"Shilth was quite right about the claustrophobia," Magnan said in a choked voice. "I feel that the walls are going to close in on me!"

"Just close your eyes and pretend you're at a Tuesday morning Staff Meeting. The relief when you find yourself here should carry you through anything short of utter catastrophe."

With a shudder and a clank, the car came to a halt.

"N-now what?" Magnan said in a small voice. Retief felt over the door, found the stub of a lever. He gripped it and pulled. Reluctantly, the door slid aside on a large, column-filled room faintly lit by strips of dimly glowing material still adhering to ceiling and walls, adorned with murals depicting grotesque figures engaged in obscure rites.

"Tomb paintings," Magnan said in a hushed voice. "We're in the catacombs. The place is probably full of bones, not that I actually believe in the curses of dead kings or anything."

"The curses of live Amba.s.sadors are far more potent, I suspect," Retief said, leading the way across the room and into one of the many pa.s.sages debouching from the chamber. Here more cabalistic scenes were etched in still-bright colors against the ancient walls. Cryptic legends in an unknown script were blazoned across many of them.

"They're probably quotations from the local version of the Book of the Dead," Magnan hazarded, his eye caught by a vividly pigmented representation of a large alien being making what seemed to be a threatening gesture at a second alien from whose ears wisps of mist coiled.

"This one, for example," he said, "no doubt shows us the G.o.d of the Underworld judging a soul and finding it wanting."

"Either that, or it's a NO SMOKING sign," Retief agreed.

The pa.s.sage turned, branched. The left branch dead-ended at an ominous-looking sump half-filled with a glistening black fluid.

"The sacrificial well," Magnon said with a shudder. "I daresay the bottom-goodness knows how far down that is-is covered with the remains of youths and maidens offered to the G.o.ds."

Retief sniffed. "It smells like drained crank-case oil."

They skirted the pit, came into a wide room crowded with ma.s.sive, complex shapes of corroded metal, ranked in rows in the deep gloom.

"And these are the alien idols," Magnan whispered. "Gad, they have a look of the, most frightful ferocity about them..."

"That one"-Retief indicated a tall, many-armed monster looming before him-"bears a remarkable resemblance to a hay-baler."

"Mind your tongue, Retief!" Magnan said sharply. "It's not that I imagine they can hear us, of course, but why tempt fate?"

There was a sharp click!, a whirring and clattering, a stir of ma.s.sive forms all across the gloomy chamber. Magnan yipped and leaped back as a construct the size of a fork-lift stirred into motion, turned, creaking, and surveyed him with a pair of what were indisputably glowing amber eyes.

"We're surrounded," Magnan chirped faintly. "And they told us the planet was uninhabited!"

"It is," Retief said, as more giant shapes moved forward, accompanied by the squeak of unlubricated metal.

"Then what are these?" Magnan came back sharply. "Oversized spooks?"

"Close, but no kewpie doll," Retief said. "This is the city garage, and these are maintenance robots."

"R-r-robots?"

"Our coming in must have triggered them to come to alert status." They moved along the row of giant machines, each equipped with a variety of limbs, organs, and sensors.

"Then... then they're probably waiting for us to give them orders," Magnan said with returning confidence. "Retief! Don't you see what this means? We can tell them to jump in the lift and ride up and scare the nether garments off that sticky little Shilth and his army-or we could have done," he added, "if they understood Terran."

"Terran understood," a scratchy ba.s.s voice rasped from a point just opposite Magnan's ear. He leaped and whirled, banging a shin smartly.

"Retief! They understand us! We're saved! Good lord, when I first planned our escape via the lift, I never dreamed we'd have such a stroke of luck!"

"Now you're getting the idea," Retief said admiringly. "But why not just add that extra touch of savoir faire by pretending you'd deduced the whole thing, robots and all, from a cryptic squiggle on the contact party's scopegram?

"Don't be crude, Retief," Magnan said loftily. "I fully intend to share the credit for the coup. In my report I'll mention that you pushed the lift b.u.t.ton with no more than a hint from me."

"Maybe you'd better not write up that report just yet," Retief said, as a robot directly before them shifted position with a dry squeal of rusty bearing to squarely block their advance. Others closed in on either side; they turned to find retreat similarly cut off.

"My, see how eager they are, Retief," Magnan said in a comfortable tone. "There, there, just stand aside like a good, er, fellow."

The machine failed to move. Frowning, Magnan started around it, was cut off by a smaller automaton-this one no bigger than a commercial sausage grinder, and adorned with a similar set of blades visible inside a gaping metallic maw.

"Well! I see they're in need of reprograming," Magnan said sharply. "It's all very well to fawn a little, but-"

"I'm not sure they're fawning," Retief said.

"Then-what in the world are they doing?"

"Terran are surrounded," a voice like broken gla.s.s stated from behind the encircled diplomats.

"We are judging Terran," an unoiled tenor stated from the rear rank, "and finding you wanting."

"Frightful oversized robots will jump on your smoking remains," chimed in a third voice, reminiscent of a file on steel.

"We are eager for crude contact," Broken Gla.s.s agreed.

"They have a curious mode of expressing themselves," Magnan said nervously. "I seem to detect an almost ominous note in their singular choice of words."

"I think they're picking up their vocabulary from us," Retief said.

"Retief-if it wasn't so silly, I'd think that one intended us bodily harm," Magnan said in a tone of forced jocularity, as a ponderous a.s.semblage of sharp edges came forward, rumbling.

"We intend you bodily harm," File-on-steel said, advancing from the left.

"But-but you can't attack us," Magnan protested.

"You're just machines! We're alive! We're your rightful masters!"

"Masters are better than robots," Broken Gla.s.s stated. "You are not better than us. You are not masters. We will certainly harm you."

"You will not escape," a red-eyed monster added.

"Retief-I suspect we've made a blunder," Magnan said in a wavering tone. "We were better off at the tender mercies of the Groaci!"

"What's it all about, boys?" Retief called over the gathering creak and clank as the machines closed in.

"This planet is not your world. We are programmed to give no mercies to you."

"Just a minute," Magnan protested. "We're just harmless diplomats. Can't we all be friends or something?"