Milieu Jason started to explain, the old man took no notice. Only after the librarian had rummaged a hearing aid out of his clothes, did Jason realize he was deaf as well. Jason explained again what he searched for. Poli nodded and printed his answer on a tablet.
there are many old books-in the storerooms below
Most of the building was taken up by the robot filing and sorting apparatus. They moved slowly through the banks of machinery, following the crippled librarian to a barred door in the rear. He pointed to it.
,~
While Jason and Meta fought to open the age-encrusted bars, he wrote another note on his tablet.
not opened for many years. rats
Jason and Meta’s guns appeared reflexively in their hands as they read the message. Jason finished opening the door by himself. The two native Pytrans stood facing the opening gap. It was well they did. Jason could never have handled what came through that door.
He didn’t even open it for himself. Their sounds at the door must have attracted all the vermin in the lower part of the building. Jason had thrown the last bolt and was starting to pull on the handle-when the door was pushed open from the other side.
Open the gateway to hell and see what comes out. Meta and Poll stood shoulder to shoulder firing into the mass of loathsomeness that boiled through the door. Jason jumped to one side and picked off the occasional animal that came his way. The destruction seemed to go on forever.
Long minutes passed before the last clawed beast made its death rush. Meta and Poli waited expectantly for more; they were happily excited by this chance to deal destruction. Jason felt a little sick after the silent ferocious attack. A ferocity that the Pyrrans reflected. He saw a scratch on Meta’s face where one of the beasts had caught her. She seemed oblivious to it.
Pulling out his medikit, Jason circled the piled bodies. Something stirred in their midst and a crashing shot plowed into it. Then he reached the girl and pushed the analyzer probes against the scratch. The machine clicked and Meta jumped as the antitoxin needle stabbed down. She realized for the first time what Jason was doing.
“Thank you. I didn’t notice,” she said. “There were so many of them and they came out so fast.”
Poli had a powerful battery lamp and, by unspoken agreement, Jason carried it. Crippled though he was, the old man was still a Pyrran when it came to handling a gun. They slowly made their way down the refuse-laden stairs.
“What a stench!” Jason grimaced. “‘Without these filter plugs in my nose, I think the smell alone would kill me.”
Something hurled itself into the beam of light and a shot stopped it in midair. The rats had been there a long time and resented the intrusion.
At the foot of the stairs they looked around. There had been books and records there at one time. They had been systematically chewed, eaten and destroyed for decades.
“I like the care you take with your old books,” Jason said disgustedly. “Remind me not to loan you any.”
“They could have been of no importance,” Meta said coolly, “or they would be filed correctly in the library upstairs.”
Jason wandered gloomily through the rooms. Nothing remained of any value. Fragments and scraps of writing and printing. Never enough in one spot to bother collecting. With the toe of one armored boot, he kicked angrily at a pile of debris, ready to give up the search. There was a glint of rusty metal under the dirt.
“Hold this!” He gave the light to Mete and, forgetting the danger for a moment, began scratching aside the rubble. A flat metal box with a dial lock built into it was revealed.
“Why that’s a log box!” Mete said, surprised.
“That’s what I thought,” Jason said. “And if it is-we may be in luck after all.”
11
Resealing the cellar, they carried the box back to Jason’s new office. Only after spraying with decontaminant did they examine it closely. Meta picked out engraved letters on the lid.