CHAPTER 3

III

The second Guard's face lost its sharply disciplined mask for an instant, then he, too, died in the shadow of his glistening plane. Cadmus was retrieving their weapons as two more Guards ran out of the Maenad toward him, evidently called by one of the two slain Guards before they died.

Cadmus shot the policejet straight up beneath a blast of fire. Through the pre-dawn chill, he angled it toward the council tower. He had only minutes now to get inside the Tower and get that microtape before the Machine's analyzing eyes.

Below him sprawled the spires and sharp minarets of the ancient capital city. To the east beyond the fifth cut-off from the Low Canal, was the newer modernistic plastic council tower, rearing up into the sky for a mile, directly in the valley's mouth.

Beyond the council tower was the gigantic rounded dome of the Great Machine, gleaming dully in the mists. To the right was Consar III's pleasure palace, glittering like a monstrous and evil jewel.

Zaleel would be there soon, groveling among his slaves.

Now, from various roofports all over the city, silver policejets began to dot the sky. Cadmus unhooked an antigrav belt from beneath the seat. He pressed a stud and the cowling above him slid open. He belted the antigrav belt about his waist and stood up.

The council tower was a mile distant. A parabola would allow him to reach it, if he could avoid being spotted by the Guards while falling.

About twenty policejets, in formation as usual, were coming in from his right. He raised both neutron guns, fired, simultaneously. He used both weapons' full charge.

An incredible blast ripped out, leaving paths of condensation in its wake. Radiant energy spread forth in its basest and most deadly form, heating intolerably by sudden kinetic interchange. There was a devastating fire, a supernal electronic flash. Radiant energy blinded and burned.

The pre-dawn grayness became searing light. For an instant the area was bombarded with fragments of molten metal. But Cadmus had sent his plane in a sudden leap high above the disaster even as he fired. His plane trembled, then began to burn. Its metal hull became unbearable.

Cadmus leaped out into the darkness and began floating down, utilizing the antigrav belt's angle facets to control the direction of his fall. He looked about him. A mile behind, a hundred or so policejets were converging on that spot where he had created the sudden holocaust. By lifting his own plane and bailing out, he had put himself half a mile away, a small dark speck, falling in a slow curve directly at the top of the council tower.

The policejets were swinging away in large, ever-increasing circles, searching. Far away, he saw his own jetplane burst suddenly into white flame and crash into the sluggish red waters of the canal. Most of the policejets headed for it. Apparently there was no suspicion that he had been able to escape the ship.

Cadmus struck the top of the Tower. The mile-high dome was cold and smooth as ice as he slid down its side onto a narrow ramp. He lay flat for a moment in order to get back his strength. The city was moving from its somnolence. Beings shuffling from drugged states to worship the Gray God of stability. It was eternal slavery or death to neglect the worship.

Far below he could see a balcony opening into what would be the question submission chamber. Utilizing the antigrav belt, Cadmus slid from the ramp, down the shadowed side of the Tower. He attained the balcony and crouched behind the colonnade. The sun peered over the mountains. It reached into the valley, lapping the Machine's towering skull with crimson tongues.

Streaming from the city's main avenues, a solid river of Akal-jor's inhabitants were marching to worship at the shrine of the Gray God.

Cadmus stared at the fantastic and horrible scene. Worshipping a machine that had chained them to its unchanging pattern and was killing them. A thunderous chorus of wailing and chanting rose in a moan of suppliancy.

From every city on Mars, via transmat, other rivers of worshippers were debouching into the valley. For a brief time they would gaze with trembling awe at the monstrous metal dome that ruled them inexorably, then return to their hopeless patterns.

Via huge transmats on Terra and Venus, other rivers of worshippers numbering millions were flowing across the void. They, too, would gaze upon the Gray God's face, then return by transmat sender to their own worlds. Cadmus stared in sudden shocked fear. One abruptly obvious and terrible fact left him stunned.

The great transmats on the right side of the valley were not disgorging any worshippers. Nothing was emerging from the Venusian transmats.

NO VENUSIANS WERE COMING TO WORSHIP THE GRAY GOD.

Bewildered, stunned, Cadmus ran through the panels into the vaulted height of the question submission chamber. He would worry about this other fearful emergency once he got the microtape installed.

Across the chamber were panels containing many eyes of the photoelectric analyzers—lenses which must focus his microtape. Receptacles in front of the eyes waited for the microtape to be inserted. A red light indicated that none of the eyes were being used at that moment to analyze a problem for the Machine.

A problem scanned by these eyes was carried into the Machine by electron beam tube. The Machine, a colossal mechanical brain, was the result of the final achievements of the finest scientific minds in the System.

It could think. It could think, but its answers could never vary. The Gray God.

Cadmus ran across the chamber, inserted the microtape on its spindle shaft and moved a small switch. The eyes glowed. The red light dimmed into green, signifying that the Machine was now handling a problem.

Cadmus stumbled back toward the windows. There was no feeling of triumphant release for having fulfilled his destiny. Now that the problem Johlan had devised was submitted to the Machine's vast mechanical mind, the Machine was supposed to destroy itself.

But the big problem now was why weren't those transmats bringing Venusians to worship the Gray God? Why should only streams of screaming psychopaths from Terra and Mars march out of transmats to their pathetic worship?

What had Old Pirri said?

"Beware of friends and patriots who are such only to achieve selfish ends. Remember history, and recall that when the Great Machine God was spawned and stopped all progress, wars were brewing between the worlds. Remember that was the reason the Machine was made—to halt progress and social evolution that might lead to another atom war. If the Machine is destroyed, remember that the old hates will return...."

Cadmus shivered as he hesitated before the panels leading onto the balcony. The sun was higher now. The area about the valley was a sea of surging humanity marching out of transmat receivers.

And the Machine lay there in its vaulted silence. That mass of thinking apparatus was preparing now to solve the problem which Johlan had prepared and which Cadmus had succeeded in injecting into its mechanical brain. It would take a few minutes at least before any results appeared.

But Cadmus knew something was terribly wrong. No Venusians were yet emerging from those transmats!

A number of policejets were circling the areas about the non-functioning Venusian transmats. A greater number had landed and Cadmus could see Guards running in and out of the powerhouses.

He turned quickly as he heard the panels of the doors opening behind him. He dropped to his side, dragged frantically at the neutron gun in his belt. He caught a smearing glimpse of many faces and acted too late to save himself.

He tried to activate the force-shield unit Old Pirri had given him. But paralysis beams reached out like the fingers of a hand, gripped him, held him rigid in a slowly-fading consciousness. He thought of Zaleel. He tried to understand how their plan had seemed to succeed, but had failed.