THE COSMIC COMPUTER

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took a jeep up to observe progress there, he found the vitrified rock
blown completely off the vertical shaft, exposing the rubble that had
been dumped into it. The gang on the mesa-top had discovered something
else; a grid of auro-copper bussbars buried four feet underground. Ten
to one, radio and telescreen signals would be transmitted to that from
below, and then probably picked up and rebroadcast from a relay station
on one or another of the high buttes in the neighborhood. Time enough to
look for that later. He returned to the canyon, where the lateral tunnel
was now almost completely open.[Pg 59]

When it was clear, they sent a snooper in first. It was a robot, looking
slightly like a short-tailed tadpole, six feet long by three feet at the
thickest. It transmitted a view of the tunnel as it went slowly in; the
air, it found, was breathable, and there were no harmful radiations or
other dangers. According to the plans, there should be a big room at the
other end, slightly curved, a hundred feet wide by a hundred on either
side of the tunnel entrance. The robot entered this, and in its