"Not sooner?"

"No."

For the first time he looked at Garathon. The latter could read the warning in his eyes which told him he shouldn't dare to ask why. So he cancelled the question and turned to another line of inquiry.

"Do you have any new ideas about where this stuff could have come from?"

"The substance consists of spores from a species of moss," replied Lag-Garmoth, "which must be available in great natural quant.i.ty somewhere on Azgola. These spores contain a highly effective nutrient which finds its way into the breathing tubes and lining of the lungs. You might say this is a form of predigested nourishment. The stomach is not needed in the process of a.s.similation. The nutrients are immediately..."

"Alright, alright!" Garathon interrupted. "I was getting at something else. Is the moss related to other mosses on Azgola? You know we've been asking that question often enough."

Lag-Garmoth moved his right hand in a rocking motion as though to describe a ship at sea. "I don't know yet. We still haven't found any native moss that may be related to this peculiar growth-but that doesn't mean there isn't any."

"That's right. But is there a possibility that the original spores might have migrated here through outer s.p.a.ce?"

"No. Moss is a relatively organized organic substance. The spores could not survive the interstellar environment."

"Alright," persisted Garathon, "but there's plenty of evidence to indicate that the moss isn't native to this planet-the main fact being that only a short while ago the Azgons were thin and fragile. So if that's the case, where does the moss come from and how did it get to Azgola?"

"Where it comes from I have no idea. As to how? Don't forget the story we heard about 2 alien s.p.a.ceships that were supposed to have landed here a short time ago."

"That's east-west of nowhere!" snorted Garathon. "There are no unknown s.p.a.ce-travelling races in the galaxy!"

Lag-Garmoth shrugged. "Then there's nothing more I can tell you," he answered. "But I have a question, myself." His gaze slowly swept the group. "You were asking about the collectors, which will automatically gather the moss spores, compress them and make them ready for shipment. I think I've made it clear enough that their construction requires just about all of our reserve power sources. I have requested that all personal use of energy be held to a minimum. Just a short while ago 2 important pieces of machinery went out of operation. This was caused by a series of sudden power drains. It will require 4 hours to get that machinery into operation again. If I can make up for that downtime it'll be thanks to me and my men and to no one else. I'd like to know who is responsible for this?"

Garathon knew the energy consumption of his torture instruments but he managed to look about him innocently. "Was it any of us?" he asked calmly. One after the other made a sign of denial. "So it's n.o.body here. I'll look into the matter," he concluded as he got to his feet again.

"What's to become of the prisoners?" asked Lag-Garmoth indifferently.

For perhaps half a second Garathon lost his composure. But then he finally realized that the close relationship of the 2 questions was purely coincidental. The thing about private use of energy and then the question about the prisoners-Lag-Garmoth must have hit upon both ideas in close succession but only by accident.

"Why do you... I mean, why worry?" he said hesitantly while recovering from his startlement. "We'll take them with us when we leave Azgola so that they can't do any sabotage or cause us trouble."

Lag-Garmoth made no reply to this. He seemed to be satisfied. Garathon went out of the room. It irked him that he had momentarily lost his self-control. He felt nervous. The air, the humidity and this weird manna from nowhere-it was enough to drive a man mad.

8/ AYE, ROBOT!.

He awoke in an ocean of pain.

He wanted to yell but he couldn't get enough air into his lungs and his vocal cords seemed to be numb.

Garathon! It was his first thought. The name seemed to be a vial of all the world's wrath.

He finally managed to open his eyes and look around him.

They hadn't taken much pains with his quarters. The room was small, cubical and bare. The single item of furnishing was an, old-fashioned glow-lamp in the ceiling. Ron Landry lay on his back. When he turned on his right side he found himself staring at the smooth material of the wall. It was spray plastic, a substance with which one could make solid walls in a very few minutes.

In the wall at right angles to this one was a door-or at least the outlines of one. He couldn't make out the slightest indication of a means of opening it, which of course was what was intended by the Springers. A door that couldn't be opened from inside reduced the task of keeping an eye on the prisoners.

Ron attempted to get to his feet but as he did so a new wave of burning pain engulfed him. He braced himself against the wall and waited with his eyes closed. When the pain finally subsided he let go of the wall and entrusted himself to his own 2 legs. It worked. He sensed a slight dizziness and the straight lines of the room angles wavered at times but that was all. That he could put up with.

He didn't want to find out anything more for the moment. He knew it was useless and even dangerous for him to exert himself. He had to recoup his strength so he sat down again and leaned back against the wall. He reflected that by now he must be hungry and he tried to calculate how long it had been since he had eaten. This wasn't possible because he didn't know how long he had been unconscious. His watch was gone as well as all the other small instruments he usually carried with him on a mission. This he had been aware of during his conversation with Garathon. The Springers had taken everything from him, first among which had been his weapon, of course.

But this hunger situation was very strange. It was not only that he didn't have any hunger; he felt as if he had just come from a sumptuous meal and had actually eaten a little too much. It was the mystery of Azgola. Something was suspended in the air which made a person satiated and fat-a strange substance that the body seemed to absorb greedily. And the Springers were turning it into a business.

It would certainly be a good business if they went about it right. In the far reaches of the galaxy there were plenty of worlds where people were hungry, either because the ground was unfertile or they didn't have methods of producing synthetics foods or there was simply an overpopulation. If the Springers succeeded in marketing a food that could satisfy hunger by merely breathing it in, they would certainly become rich overnight.

Ron could understand the secrecy with which they had surrounded their activity on Azgola. They had had some bad experience with Terran Intelligence, especially Garathon's clan which Alboolal had belonged to. They didn't want to be disturbed during their work on Azgola so n.o.body must know that they were here. The Azgons couldn't betray them since they had no means of interstellar communication. The Springers had no doubt sent their ships out somewhere into s.p.a.ce where n.o.body would be looking for them because here in the vicinity their propulsion systems could be traced, even from afar.

Ron also realized that the a.s.signment Nike Quinto had given him was taken care of-if he were to take it literally. There were no Baalol priests on Azgola. The situation Chuck Waller had reported could not be attributed to the mysterious cell activators which some of the Baalols were purported to be wearing. The strange developments on Azgola must be tied somehow to the 2 alien s.p.a.ceships that Bladoor had mentioned.

He tried to formulate some sort of logical picture of what could have happened here. Where had the ships come from, the little one and then the big one? Why had their crews not been seen? What had the 2 s.p.a.cecraft been doing on this planet? Of course there were robotships. The major part of the Arkonide fleet was composed of such ships. Although the Azgons had no s.p.a.ce technology of their own they had developed a keen ability to tell which types of ships belonged to which galactic civilization.

s.p.a.ceships of this particular type had never been seen before on Azgola. Judging from the description that Bladoor had given of them, Ron doubted that they had ever been seen anywhere by anybody else. An unknown race of star travellers? It was hard to imagine-and yet Ron knew that such a possibility had to be included among the hypotheses he had to work with. He toyed with the fascinating concept for awhile and then turned his attention to more immediate problems.

For one thing, he had to get out of here. He thought of Garathon again and suddenly it occurred to him how strange it was that the clan chief knew him-also that he had been involved in the arrest of Alboolal. The ident.i.ty of all men working for Nike Quinto in Division 3 was a highly cla.s.sified secret. In fact n.o.body knew what Division 3 was all about anyway, much less the names of its agents. Of course there were unavoidable situations where Nike Quinto's men had not been able to camouflage their activities very well and in the course of such missions some of them had become known to outsiders. But certainly Garathon had not been present that time on Ghama.

So how would he know...?

The answer was fairly obvious. Garathon had subjected them to a mento-interrogation-perhaps all of them but perhaps only himself alone. It must have been during Ron's first period of unconsciousness. In the minds of Ron, Larry and Lofty were a great many items of highly secret information which were locked away under a memory key so that no known mento-probing method in the galaxy would be able to extract them. But the general memory content was always wide open to any halfway effective equipment. Yet a man's name and activity also belonged to the general area of memory.

So that was how!

The more he thought of Garathon the angrier he became. However harmless the memory data might be that he may have extracted from his mind, a shrewd operator equipped with highly efficient positronic computer facilities could tie together a great deal of information concerning the purpose, methods and activities of Division 3 as well as the whole setup of Intercosmic Social Welfare and Development.

Garathon const.i.tuted a threat to the Earth!

Ron realized that he would have to do something. He couldn't just lie here and wait for the enemy to take the initiative, he had to figure a way to make a move.

It was hard to take any effective action inside a small bare room with a locked door and no visible mechanism for opening it. He could of course pound on the door and attract the attention of a guard, who was undoubtedly around somewhere, but guards were naturally suspicious types who didn't offer one much opportunity to escape. And the Springers were not the kind of people to walk blindly into a trap.

Ron made a mental review of the things that had transpired in the last few hours. He had to find some kind of point of reference. They had crashed in the city and had been knocked out. The Springers had picked them up and brought them here, where Garathon had put them under a mento-probe. After that he had continued to be unconscious and finally came to in Garathon's 'work' room. He had talked to Garathon. Garathon had questioned him further.

The interrogation!

Ron didn't know what kind of equipment Garathon had used to force information out of him but knowing Garathon one thing was certain: he had used every possible means of finding out what he wanted to know. This meant that he had probably strained the capacities of both his equipment and his prisoner to the limit. Perhaps he had even overestimated the mental stamina of his victim and strained him too far.

Ron knew a number of cases in which mento-monitoring like that had led to insanity. And that was his clue to action.

It was a role he hadn't played before so he took a few minutes to prepare for it. He figured out what he was going to do and in what sequence he would do it. He also tried to guess the various possibilities of reaction he might expect from the hypothetical guard but he didn't arrive at anything definite. If he responded at all, Ron would have to watch for the right moment. There was no planning he could do which went further than the moment in which the guard would open the door to have a look at him.

Ron began to pound on the door. He shouted and screamed, making sure that his voice sounded shrill and abnormal, the while he laughed intermittently like a madman. He raged and jumped and threw himself on the floor, got up and rammed his shoulder against the door, producing saliva and rolling his eyes-and due to the actual poor condition his body was in at the moment it was no wonder that genuine foam finally formed on his lips.

He drew back to charge at the door again but at that moment it opened.

For a fraction of a second Ron paused in his act. Then he carried on with it. He made his legs jerk and without moving his arms he fell on his back. He stammered meaningless words and tears came to his eyes from having rolled them so wildly.

Actually he felt a surge of triumph. He knew the game was paying off.

The one who stood in the doorway and regarded him keenly with lifeless eyes was not an ordinary security guard: it was a Springer robot.

Meech was fairly confident that everything was alright.

n.o.body seemed to have noticed that he had gotten through the ring of infrared security beams and penetrated the inner area of the base. He had waited a couple of minutes although for him each minute was like half an eternity. Then he had moved onward.

Now he saw the outlines of a dome structure emerge before him, much larger than the dome cover on the warning device he had jumped over. The radiations emanating from the 3 power sources he had detected from a distance were now coming at him at a sharp angle from below. So the actual stronghold lay partially under ground.

But here came the question of how he was to enter the dome. If the Springers had taken such care to secure the surrounding terrain with alarm systems, it would be the hardest task of all to get into the stronghold itself without being detected.

Nevertheless Meech didn't hesitate to approach the place. He touched the material of the dome and found it to be smooth plastic steel, a molecular mix of high polymer plastic and iron. It was possible to put up a dome like this within a few hours because it could be sprayed or poured into place. For Meech this was his first real proof that the Springers had been pretty much in a hurry to construct their base.

He had progressed about 10 meters along the rim of the dome when he discovered some lines in the surface which formed a rectangle. They were actually very narrow grooves, probably not deeper than a few thousandths of a millimetre. A human eye would have no doubt overlooked them.

Here was a hatch door.

Meech realized that there must be others here because the Springers had air vehicles. Inasmuch as he hadn't seen any such craft outside he knew they must be inside the dome somewhere. But no aircar could come through this particular hatch. He realized he had no other recourse but to locate the larger vehicle lock hatch if he wanted to rescue Ron Landry and his companions. They couldn't just run away on foot; they'd need a swift aircar.

He continued onward and within half a minute he found the larger lock door. It was closed tight like the other one but its outline reached far up the curved surface of the dome. Apparently this hatch was large enough to admit 2 aircars at once. He stood there quietly while his discerning eyes examined the area around the edges of the concealed opening. He saw nothing that might represent a releasing mechanism. There was just the smooth wall of the dome.

How did they open the lock?

Meech reached out and touched the surface just inside the hatch groove. He had hardly contacted the cool metal plastic when he sensed a rapid series of pulses. They represented alien numbers but Meech understood them. His programming included a number of robot and computer languages. He kept the contact while he 'listened': 1F (T) 990, 991, 200.

990 CALL IN.

He sensed that the positronic 'creature' under the smooth material was reacting to its own program, registering his hand pressure as logic condition 990 and proceeding to follow the 990 instruction accordingly: CALL IN. This meant an alarm signal. Within seconds the whole base would know that a stranger had attempted to open a lock hatch.

Meech reacted instantly, realizing that it was lucky for him that the Springers hadn't had time to install the most ultramodern equipment for their gate-security robots at this particular base on Azgola. Their positronic sentries operated more slowly than Meech Hannigan, Sergeant in the Terran s.p.a.cefleet, now on a special mission as member of Intercosmic Social Development and Welfare.

The sentry robot would have required 9 nanoseconds to carry out instruction 990. Meech only required nanosecond to counter-signal: EXEM.

It brought the thing's logic processes to a stop. In its own positronic language, EXEM was equivalent to a parity stop. It meant an error had occurred somewhere and that the normal program should not be followed. The sentry robot was much inferior to Meech. It had no way of differentiating between its own internal signals and one from outside.

At any rate it did not carry out the 990 instruction. However, it automatically went back to the start of the same program cycle. But Meech had removed his hand in the meantime and so this time around the sentry robot gated over to logic condition 991. In its program a 991 was interpreted as: ALERT HOLD! Meaning no action yet.

So the hidden sentry remained quiescent, on the alert to sense any further action outside.

Which happened very quickly. Meech had figured out what was involved here. Somewhere on the broad surface of the hatch door was a specific place that a knowledgeable person could touch when he wanted the lock to open. And this was the spot that had to be located. He proceeded systematically, knowing that he'd probably trigger the sentry robot many times into sensing that a stranger was outside. But he knew also that he could block any hostile reaction by always beating the gadget's program cycle with a counter-signal. There was no danger as long as he acted fast enough and nothing threatened him in the meantime from the outside.

The place he was looking for must be large enough to not require much searching by the person trained to use it. Perhaps it was at least the size of a Springer's hand so that there would not be much danger of touching surrounding areas and setting off a false alarm. It would also have to be within easy reach of a Springer's arm, so it would certainly not be located any farther up the dome than 2.5 meters.

With this orientation Meech continued his search. To his own perception it seemed a long time before he finally touched a place on the hatch that did not appear to be suspicious to the robot. He could sense the positronic program in progress under the hard surface: 1F (T) 990, 991, 200.

200: OPEN.

Meech took a step back as the lower edge of the hatch lifted soundlessly from the ground. The entire section of wall moved a few inches inside the dome and then slid upward. A s.p.a.cious, dimly lit room appeared beyond the opening.

He stepped inside because he knew he had nothing to fear just now. The sentry robot had recognized him as 'friend' and would not 'call in' an alarm. There was no danger from behind him so he could turn all of his attention to what lay before him.

This room excited his interest. From the hatch to the opposite wall the place was filled with various kinds of vehicles ranging from simple aircars to a disc-shaped s.p.a.ce-going lifeboat and heavy land rovers which were similar to the Terran Quads. He made a mental note of the exact location of the s.p.a.ceboat which was closest to the lock hatch. If he were going to save Ron Landry and his men he would have to use this. He was convinced that he would be able to operate it. The craft's pilot mechanism worked on the basis of positronics, which was also the basis of Meech's own intelligence. They would understand each other, he and the ship.

His next item of investigation was the inside of the lock door. As he had expected there was a clearly marked location where one should apply hand pressure to open the lock. Meech concluded that there must be a similar mechanism inside the s.p.a.ceboat which would accomplish the same thing. Certainly if anybody were going to leave the place by s.p.a.ceboat he would not reach his hand out a porthole to activate the lock door.

Now he knew enough to find his way quickly in this chamber. The next thing on the program was to find out where the Springers kept their prisoners. When he walked across the vehicle hangar he saw a number of doors in the opposite wall. As he approached the first one, it opened automatically. He discovered behind it a small rectangular room in the walls of which were 3 murky openings.

Antigrav shafts. Meech recognized these as entrances to the subterranean part of the stronghold. He did not hesitate to step into one of the yawning shafts and permit himself to be carried into the depths.

While he was drifting downward he received a pulse signal that filled him with a great sense of relief. The final question had been where to flee in case the rescue operation succeeded but now it had answered itself.

His escape route was already mapped out.

9/ A GAME OF MADNESS.

The Springers hadn't taken any pains to disguise their robot with simulated flesh covering or form. It was a heavy but agile framework of plastic metal and unbreakable gla.s.s. In imitation of its creator it walked on 2 legs but otherwise bore no resemblance to a human being.

However this did not matter to Ron Landry at the moment. He knew that the robot was carefully studying his behaviour and was trying to arrive at a decision. Undoubtedly it was only a sentinel type. It had no medical knowledge and more than anything else it would have required a high order of programming to understand that a man could pretend to be what he was not. A robot could not understand how a man could appear to be sick or act abnormally without actually being in such a condition.

What Ron had expected happened. The robot came to him and lifted him up from the floor. Ron ceased his flailing and ravings as if he had been taken by surprise. Actually he didn't want the heavy-handed robot to manhandle him. He had to avoid broken bones if he was going to accomplish anything. So he let his head roll back in the thing's metal arms while rolling his eyes wildly and muttering incoherently.

As the robot carried him through a corridor he had a chance to study the immediate area. There were a number of doors similar to that of his own cell and Ron a.s.sumed that Bladoor, Lofty and Larry would be here somewhere behind three of them. He noted the location.

At the end of the pa.s.sage was a medium-sized rectangular room in which he caught an impression of various pieces of technical equipment. Here the robot eased its load down on a kind of stretcher bed. Ron instantly jumped up from it, continuing his pretense. He knew his guardian would be quicker than he was. The robot spun around, reached out its arms and shoved him back onto the cot. "Strak! Lie still!" it rasped at him metallically in Arkonese.

Ron obeyed but he watched the robot as it stood silently beside the medical couch and stared across the room at a doorway, beyond which the corridor continued. Apparently it was transmitting a signal that Ron could neither see nor hear but another robot must have received it. He soon heard clanking, echoing footsteps approaching, and in a few moments the 2nd robot stepped into the room. Ron took a swift look at it without letting on that he was still able to comprehend what was happening. This 2nd machine was more complex in its makeup and was obviously a superior type of robot. It proceeded to examine the prisoner. It turned Ron over onto his stomach and stepped back cautiously when he began to rave again.

Ron only quieted down when the new robot left the room. He was secretly relieved. Even the superior programming of the more complex machine had failed to make a decision. The next one to have a look at him would be a Springer of flesh and blood. And that's what he was waiting for.

It was quite awhile before footsteps were heard in the corridor again. He was on his stomach once more and had his head turned at an unnatural angle so that he could watch the entrance through half-closed eyelids. Meanwhile he did not forget to keep on grunting and mouthing wild sounds such as one would expect to hear from a mentally disturbed person.

The robot was the first to enter. The Springer who followed it turned out to be Garathon.

In an instant Ron's buried anger flared up. It took a supreme effort not to forget that he was supposed to act insane. He leapt from the stretcher cot, ran headfirst against the opposite wall and fell panting to the floor. At a low command from Garathon the robot sentinel picked him up and carried him back to the cot.

By this time Ron had closed his eyes but above him he heard Garathon's voice. "You're putting on a show for me," he said in low tones. "You're pretending to be out of your head. What you're really waiting for is the moment when we let down our guard so that you can make a run for it-isn't that about the gist of it?"