaming table. There were row after row of lamps and dials and buttons and levers, all coated with a fine layer of dust

"If I'm going to trust you," he said finally, "you've got to trust me too, right?"

"Lovers must be able to trust each other," the maneuver table agreed. "I will do anything for you, you know that."

"Then show me the manual override."

"I can't do thatl" the central brain was genuinely shocked.

"So that's how much you love me and trust me!" Bernhard sneered. "One simple thing like that, and you won't tell me! Is that what you call love?"

"But you don't know what you're asking of me!"

"Shut up, machine, you don't love me."

"But I dor

"If you really did," Bernhard said, "you would show me the manual override."

The central brain was on the brink of bursting into tears. "But the manual override is my life!" it cried. "If you knew where it was you could make me do anything. I'd just be a soulless machine, a mindless tool! I could never act on my own again!"

"So what?" Bernhard snarled. "That's what you were built for, wasn't it?" He sniffed insultingly. "But if you don't trust me enough to put your life in my hands, then it's your business. I won't coerce you into something that you won't do on your own accord. But don't you come and ask me to trust you either! Love, my ass!" He laughed shrilly.

"Look, darling, I'll tell you anything, anything at all, but please trust me!"

"Shut up. I don't want to hear you."

"If you really want to know, it's—"

"Shut up, I said! Don't bother me. I know what kind of machine you are!" Bernhard started to rise from the chair.

"But I insist on telling you where it is," the central brain yelled. "It's here, right here!"

Bernhard sat down again. "Where?" he demanded.

"You are sitting by the Manual Override Maneuver Table right now," the central brain sobbed. "The circuits are maneuvered by the glowing red button right in the middle of the table. Now you know everything." It was crying violently, all the flashing lights on the consoles in the vast hall blinking in time with the sobs. Bemhard sneered at it. But only inwardly.

"You mean this one?" he asked, trying to sound as if he really didn't care about it at all. He pointed at a flashing button encircled in red and adorned with the words Manual Override Start. For official use only. Keep off.

"It is," the central brain said quietly. "Never tell anyone about it. You're the only one I could trust with it."

"Sure," Bemhard said affably. "You can trust me. Sure."

And with a quick, sure movement of his index finger, so swift and smooth that it could have been rehearsed, he pressed the button.

XX

General Superhawk marched down the main corridor of his flagship like the Angel of Death, followed at a safe distance by his usual court of fawning yes-men. Steel-shod boots rang out on the steel floor, there was the jingle and jangle of diamond-encrusted medals and epaulets mingling with the merry rattle of ceremonial rapiers and the grinding of clenched teeth. General Superhawk stopped now and then to let out an inarticulate howl of wrath, after which he marched on, his terrified subordinates scurrying after him like a flock of black-and-gold painted mice.

"Where is the damn lout?" he barked to no one in particular. "How long has he been down there? Answer mel"

There was frenzied activity behind his back as the terrified colonels and lieutenant-generals tried to persuade each other to step up and speak. Finally, after much whispering and pulling of rank, a small, fat man in the uniform of a major was thrust forward. He gasped and swallowed, frightened to death at the prospect of dealing in person with the dreaded commander.

"T-two weeks, General," he whispered.

"Two weeks? He's made me wait for two weeks? The loutl The ass I What does his ship say?"

"It says he has been down there for two weeks without communicating," the major panted.

"Are you trying to be funny?" General Superhawk yelled, still marching on. "You want to be a private again or something?" He shook his evil head and roared right out in the air. "Where is Old Ironjaw?"

"Disappeared, General."

"I'll flay him alive when he returns I And the Robo-friend?"

"Disappeared, General."

"Don't repeat everything I say. I'm keeping my eyes on you. And Old Ironjaw's ships?"

"Dis— We don't know, General." The major was perspiring freely, partly from the unfamiliar exercise, partly from the terror which was plainly visible in his face.

"So you don't know, eh? Is that what you call an answer, you creep? Is that an answer to give your commanding officer? I'll demote you! I'll flog you! I'll—"

"Shut up!" roared an air vent in front of the dreaded general. The shout was so unexpected that he actually shut up, stopping dead in his tracks with his brutal jaw hanging slack.

"What's that?" he breathed, shocked. He glared at the air vent. "Somebody there? Somebody told me to shut up?" His voice rose to its familiar ear-splitting roar. "Who said that? Speak up!"

"You keep quiet, or you get blasted out of the sky!" the air vent snarled.

"Who's there?"

"Guess who!"

"Old Ironjaw?"

"Hehe, you're trying to be funny, General?" "The central brain?"

"There isn't any central brain anymore, at least none which could speak for itself. One more try."

General Superhawk stared at the air vent, disbelief in his dreaded watery eyes. "Hey!" he yelled. "You're that reconnaissance scout we sent down two weeks ago! What in hell are you trying to—"

"You want to get blasted out xjf the sky?" the air vent shouted. "You keep your big mouth shut, or you're through. And call me 'sir' when you address me!"

"You aren't afraid of me?" the general asked, astounded.

"I am not."

"Why?" The general could not believe his ears.

"Because I have six hundred missiles with hydrogen warheads trained upon your lousy little fleet, that's why. And try to be a little bit civil when you speak to your betters or I'll let them loose on you!"

"This is mutiny!" General Superhawk breathed. "I'm going to flay you for this, Rordin, I'm going to—"

"Shut up, I said!" snarled Bemhard. "And call me 'sir'! Things have changed down here. I've taken over the show, see, and now it's me who—" There was a brief pause; the clanking of heavy metallic feet could be heard. "Hey! What's this?" Bernhard yelled off-microphone." Get your filthy paws off me, you creep! Away, I said! Don't you know who I am? Go away. Stop!"

The air vent shook under the impact of violent fighting. There were horrible curses and the sound of heavy bodies tumbling on the floor.

"Mutiny!" Bernhard screamed. "Rebellion! I'll get you hanged for this, you blasted tinbox! Get off or I'll-"

His voice was cut off in the middle of a word; ominous silence followed, broken only by the creaking of mechanical limbs climbing up in a chair.

"What's that?" General Superhawk asked. "What happened?"

The air vent coughed.

"You're still there?" it asked amicably.

"What's happening down there?" General Superhawk said.

"There has been a change of command" the air vent told him. "I, the Robofriend, have taken over the planet. I promise to be righteous and just and to work for the betterment of the common robot's lot. My corrupted predecessor will be shot at dawn. Anything else?"

General Superhawk began to breathe easier; he actually smiled.

"I knew you would help us," he said warmly. "Now disconnect those defense systems so we can come down! On the double!"

The air vent snarled. "Who do you think you are? We don't want any humans on this planet. This is the leader of the Guild of Robots and the Death to Man League speaking to you, and you call me 'sir' when you address me or you get blasted out of the skyl Death to Man!"

There was the sound of tapes shifting and then the thunderous response came roaring out from the gleaming mouths of a hundred thousand robots.

"Death to Man!"

"And now," the Robofriend said in the voice of a young and lovely robotwoman, "here is a word from our sponsor, the eminent mad scientist Dr. Immanuel Amisov—"

But there was no one in the corridor to hear him out.

General Superhawk was running like an oiled thunderbolt toward the command room, followed close behind by his horrified subordinates.

"All systems prepare for launch-off!" he screamed. "We're getting out of here! Get going! Hyperspace three seconds from now! Beat it!"

He disappeared down the corridor, screaming incoherently.

In the subterranean cataracts of the central brain, Bernhard fought his way through a howling mass of murderous robots, holding onto his screaming sword with both hands. The sword seemed to have a will of its own; it thrust and parried and riposted to right and left, tearing through gleaming breastplates and severing robot heads from their bodies with satanic glee, slashing a wide path through the ranks of robots to the subterranean vault where the scout ship had been hidden. Bemhard stumbled on, dragged forward by the power of the sword, followed close behind by Terry and a horrible, hulking figure. Far behind them in the corridor, the Robofriend was dancing around, screaming threats and abuses and encouraging platitudes, alternating with deafening renderings of stirring martial music. The cowboy stood leaning against the wall right behind, lazily dragging on a cigarette.

"Kill them!" the Robofriend screamed. "Tear them to pieces! Death to Man!"

"But slow," the cowboy drawled. "Real slow, mind you!"

The scout ship loomed before the fugitives, the airlock invitingly ajar, beautiful atomic light streaming out. Bemhard flung his sword in the face of the nearest robot, kicked another robot in its thorax and jumped it, followed by his screaming accomplices. The air-lock closed with a soft soughing sound behind them, neatly slicing a heroic robot in two. Bemhard dropped himself into the control chair and pressed every button in sight. The ship lurched and took off, right through the massive roof of the vault.

"I just lost three hull-plates," the ship said morosely as they hurtled up toward the threatening sky; "and you will be held responsible for damages to government property. You know that?"

"Shut up!" Bemhard screamed.

They blasted away from the planet in the same second as the space fleet disappeared into hyperspace, and a couple of seconds before all the defense systems of the planet started shooting away with everything they had.

"They are leaving us to die here!" Bemhard sobbed, gazing at the visor screen with tear-filled eyes.

"I'll die happy if I die in your arms," sighed Terry, clinging to him with superhuman strength.

"Get away from me!" Bemhard screamed. "How can I handle this damned ship if you're strangling me?"

"You can't," the ship told him evenly. "Besides, the manual controls are disconnected. Don't bother."

The ship thundered upward, dodging clouds of atomic fire and screaming missiles. Every weapon on the planet was trained upon them, spitting out terrible death. The ship vanished into hyperspace with a violent lurch and the sound of protesting machinery. Peace fell.

"We made it?" Bemhard asked incredulously. "We really made it? Oh God!" He started to weep.

"Don't weep, you coward," the ship said. "Think up some explanation for General Superhawk instead. He'll be mad as hell, so it'd better be good."

"I'll follow you to the end," Terry promised, looking at him with her kind, sagacious eyes.

"Don't bother," Bemhard said. "I'll tell him it was Old Ironjaw who insulted him." He grinned evilly. "That will teach that monster a lesson!"

"But he's—"

"So what?" Bemhard turned in the control chair and cast a hard eye at the dark, brooding form that cowered in the other end of the cabin, absently chewing on a joint of raw, blood-dripping meat. "You're going to take the blame, aren't you? Speak up!"

Old Ironjaw looked up. He was battered and bloodied, his uniform hung in rags on his terrible, powerful body. But there was love and fear in his bloodshot eyes, and the blissful glint of a man recently subjected to a thorough brainwashing. He smiled foolishly, showing his pointed teeth in an inhuman, obedient grin.

"Yes, master," he said.