Stainless Steel Visions

"If there are people hiding down there we don't want to frighten them any more. Drift down and pull back if you find anything."

The humming died as the Eye floated down the tunnel and out of sight.

"Joined another tunnel," Arnild reported. "And now another junction. Getting confused. don't know if I can get it back the way I sent it in."

"The Eye is expendable," the commander told him. "Keep going."

"Must be dense rock around… signal is getting weaker and I have a job holding control. A bigger cavern of some sort. hold it! There's someone! Caught a look at a man going into one of the side tunnels."

"Follow him," Stane said.

"Not easy," Arnild said after a moment's silence.

"Looks like a dead end. A rock of some kind blocking the tunnel. It must have rolled it back and blocked the passage after went by. I'll back out… blast!"

"What's wrong?"

"Another rock behind the Eye — they've got it trapped in that blocked-off piece of tunnel. Now the screen's dead. All I can get is an out-of-operation signal!" Arnild sounded exasperated and angry.

"Very neat," Commander Stane said. "They lured it in, trapped it — then probably collapsed the roof of the tunnel.

These people are very suspicious of strangers and seem to have a certain efficiency at getting rid of them."

"But why?" Dall asked. He looked around at the crude construction of the hut. "What could these people possibly have that the Slavers could have wanted so badly? Those machines we found, it's obvious that the Slavers put a lot of time and effort into trying to dig down there. But did they ever find what they were looking for? Did they try to destroy this planet because they had found it — or because they hadn't found it?"

"I wish I knew," Commander Stane said glumly. "It would make my job a lot easier. I'm getting a complete report off to HQ — maybe they will have some ideas."

On the way back to the ship they noticed the fresh dirt in the grove of trees. There was a raw empty hole where the girl had been buried. The ground had been torn apart and hurled in every direction. There were slash marks on the trunks of the trees, made by sharp blades… or giant claws. Something or somebody had come for the girl, dug up her body and vented a burning rage on the ground and the trees. A crushed trail led to an opening between the roots of one of the trees. It slanted back and down. Its dark mouth was as enigmatic and mysterious as the other tunnels.

Before they retired that night, Commander Stane made a double check that the ports were locked and all the alarm circuits activated. He went to bed but did not sleep. The answer to the problem seemed tantalizingly obvious, hovering just outside his reach. There should be enough facts here to draw a conclusion from. But what conclusion? He drifted into a fitful doze without finding the answer.

When he awoke the cabin was still dark, and he had the feeling something was terribly wrong. What had awakened him? He groped in his sleep-filled memories. A sigh. A rush of air. It could have been the cycling of the air lock. Fighting down the sudden fear, he snapped on the lights and pulled his gun from the bedside rack. Arnild appeared, yawning and blinking in the doorway.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Get Dall! I think someone came into the ship."

"Gone out is more like it," Arnild snuffed. "Dall's not in his bunk."

"What!"

He ran to the control room. The alarm circuit had been turned off. There was a piece of paper on the control console. The commander grabbed it up and read the single word written on it. He gaped as comprehension struck him, then crushed the paper in his convulsive fist.

"The fool!" he shouted. "The damned young fool! Break out an Eye. No, fire up two of them! I'll work the duplicate control!"

"But what happened?" Arnild gaped. "What's young Dall done?"

"Gone underground. Into the tunnels. We have to stop him!"

Dall was nowhere in sight, but there were footprints, fresh crumbled dirt on the lip of the tunnel under the trees.

"I'll take an Eye down there," Commander Stane said.

"You take another one down the next nearest entrance. Use the speakers. Tell them that we are friends. Tell them that in Slaver."

"But you saw what reaction the girl had when Dall told her that." Arnild was puzzled, confused.

"I know what happened," Stane snapped. "But what other choice do we have? Now get on with it!"

Arnild started to ask another question, but the concentrated intensity of the commander at the controls changed his mind. He sent his own Eye rocketing toward the village.

If the people hiding in the maze of tunnels heard the message, they certainly didn't believe it. One Eye was caught in a dead-end tunnel when the opening behind it suddenly filled with soft soil. Commander Stane tried nosing the machine through the dirt, but it was firmly trapped and held. He could hear thumpings and digging as more soil was piled on top.