The roboid police devices waited until the men were well out in the open. Then they opened fire, and shot the men down.
More men came forward behind them, shouting, “We want peace!”
The roboid devices cut them down with automatic efficiency.
Still more came forward.
“Shut it off!” said Roberts.
The roboid devices waited for a better shot, and suddenly the target vanished in flying dives into the nearest gutter, through cellar windows, and behind heaps of trash.
The three men stared at the screen and the unmoving bodies.
“Well,” said Morrissey in a dull voice, “that sure didn’t work.”
Hammell said shakily, “Suppose we hit Kelty with an extra-strong dose of ‘desire for peace’? He could call off the police, couldn’t he?”
Roberts through a moment, then shook his head. “If the computer is in its right mind, so to speak, it will sack Kelty if he tries that. The fanatics have apparently booby-trapped the roboid police so many times that any call for peace will ring false to it—like the woman with her ‘baby,’ but on a larger scale.
“Damn it,” said Hammell, “we can’t influence the computer. The thing has no emotions to influence.”
Roberts was frowning. “There’s a thought.”
“What do you mean?” said Hammell.
Roberts glanced out the porthole, which was nearer Hammell than himself, at the patrol ship. “It just occurred to me that if the want-generator won’t influence the computer, maybe we’ve got something else here that will.”
“We have?” Hammell turned around, looked out, and froze.
“There are advantages,” said Roberts, “to having something a little stronger than a space yacht. We . . . what’s the matter?”
Hammell drew in a slow deep breath.
“Have you been hearing a funny gritting noise lately?”
“Now that you mention it,” said Roberts, “I have. But every time I’ve heard it, something else has come up. Why?”
“Ease over here a little, and look outside from a different angle. Don’t make any fast move, or the thing may jerk back and hurt the ship.”
Frowning, Roberts carefully eased over toward Hammell—to look directly into the cold calculating gaze of a pair of snaky eyes as big as his fists. The thing had a pointed head large enough at the thickest to wrap both arms around and just clasp hands. Roberts at once recognized the creature. This was the thing that had been looking down at him earlier from the trees. Apparently it had coiled itself around the ship to climb up this high, and the pressure of its coils had created the creaking noise.
Roberts carefully glanced aside at his battle armor. Probably the best thing to do was to get into that, go out, and—
Hammell sitting as if paralyzed, murmured. “Oh, oh. Look—”
CRACK!
The porthole, transparent plate, frame, gasket, rims, and all, smashed inward and clattered and bounced on the deck.
The big head was right there in the ship beside them, looking at them and the want-generator coldly.
Somewhere there was a creaking grating noise. The head flowed in farther on its dark-green muscular neck.
* * *
Roberts, half-paralyzed, began to have the illusion that he was dreaming. This couldn’t be real. With an effort, he forced his mind to face the facts.
For him to try to quickly reach the battle armor now would only get the snake’s attention. Any sudden motion was a form of suicide. Yet, to stay still promised the same result after a slight delay.
Very gradually, he began to ease toward the armor. Then he began to wonder, how was he going to go through the awkward process of getting into the armor with the snake looking on?
Meanwhile, the snake was feeding another length of coil in steadily; but abruptly it froze, looking back past Roberts.
It dawned on Roberts that the snake had just spotted the battle armor standing against the wall. Its attention intensely riveted, the snake hung motionless.
Roberts barely murmured.
“Morrissey.”
“Sir?”
“Turn on ‘desire for peace.’ Focus it on the yacht here.”
Morrissey, moving with slow careful motions, focused the want-generator.
Roberts warily turned, very slowly, to look around.
A sleepy film suddenly seemed to come down over the snake’s eyes.
At the same moment, Roberts felt an intense yearning for peace and quiet. Enough of conflict. “For heaven’s sake,” the thought went through his mind, “why can’t everyone get along together?”
The snake was moving carefully, its huge head lowered and somehow suggestive of a dog expecting a kick. With increasing speed, the length of neck went out the hole in the ship, followed by the head.
There was a grating, grinding, scraping noise, and Roberts cautiously put his head out, to see the creature drop free at the base of the ship and rapidly head for cover.
Roberts sucked in a deep breath, and glanced around.
“Morrissey?”
“Sir?”
“Is there a timer in that circuit?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Set it for a minute, and give us a stiff jolt of ‘desire for sleep.’ ”
Morrissey bent briefly at the controls.
Roberts suddenly realized that he was worn out, dazed. The room spun around him, and he sat down, cradled his head on his arms, sagged against the control panel . . .
. . . Somewhere, tinnily, a bell was ringing, and Roberts dazedly sat up. He felt as if he had been dredged up from a hundred fathoms down, but he was amazed at the way his desire for sleep evaporated. Now he felt rested, refreshed, and—
Suddenly he remembered something, and sprang to the porthole.
Outside, the huge snake lay motionless, half in and half out of the forest.
Hammell and Morrissey were both face down on the control panel. As the timer’s bell rang on, only Morrissey was even beginning to stir.
The alarm kept ringing, and now Morrissey groped around dazedly but couldn’t seem to connect with it.
Naturally, Roberts thought. He glanced around sourly. After a night spent in this bucket, who wouldn’t be worn out? Every time you turned around, some monster was coming in after you. Why not just live in a cheesecloth tent, and get it over with quick?
Morrissey finally found the timer, shut it off, and passed out again.
So far, Hammell hadn’t even moved.
Roberts grunted in disgust, looked back out into the clearing, and decided the snake mustn’t have spent a very restful night, either. It lay on the ground like a felled tree.
Roberts leaned out farther, to see what damage it might have done to the yacht in climbing up it, and at once he heard a rustle overhead, and felt the heat of the sun, shining down on his neck, abruptly cut off.
There was a dazzle of light.
WHAP!
Roberts was inside so fast that he knocked Hammell half out of his chair, and himself landed in a sprawl over the edge of the want-generator’s control panel.
The air outside the porthole was suddenly filled with huge blue and green feathers. There was a sizzling noise, a smell of cooked meat and burnt pinfeathers, a kind of low popping sound, and a burnt-paint smell.
Cautiously, Roberts looked out, to see one of the smaller turrets on the patrol ship swinging back into position.
Just what caused it, Roberts didn’t know, but there was something about the patrol ship as he looked at it that suggested reproach.
Roberts eased farther back and looked around. Morrissey and Hammell—despite the fact that he’d almost been knocked flat—were still asleep. Roberts glanced at the patrol ship. How had it—
That thought was drowned out as it began by a crackling noise, and the boom of a loudspeaker close by:
“YOUR FULL ATTENTION, PLEASE. THIS VESSEL IS FULLY PROTECTED BY APPROPRIATE DEVICES OF THE ADVANCED SYNODICS PRODUCTS CORPORATION. IT WILL RETALIATE AUTOMATICALLY AGAINST ANY AGGRESSIVE OR HOSTILE ACTION.”
* * *
Hammell was immediately on his feet. Morrissey lurched out of his chair and looked stuporously around.
“The snake!” said Hammell. “Where—”
“It’s right down below,” said Roberts, “and it’s just started to move. This warning system you’ve got here just woke it up.”
Morrissey looked blankly at the want-generator.
“Then—”
“Then,” said Roberts, “it follows that the snake, at least, is affected by the want-generator. The last time we were here, we used a ‘desire to help out’ field to persuade the technicians to trade with us on a fair basis. The instant that field was shut off, there was an uproar out in the forest. It occurred to me at the time that there might be a bunch of predators out there being obliging to their prey.”
Hammell glanced at the hole in the side of the ship. “That knowledge may just get us some sleep tonight. But we’re still stuck with the problem of what to do about this city. The want-generator may affect the wild animals, but it still doesn’t affect that computer.”
“No,” said Roberts, “but something we can do may affect the computer. I was thinking of doing it with the patrol ship alone, but this snake suggests new possibilities.”