A great-throated carnivore sent a grunting bellow up from deep in the swamp, responding to Strombrand’s voice. The big android cursed and plunged into the tunnel.
From outside the entrance, the tunnel appeared to drop straight into the earth. Strombrand was walking as though one edge of the circle were down. With each step, his body rotated another few degrees around the axis of the tunnel.
Golden light from the far end suffused the interior. It winked softly from the android’s jewelry and the bright fittings of his laser pack.
Strombrand’s broad body shrank faster than distance should have required. Ripples formed between the android and Hansen as though Strombrand were crossing hot sand.
Sparks suddenly enveloped the center of the tunnel. Strombrand paused, lapped in blue fire. He took another step forward and manipulated a switch in the wall. The sparks died away; the curtain which had seemed to fall over the tunnel lifted.
Strombrand continued walking. Hansen slowly released his breath. A second gout of sparks surged over the android so fiercely that the man waiting outside the tunnel felt his own hair lift.
Again Strombrand walked on through. His huge body had shrunk to the size of a marmoset in the center of the golden ambiance.
He reached the end of the tunnel and waved a tiny arm back at Hansen.
“Go,” said Walker. “But be careful.”
“Go teach your grandmother to suck eggs,” Hansen said evenly as he stepped into the tunnel and felt a surge of buoyant energy wrap him.
There was no feeling of vertigo or disorientation as Hansen strode toward Strombrand. Once the human looked over his shoulder to see whether the rotation he’d noticed from the outside was evident from this viewpoint; but there was only mist at the tunnel entrance—and anyway, it was a foolish thing to consider now anyway.
Strombrand grew to his full misshapen enormity. The door behind him was the source of the golden light. He gestured toward it with a hand the size of a power shovel and said, “All right. I’ve opened the way for you. You and I are quits now.”
Hansen opened his left hand. The wasp he held buzzed from him, seeking the light. It touched the surface of the door and disintegrated in a flood of golden radiance.
Hansen smiled. “Open the door for me, oath brother,” he said.
Strombrand’s shadowed eyes were pools of black fury. He thrust at the center of the door.
There was a loud click. The glow lighting the tunnel shut off, but the door panel swung slightly ajar and a degree of illumination crept around its circular margin.
“My oath is kept,” Strombrand said. “Acca will deal with you—but that’s no concern of mine.”
He strode back along the darkened tunnel without waiting for Hansen’s reply.
“It is safe, now,” said Walker.
Hansen touched the metal panel gingerly. It was warm and as massive as a vault door—but the android’s touch had disengaged its defenses.
Hansen leaned his weight against the doorleaf. For a moment, inertia withstood his thrust; then the circle of light around the panel began to widen.
“Stranger!” Strombrand called from the end of the tunnel. His powerful voice was attenuated by more than distance. “I’ve opened the way for you. I’ve kept my oath!”
Hansen looked over his shoulder. The android was sighting down the nozzle of his laser.
“Don’t move!” Walker ordered in a tone of absolute command. Hansen froze. His eyes and mouth were open, waiting. . . .
The laser blast was a corkscrew of green light curling down the walls of the tunnel instead of following the straight path along the axis to Hansen’s heart. His eyes tracked the bolt’s helical progress, though at light speed there should have been no sensory impression except the shock through all his nerves as the center of his chest vaporized. . . .
The blast of coherent light struck and rebounded from the door between Hansen’s chest and right arm. Steam puffed from the sweaty fabric of his sleeve. Because the door was ajar, the bolt caromed a dozen times from the walls of the tunnel as it flashed back to the entrance.