“Avert your eyes,” he said. “The access code is top secret.”
“Get it, Fido,” I whispered. Aida reacted instantly; our plastic pet extruded sharp toenails, leaped high then climbed up my clothes, scratching my ear painfully as it jumped onto the top of my head. I resisted the temptation to say ouch and stood steady so it could read the punched-in numbers. The door creaked open and the creature jumped back to the ground.
A gentle breeze blew out through the doorway as we passed through it, smelling fresh and summery. Here underground? We stumbled in the darkness until the door clanged shut and the lights came on. We were in a small chamber facing a spiral staircase. Our hosts instantly started down it and we followed.
I was beginning to get dizzy from the round-and-round when we finally got to the bottom. The open door here glared with light. Blinking my tired eyes, I followed the others. Outdoors into a field of ripening corn. Startled birds flapped away when we emerged, while something small and furry disappeared among the stalks.
I knew that we couldn’t possibly be outdoors, not after all the cave crawling that we had been doing. So this had to be a really giant cavern, with some kind of brilliant light sources above. These people really were independent of the surface-no wonder they hadn’t been spotted before.
Dreadnought led the way between the rows of corn and we followed. It was hot and dusty, my fatigue was still there-and some species of tiny gnat kept trying to fly up my nose. I sneezed and rubbed and walked into Indefatigable’s solid back when he stopped.
“Hail the Home and Joy in Survival!” he called out.
“Hail, hail and welcome, brave Defender,” a voice answered.
A sweet and high-pitched woman’s voice.
We started forward again and I stepped out from behind my guide’s massive form, rubbing my nose and sniffling. I had a quick glimpse of a woman and three or four children working with hoes. It was a very quick glimpse-for the instant that she saw me she screamed.
“Invasion Day! ”
It all happened incredibly fast. The children dived to the ground and she grabbed at the heavy pistol that hung from a ! lanyard around her neck. Raised it and began to fire at us.
We all hit the dust faster than the children had. Dreadnought was shouting, the gun was banging, rounds screamed by and exploded among the crops.
“Stop! No! No Invasion! Enough, enough?”
I don’t think she heard him at all. I tried to crawl down through the topsoil while I saw her squeezing and squeezing on the trigger; her eyes round and terrified, white teeth sunk into her lower lip. The only thing that kept us alive was the fact that the gun kicked hard and the muzzle rode up into the sky, with the last shots vanishing into the zenith.
It ended just as quickly as it had started. The children had disappeared. Indefatigable had grabbed the gun away from her and was patting her on the back as she sobbed hysterically.
“Well trained,” Dreadnought said approvingly. “Irreproachable is a fine woman, a good mother . . .”
“And thankfully a rotten shot,” I said. “Would you like to tell us what all that was about?”
“Training. Survival. For to these many generations. With the galaxy at war we seek only peace. We survive. They will kill themselves, but we will survive!”
He was winding himself up into a rallying speech so I broke in before he got into full spate.
“Stop! One minute-enough. The galaxy’s wars and the Breakdown ended centuries ago. There is no more war.”
He lowered his clenched fist and sighed; rubbed his knuckle across his nose. “I know. Some of us know. Most won’t face the knowledge-cannot face it. We are too trained for survival and nothing else. Nothing in our programming and our lives has ever prepared us for a time without war. Without the threat of invasion. Some of us assemble, we talk, make decisions. About the future. We have a leader-I dare not tell you more!”
He broke off as Indefatigable came running back.