George St. George was hurrying, leading the band of fourteen onward.

There was no opportunity for conversation, but Mark stepped up close to Zip, who had taken the last position in the march.

"Think what this place is, Zip!" the mystically-oriented Starman breathed, his eyes alight with excitement. "This was made by an intelligent, extra-terrestrial race we've never heard of! The t.i.tanians certainly didn't make it! And whoever made it was shaped just like us!

As George said before, the controls, the beds, the chairs-all are designed for people like us! Same size! And imagine what must be in these storage units!"

"I have been thinking about it, Mark," answered Zip. "I'll want more time later to sift through my impressions, but there are too many questions here to deal with at the pace we're going."

"Of course, but think! Who made this place? How big is the complex?

When and why did they abandon it? Where are they now?"

"Yes-and above all, what else will we find in here?"

Just then the screech of tortured metal sounded loudly throughout the chamber. Everyone turned and stared back at the elevators, where the sound was coming from. A spot on the left door of the central elevator began to glow red, then orange, then white. Iridescent metal began to spew forth in chunks. Then a spherical mechanism about the size of a basketball shot through the hole. A few bright green and yellow lights the size of small coins lit up its dull silver surface.

Zip's blood ran cold. "It's an airbot!" he cried. Zip had never seen an airbot before, but he knew what it was: an aerial recon.o.bot, an armed robotic flying device which, among other uses, could be programmed to track down fugitives, drawn by their body heat. Zip and Mark lifted their laser pistols and fired simultaneously. Their beams lit up red dots on the surface of the flying ball but scattered harmlessly, as the Starmen a.s.sumed they would. The airbot quickly oriented itself to the escapees and began to fly toward them.

9: A Vision in the Night

"RUN! Go! Scatter! Move!" shouted Zip frantically. He ran forward to the closest aisle between the stacks of crates, wheeled right, and sped down the narrow s.p.a.ce. He heard the quiet, efficient "zzap" sound of the airbot's disabling beam, but apparently not directed toward him yet. Desperation powered his legs and they pumped at peak speed. He didn't know where the others were or what they were doing. Someone else was racing behind him but he didn't stop to find out who it was.

It was not cowardice that inspired his flight, but the desire to preserve the team. Scattering and flying gave a slight hope that some of the men might escape the relentless search of the airbot-or at least put off the inevitable. The rotation of the asteroid provided artificial gravity, but it was low enough to enable the men to move quickly, covering a lot of distance as they ran.

"Zzap. Zzap," he heard again, more distant this time. He came to the end of the aisle and had to slow to keep from slamming into the wall in front of him. He reached out his left hand and grabbed the corner of a crate to help him execute the turn. As he made the quick right angle twist at the end of the row of crates, he glanced behind him with his peripheral vision. Joe was close behind him and several yards farther away were two of the miners. Even as he looked, he saw the airbot fly over the crates into the aisle he had just cleared, missing the ceiling by less than a foot. With the hated "zzap" sound, it fired one beam toward the miner at the rear of the headlong retreat, and the man went limp and collapsed. His momentum carried him forward several feet before he stopped moving.

Zip saw it all in a split-second as his inertia carried him out of view. He looked forward again and sped down the aisle; after pa.s.sing a few rows he turned again to the left. Far ahead of him he saw the elevator door with the bulging rupture through which the airbot had burst into the warehouse. Suddenly the airbot flew over the stack of crates to Zip's left and appeared about fifteen yards in front of him.

A feeling of panicky horror surged through Zip as he saw the airbot re-orient itself in his direction.

All at once every point of light on the airbot went out and it hung motionless in the air. Then it sped back to the elevator door as if jerked by a cable. It smashed through the hole it had made and flew into the shaft. Instantly there was a dull "whump," more felt in one's tissues than heard aloud. A bright light came through the opening like a spotlight, then faded.

"What happened to the airbot?" Joe's amazed voice behind him asked the question that was in Zip's mind.

"Let's go," said Zip. "Let's find out who's down and carry them away."

Both the Starmen were breathing hard, but quickly returned to normal as they paced the aisles. In moments they had a.s.sembled those whom the airbot had not found. Only four men had been disabled by the airbot's beams.

"Take us out of here, George," ordered Zip. His voice was quiet but carried the authority of leadership that people welcome when there is a crisis. Using the fireman's carry, eight men easily transported the four who were unconscious.

George St. George turned without a word and led the way. Everyone followed. St. George came to the end of the walkway and turned to the left around the last row of storage units. On his right was a bank of elevator doors, some large and some small. He came to the first one and with his hand shaking pressed some numbers into a control panel.

Nothing happened.

He looked up to Zip with a countenance marked with anguish and pleaded, "I can't do it. My fingers won't work. Mr. Foster, you press the numbers, please." Zip stepped up to the panel. As the asteroid miner called out the directions, Zip pressed the b.u.t.tons.

"Top center. Right center. Top right. Top right again. Bottom left.

Center. Sorry, I'm a little shaken up."

"That's okay, George. I think we'll be fine now." The elevator door opened and all the men stepped into the conveyance. The door closed.

George reached out and pressed one b.u.t.ton. The elevator began to move-not down or up as the men expected, but away from the chamber where they had fought the airbot.

"What's wrong with these men?" asked one of the miners. "They're completely unconscious and their arms and legs are swinging around like they're puppets or something."

"They're just out temporarily, not hurt," answered Joe. "Airbots disrupt certain neural connections to bring on sleep and complete relaxation of all muscle functions. I'm not sure how high the airbot's beam was set, but I'd guess pretty high. They'll probably sleep for several hours but they'll be fine when they wake up."

"What did you do to that machine that was chasing us?" asked another of St. George's companions.

"I didn't do anything to it. I don't know what happened to it,"

answered Zip. "I suppose it malfunctioned. Lucky for us." Joe and Mark both glanced sidelong at Zip, then looked away. The Starmen knew that whatever had happened to the airbot, a malfunction was not one of the possibilities.

Another of the miners spoke up. "I've never been on an elevator that moved horizontally before. Where are we going, George? This transit is taking longer than just moving between floors."

"The elevators inside this rock can move in just about any direction except slantindicular. If I remembered accurately, this one'll take us to a control and information center of some kind. I don't know where it is in relation to where we started, but we should be safe there and if I don't forget where we come out, I can always get us back to the warehouse if we want to return."

The elevator came to a stop and the door opened onto darkness. As before, the elevator light illumined a small s.p.a.ce, in which the men could see a few counters. When the first pa.s.senger debarked, soft lights went on. The illumination revealed a room of about 2,000 square feet, filled with viewscreens, computer stations, cabinets and shelves, tables and chairs, and a few sofas. At least a dozen doors led from the room. The four unconscious men were laid carefully down onto the sofas.

"What is this place?" Zip asked St. George.

"Haven't any idea, Starman. I don't mind pushing b.u.t.tons at random when it comes to elevators, but you won't find me playing with any machine I don't understand. I don't want to find the ejection seat or rocket launchers by accident."

"What do you think, Mark, Joe? Let's look around here." The Starmen began to examine the keyboards and control systems spread throughout the room. There were symbols written beside most of the controls, but none of the writing was recognizable.

"Alien writing," observed Mark. "I'd sure like to know what it says."

Joe was at the next console, thoughtfully pressing b.u.t.tons, but there was no response.

"We need to find food and water," said one of the others.

"Right," said Zip. "Everyone check through the shelves and cabinets.

Open the doors, too, and look through, but don't go anywhere." Zip didn't speak aloud what was on his mind. The workings of the asteroid, no matter how technologically advanced, had been abandoned for probably thousands of years. There could be no water or food anywhere except where the pirates were. The Starmen and miners may have escaped captivity, but their freedom would do them no good until they found food, water, and a s.p.a.ceship. Success in finding even one of those items without being recaptured was highly unlikely. And even if they could board a ship, escape from the asteroid was just about impossible.

He wondered how long it would take before someone else realized these things and voiced them.

"There's nothing, Mr. Foster," said one of the men after everyone had searched thoroughly.

"Mm hmm," Zip nodded. "Well, let's sleep and start again in the morning. Maybe some of us can go back to the warehouse and open up a few of those crates. There may be food and water in some of them.

Others can investigate some of the pa.s.sages that lead away from here."

The men arranged themselves around the room and lay down. "I think I found the light switch, anyway," said Joe and pressed a b.u.t.ton next to one of the doorways. The room became dark.

"I a.s.sure you, Mr. Zimbardo, there was nothing wrong with the airbot,"

a.s.serted a large man, standing before the pirate leader with a half dozen of his partners. "I don't know what threw it back into the elevator shaft and I don't know what made it explode-but there was nothing wrong with it. The prisoners must have done something to it."

"These prisoners are more than asteroid miners! None of St. George's men has the capability of knocking out two armed men the way those two were knocked out. None of them has the know-how to disable a airbot!"

Zimbardo turned to his chief control officer. "Gene! Get me Lather right away. Tell him to bring up all information he has on the prisoners he brought in from Z25. Tell him to bring especially the video-record of the prisoners." He turned back to the others. "You're dismissed!"

Soon Lather appeared with a handful of records.

"Let's see the video-record first," said Zimbardo, and pushed his computer a little closer to his lieutenant. The man inserted the disk.

In seconds, a view of the prisoners appeared on the screen, each one shuffling by as they entered the Silver Cloud.