THE COSMIC COMPUTER

Back Forward Menu

The snooper popped out of the shaft, onto a gallery that had been cut
into the solid rock, fifty feet high and a hundred and fifty across,
with a low parapet on the outside and the mile-deep crater beyond. There
were a few grounded aircars and lorries in sight, and a medium airboat
rested a hundred or so feet on the right of the shaft-opening. Fifteen
or twenty men were clustered around it, with a lifter loaded with
ammunition. They looked like any crowd of farm-tramps. Suddenly, one of
them saw the snooper, gave a yell, and fired at it with a rifle. Sylvie
pulled it back into the shaft; her father and the chief engineer sent
the two bomb-robots up onto the gallery. The right-hand robot sped at
the airboat; the last thing Conn saw in its screen was a face, bearded
and villainous and contorted with fright, looking out the pilot's window
of the airboat. Then it went dead, and there was a roar from above. On
the other side, several men were firing straight at the pickup of the
other robot; it went dead, too, and there was a second explosion.

In the communication screen, somebody was yelling, "Give them another