Now, on the planet, Roberts looked out with pleasure at the ship, but at the same time got a view of the trees that surrounded the clearing. Just what was hidden back in those trees, perhaps only fifty feet from the clearing, would have been hard to say. But the space yacht, while coming down to land, had run into some kind of monster with the bad judgment to jump up and take a snap at one of the big fins that would steady the yacht as it stood on its tail. The fin, with the weight of the yacht behind it, crushed the animal. The smell of blood having already apparently spread the promise of a free meal, Roberts could see that other creatures were now prospecting around. There was a flap of big wings overhead, and the rustle of leaves at the edge of the clearing. Just what would pop out was hard to say, but Roberts took a quick glance at his suit of battle armor, fixing its location in mind so he could get into it with no wasted time if he had to. Then he reluctantly placed his trust in the space yacht’s energy-cannon, and turned back to the spy screen.
* * *
Hammell was leaning forward tensely, “Something’s getting ready to blow in that city. Otherwise the police just wouldn’t be this heavily reinforced.”
On the screen, two more roboid policemen had swung into view behind the first pair, and these were followed in turn by a flying wedge of roboid police.
Straight ahead, the two boys in the middle of the street stayed where they were and jeered.
Roberts glanced at the locator screen in front of Morrissey. This screen was marked off in city blocks, like a big elongated chessboard with oval edges. A strip of street, running through an intersection and about a fourth of a block farther in both directions, was lit up whitely, showing the section now in view on the spy screen.
As Roberts glanced from one screen to the other, suddenly the two boys snapped their arms forward, the lengths of pipe arced out to slam into the roboid police, and twin flashes of dazzling light outlined a tangle of ripped and torn metal housings, shredded insulation, bent tubing, and bare gears, shafts, and axles. The first pair of roboid police smashed to a stop.
The two boys were already sprinting toward opposite sides of the street.
The second pair of roboid police rolled unswervingly past the wreckage of the first.
Roberts, Hammell, and Morrissey stared at the screen, their expressions perfectly blank.
From behind a heap of garbage at the edge of the park, two more boys raced out, clutching short lengths of pipe.
As Morrissey snapped a switch, twin speakers to either side of the spy screen came on, relaying sounds from the scene. An amplified voice spoke out:
“Clear the street. This warning will not be repeated. Clear the street. Further violence against your Law-Enforcement Officers will be met with maximum force. Clear the street.”
The two boys sprinted directly toward the approaching roboid police. Their right arms swung back. Their faces twisted in hatred and contempt, and their arms swung sharply forward. The short lengths of pipe streaked out, slammed into the fronts of the pair of oncoming machines. There were two dazzling flashes.
The roar of the explosions drowned out all other sounds. The boys had already separated, to sprint, off-balance from the force of the explosions, toward opposite sides of the street.
Two more roboid policemen smashed to a stop in a whirl of flame, smoke, and showers of sparks.
Behind them, the V of the flying wedge rushed forward. Unlike the others, which had been light-blue, these roboid police were painted black with silver markings.
In the building to the left of the street, the doors now swung open, and small groups of boys sprinted out to form a line completely across the street. The ends of the line rushed forward, then the center, forming a rough inverted U that raced toward the oncoming V. The V opened briefly to pass the wrecked police machines, then closed again in precise alignment.
For a moment there was a silence, broken only by the hiss of tires on the pavement, the pound of feet, and the panting of breath. Then there was a concerted yell, “Kill the mechs!” The boys’ arms swung back in unison.
At the fronts of the police machines, small doors snapped up and back. From behind each door came a bright spurting flash.
The boys’ arms flew out, their knees buckled, and their lengths of pipe dropped free as they fell sprawling to the pavement amidst sudden dazzling flashes of light.
The flying wedge of roboid police swept forward with no change of speed or direction. Their narrow tires, heavily-loaded, crossed the torn inert bodies, cut, ground, and slashed them. The tires and rims turned red, to lay down narrow red strips in absolutely straight lines on the pavement.
Hammell, Roberts, and Morrissey, momentarily unable to move, sat with their hands gripping the edge of the control panel.
A pretty woman, a baby bundle in her arms, rushed from a door down the street, screaming, “My boys! My boys!” and ran toward a pair of the inert, mangled bodies, herself coming into the path of the flying wedge.
In the fronts of the onrushing police robots, the little doors snapped open.
Hammell gave an inarticulate sound of horror.
Roberts, his mind a whirling maze of calculations, came to his feet. His patrol ship was heavily enough armed to handle any concentration of police robots. If he took the ship to the edge of this section of the city . . .
On the screen, directly in the path of the flying wedge, the woman screamed, and raised her bundle high overhead, as if to lift her baby out of danger.
From behind the little doors, bright flashes spurted out.
Roberts had already started to turn away, his hand reaching out for the battle armor he had to wear to cross the clearing.
On the screen there was a huge, brilliantly dazzling flash as the “baby” blew up.
Roberts, blank-faced, one hand on the battle armor, stared at the screen.
Beside him, Morrissey stood motionless with a perfectly blank expression.
Hammell grunted in disgust, and settled back into his seat.
Roberts tilted the battle armor back against the wall of the ship and sat down.
* * *
On the screen, the wedge of roboid police swept by, followed by two long columns of roboid police firing as they passed at the building and into the dump on opposite sides of the street.
Down the street at the end of the building, a flash of movement left Roberts with a brief afterimage of something vaguely shaped like a camera, that had apparently recorded what had happened so far, and was now pulled inside as the roboid police came dangerously close.
The long double column of roboid police was now slowing to a halt, the point of the wedge extending exactly to the center of the intersection beyond the far end of the building. From the left, a second wedge followed by another two columns appeared from behind the building, moving along the intersecting street, and joined up with the first wedge. The individual roboid police now had turned ninety degrees, to face the building and the adjoining parks, and the lines of police themselves moved farther apart, to open up a wide protected strip of avenue between the lines.
Down this protected roadway came something long, low, and broad, with jointed body sections running on many wheels, with turrets on top slowly swinging large muzzled uptilted guns toward the building.
From the building came shots and small bundles that arced out and down. Up and down the street, more small bundles flew out from the cellar windows. With bright flashes, gaps began to appear in the lines of roboid police.
The long many-wheeled device now slowed to a stop. Its upward-pointing barrels moved slowly, methodically. At the mouth of each barrel there was a blur, then another blur, then another blur.
From the windows of the building came a flash, then from the next window another flash, then from the next window another flash.
Another long low many-wheeled device rolled past the first and stopped farther down the street, to heave its explosive shells through the next section of windows.
The repeated short blast of a whistle cut through the roar of explosives. The tossing of bundles from the windows abruptly stopped.
Down the street came a chunky vehicle with several big hemispherical bulges at the top. It stopped at a thing in the street like a manhole cover, flipped the cover off with two pronged levers, eased forward and dropped something round and bellowslike over the hole. Wisps of yellow smoke began to escape around the edges.
“Sealing off the sewer system,” said Hammell. “No one will get out of the building that way.”