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  Alex was thinking furiously. If all that this ‘bot said was true…

  “It is, I assure you,” the machine said.

  Well, if so, the missing scientists’ destination must be in the ancient system itself. If there were only such a thing as a map!

  “There is no map, but there is a way.” From the robot’s tone, even Dana and Carberry could tell that something important was up.

  “A way,” Alex prompted. His companions fidgeted uneasily.

  “When the Ur civilization was in full flower,” the robot continued, “they built a planetary storehouse of information, a worldwide data bank in the center of the galaxy. There, I am sure, if it still exists, you will find the information you require.”

  Alex wasn’t sure, but he thought the old ‘bot was beginning to wheeze a bit. Maybe, he thought, it was time to hurry things along? “Well, then,” he urged, “let’s get to it.”

  Electronic innards beginning to creak audibly, the robot propelled itself unsteadily into their midst. “Now then, if you’ll all grab hold,” it said, “I think I can just manage. If my circuits hold…” With a mental grunt of effort that none of the three was ever able to describe adequately, the old, failing ‘bot did something—

  The universe screamed. Colors reeled. Sounds stank and Dana felt decidedly ill. With ajar, they landed in a jumble. Tall grasses waved in a gentle breeze all around them, and the sky shone a beautiful shade of pink.

  They were there. Somewhere.

  6.

  “This doesn’t look like a Library Planet to me,” Dana announced querulously. “It looks like somebody’s overexposed safari snapshots.”

  Alex could tell that her quick trip into the high grass to disgorge her stomach had done her no lasting good. The robot was muttering to the world at large, “I can’t understand it,” and struggling to remain upright in the uncertain breeze. Alex had once again been bottom man, and he was now cautiously feeling sore spots scattered around his battered body. Only the professor was muttering contentedly in the brush, pocketing plant specimens and dissecting small vermin with his fingernail clippers.

  “What do we do now?” Dana asked of nobody in general. She looked about to cry.

  “There’s not much we can do except keep moving,” the ancient ‘bot replied. “I seem to detect electrical activity all around us, though it’s very faint. Under us too,” it puzzled. “Perhaps the computer installation is subterranean? In any event, please call me Poppy. That’s my name, and no one ever uses it.”

  The last sounded rather plaintive, and Dana wondered vaguely how a psionic robot managed to put emotion in its voice. With a start she realized that Poppy (how strange to be addressing a robot on a first-name basis!) was vocalizing.

  “All the better to be understood, my dear,” Poppy chuckled.

  Wearily, the little group got started. After some experimentation, it proved most efficient to send Poppy flying ahead to break the way through the tall grass. The rest followed in a tight wedge.

  There had been some heated discussion about the question of direction. After much bickering, which only the robot managed to avoid, Dana and the professor allowed that Alex hadn’t done a bad job so far. When he suggested that they keep the mounting sun on their left to avoid walking directly into its afternoon glare, they agreed gratefully. Simple expediency and a quick, aggressive mind ensured that the others would turn to Alex for the casual leadership they deemed necessary.

  As they marched along, they turned their thoughts to the sequence of events that had led them on this incredible journey.

  Their reveries were abruptly interrupted. An insignificant chirruping in the grass turned up the gain and mounted a wailing, chitinous roar that brought the company to a quick halt. The sound seemed to surround them, but it was only to the rear that the threatening song was accompanied by a peculiar crashing whine that the professor associated with bull elephants.

  “Christ!” Alex exclaimed. “What was that?”

  He was answered when a hairy pair of grey mandibles, fully a yard across, broke into the cleared path behind them. Alex grappled his charges ahead. With the robot in the lead breaking the thick grass aside, they made considerable speed, but the creature, whatever it was, had no difficulty keeping up. Its mandibles worked incessantly, parting the cane like a machete, and its multi-jointed legs clambered easily over the fallen grass. An insect, Alex moaned to himself.

  Suddenly a short, streamlined version of the creature darted out of the grass to their right and lunged at the straggling professor. His beard was savagely torn by its mandibles, and he fell beneath its scrabbling, scaled legs. With a savage cry, Dana threw herself on top of Carberry, gathering his frail body in her arms and rolling with him out from under the insect’s heavy shell.

  Alex shouted, “Get the old boy out of here. I’ll be along in a few minutes!” He wheeled on the smaller of the two insects and kicked it viciously in the depression under its mandibles. His foot made a sickening dent in the creature’s shell, and the air was suddenly redolent of formic acid. Ants! he thought grimly. They’re nothing but big ants!

  The smell seemed to infuriate the gathering pack. As Alex slipped back, determined to make his last moments count, three more of the creatures broke into the clearing. Lurching back, feeling his way with his left foot and an arm thrown behind him, Alex aimed another murderous blow at an advancing insect. The giant ant dodged and fended off the kick with a graceful motion of its head section. In that instant, Alex’s estimate of its intelligence rose considerably. He suddenly saw that they’d been neatly outflanked, outthought, outnumbered. The thought of cold intelligence lurking behind those insect eyes was revolting.

  Alex fought on, retreating into the brush and gradually leading the ants away from his comrades. Then the ground itself began to seethe beneath his feet, and he realized he’d been lured into a trap. He was near the creatures’ nest!

  For the second time, Alex was down, trapped in the loose, roiling soil. He started to curse, but choked on sand and the overpowering stench of formic acid. His eyes were streaming badly, but before he was completely blinded, he caught sight of a familiar figure, flying hellbent in his direction. Poppy! Alex felt a solid impact jar the ground beside him, and he rolled over to see the ‘bot grind its bulk into one of the ants’ carapaced faces. The blow spilt its shell, and sticky, sickening fluid spurted forth.

  The ‘bot flung itself into the fray like a dervish, and the air was soon filled with ant fragments. Crazed insects had been turned cannibal by the carnage and were devouring their fellows.

  Alex recovered his balance. “Poppy!” he shouted. “We’ve got to get out of here!”

  The ‘bot was busily crushing a particularly large and aggressive specimen into the soil; the creature’s body was burst in a dozen places and it was dying badly, waving its limbs drunkenly in a futile attempt to defend itself. “Come on!” Alex cried. “We’re going.” He grabbed at the ‘bot to emphasize his point and began hobbling off, dodging stray struggling insects until he reached the original clearing. There he was joined by Poppy. With a hint of pride in its mechanical voice the plucky ‘bot asked, “Are you all right?” Without waiting for a reply it continued, “If so, I’ve got something to show you.”

  Together the two warriors struggled back to their companions. The ‘bot was bouncing ahead and exclaiming aloud, “I was right all along!” Alex was too tired to ask what it meant.

  As they broke from the grass, Alex cried out in surprise. Dana and the professor were backed up against a steel-gray wall that towered overhead. The excited robot repeated to itself, “I was right all along.”

  With a wide grin on her face, Dana announced, “Welcome to the Library Planet.”

  7.

  “After you pushed us ahead,” Dana was explaining, “we just kept running. The ‘bot was just turning back for you when the professor had a little accident. Didn’t you, prof?” Mutely, Carberry pointed to a rising welt on his forehead. “Ran str
aight into it,” Dana continued. “And here we are.”

  “Now all we have to do is get inside,” Alex said. “And fast!” he added with a look back over his shoulder. The roaring seemed to have subsided for the present, but he knew that he’d never forget his glimpse of cold, alien, insect intelligence. The memory made him shiver.

  When he recovered, he saw that his companions were chuckling softly. “What’s so funny?” he demanded irritably.

  “Alex doesn’t seem to understand,” Carberry commented to no one in particular.

  Poppy explained, “Don’t you see, Alex? We are inside—inside a zoo!”

  When he looked more carefully at the wall towering overhead, Alex saw that it was quite true; they were inside a huge, hemispherical cage. What he had thought was the sky was part of the wall.

  “I imagine that all this was meant to keep those brutes back there safely locked up,” he remarked. “Incredible that this should be preserved all these thousands of years. But where is the door?”

  Poppy quickly supplied the answer by rising several hundred feet and surveying the perimeter. An open portal could be found only a half-mile away. By skirting the edge of the grass and keeping their backs to the wall, they found it. Unfortunately, so had the ants.

  The area around the portal was littered by their refuse. The door led not to an outside, but to a dark and seemingly endless network of corridors.

  At the entrance to the subterranean world, the four paused to consider their next move. Through the portal, darkened corridors echoed with the steady drip of water. Above the echoes could be heard the faint chirrup of the ant-creatures, but from which direction it was impossible to tell. When Alex stepped into the corridor, he turned to trace his way up toward the surface of the planet. No one argued this time; none of them wanted to go deeper.

  Alex led, his way lit from behind by the useful robot. Carberry and Dana clambered after him. Their strenuous escape had drained the old professor, and he leaned heavily on Dana’s arm. For her part, Dana was desperately trying to conceal her fear and disgust of the ant-creatures.

  They were evidently in some sort of zoological wing of the huge Library Planet. They passed vast chambers filled with hot sand and burning suns, supporting languid reptiles; a jungle habitat held a creature that was disturbingly manlike in appearance, but when Dana tried to coax it closer, it screeched and ran off on all fours; when they opened one door, Alex nearly fell into a pool of dark, viscous liquid—a full mile across the huge space, a small arid island dotted the indoor sea; still another chamber was dark, fetid, and damp—either the life-support system had failed, or whatever was supposed to make its home here preferred mold and filth to green grass and cleansing waters.

  In all their search, they found not one other chamber open to the corridors. This puzzled Alex and worried him. Had the portal to the ant-chamber been left open by accident? Or had it been opened by the creatures themselves? Meanwhile, hints of echoes suggested that the group was being followed. Alex resolved to get to the surface as quickly as possible.

  “We haven’t a chance of finding this map-thing,” Dana was complaining. “We could search for centuries, and never even leave this section of the planet.”

  Carberry agreed. “Very unscientific approach, if I do say so. What we need to do is locate the equivalent of a card catalogue. No other way through all this.”

  They were right, Alex thought, but for the moment his primary concern was keeping them alive. Those noises were getting louder. In a subdued murmur, Poppy was signaling his attention. “Don’t vocalize,” the ‘bot was saying. “I don’t think the others should hear this. The ant-creatures are no more than ten or fifteen minutes away. I can’t read their minds, but I can detect their presence.”

  “Any suggestions?”

  “I don’t think we’re too far from the surface. I suggest we make a run for it.”

  Too late to do anything else, Alex was broadcasting back—when he caught a whiff of the dreaded formic scent. Breaking into speech, he shouted, “Run!” And the three humans, with Poppy bringing up the rear, scattered down the corridor in a blind, headlong panic.

  In the distance, echoing obscenely in the closed halls, the ant’s chitinous chirrup mounted again into a shrill scream of frenzy. The chase was on.

  Assisted only intermittently by the robot’s light, Alex led them always up. They passed a thousand closed doors concealing—what? Alex feared that the answer to the Croatan mystery was lost behind one of them. Still they ran on, toward whatever sun lit this planet from above.

  At first, Alex thought he’d simply become accustomed to the darkness. Then, with a start, he realized that light was creeping into the corridors from somewhere up ahead. Yelling “Come on,” he rallied the others for one final try. Poppy remained in the rear, making swipes at the most aggressive ants.

  Without warning they emerged from the corridors into a room more immense than any of the bio-habitats had been. Overhead a great transparent canopy stretched across the real sky!

  “Look!” Dana yelled, pointing far across the room. Carberry and Alex followed her gaze and broke into grins. What they saw was a museum exhibit. And what a sweet and beautiful exhibit it was—of unfamiliar design, but unmistakably a spaceship!

  Poppy caught up just as ant-creatures poured out of the passageway. It was going to be close, but Alex felt a weight lifted from his shoulders. For the first time in hours, he thought they had a fighting chance!

  Dana reached the spaceship first and spent several precious moments trying to figure out the port controls. Carberry wheezed up and said in his most maddening and befuddled tone, “No, my dear, not like that; like this.” So saying, he manipulated some gadgets and levers and the airlock swung open.

  Dana grabbed the old man by the ears and kissed him solidly on the lips. “I love you, Prof,” she gurgled, and pushed him ahead of her into the ship’s unlit interior. Trailing behind, Alex and Poppy leapt inside and closed the hatch just in time.

  The sound of the ants clambering up the ship’s sides was clearly audible.

  Inside, Poppy and the professor succeeded in getting the lights on while Alex looked over the ship’s controls.

  Through the ship’s portholes, Dana watched the ants seethe to and fro on the planet floor below. There were thousands of them now, and more were issuing from the entry portals that ringed the room. We’ll never get a chance to make a break for it, she realized. What about food, water? Worried, she took her fears to Alex.

  “We’ll just have to raise ship and hope for the best,” he said.

  “But what about the data we need from the planetary memory bank?”

  “There’s no help for it, we’ll have to move this thing. Maybe we can put down somewhere else on the planet and try again.”

  Not a bit reassured, Dana was turning back to the port when the deck beneath them gave a mighty heave. She lost her balance and careened around the room. Alex was shouting, and from deep in the ship, Carberry and Poppy could be heard cursing each other in the engine room. Regaining her balance, Dana worked her way over to the port. Outside, she could see the ants clambering over each other to rock the ship in concerted effort.

  “Another few heaves and I think they’ll have us on our side, Alex! Can you fly this thing?”

  “I’m about to try! Get Carberry and the ‘bot out of the control room and strapped down. And get up here next to me—I’m going to need a copilot.”

  The ship was swaying wildly now. When the whole company was squared away, Alex fingered the alien switches and instructed Dana to warn him if several light indicators showed yellow. Hand poised over a knob, waiting for a lull in the rocking motion, Alex looked absorbed, yet calm. He looks happy, Dana mused as the engines caught with a roar and the ship lifted off.

  Beneath them, the enclosed space became an inferno, a furnace filled with thousands of ant-creatures. With a mighty shock the small craft broke through the canopy and pierced the atmosphere.

 
Below, glinting in sunlight, the Library Planet diminished—a round metallic ball, an artificial world. Ahead? Alex wondered, and despaired.

  8.

  If they went back, they could be almost certain of defeat. The Library Planet was too large, too complex to yield its secret to a handful of adventurers. If they continued on, their mission seemed certainly lost, and perhaps their lives as well, among the stars. Their conference ended, unresolved and depressing. Tentatively, they decided to wait while Poppy and the professor investigated the ship more thoroughly. Despite his seat-of-the-pants success in getting the ship off the ground, Alex had no real idea how the vessel flew.

  “I’d guess we’re being powered by the Groban-Fischer Effect,” the professor posited. “It hasn’t been quite worked out yet on Earth, but the theory is sound and it would account for our odd Doppler shift.” Though familiar with the culture that had built the ship eons before, the ‘bot was no more help. “Whatever powers this thing,” it observed, “our main task is to discover how to steer it.”

  “And where,” Dana interjected.

  The newly formed crew settled down to a steady routine of sleep and ship’s chores. There was much of the former and little of the latter. It was difficult caring for a vessel no one understood. Alex worried unceasingly about his father, the missing colonists, and their failure on the Library Planet. Dana suffered the same pangs; also, her stomach was growling. Not since the robot-world had they had a square meal.

  The professor, though, was in his element. Like a small boy just learning that alarm clocks and toasters came apart, he was toying, fiddling, exclaiming with delight over the inner workings of the spaceship. The ‘bot was ever at his side, the perfect assistant, knowing no hunger.