19
WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE . ..
upon machine. Massive and unnoticing, they throbbed with life and power all around him. He could not see the end of the broad aisle he stood on. He turned and staggered over to the edge of the shaft he had obviously fallen into, following the current of fresh air.
A quick look over the side made him draw back involuntarily. His race was not subject to vertigo, but there are situations and occasions where the reality transcends the experience. There is too much relativity in a cavern, even an artificial one.
Above stretched over a mile of levels, seemingly much like this one. Very faintly and far away he could just make out the tiny circle of light that marked the surface and his entranceway to this frighteningly silent metal world.
He could not see the bottom.
He found himself giggling. Oh yes, pastoral indeed! Quite. Not prepared to turn out war materiel. Certainly not. No capability whatsoever. No cities, remember? Handmade furniture. Quaint way to live. Didn’t say by what kind of hands, though. Poor, degenerated natives! Cannon fodder, he’d seen it in Commander Rappan’s eyes.
But the commander hadn’t peeked in the basement.
When the hysteria had worked itself out, he took several deep gulps of the fresh air. There had to be a manual way out. Stairs, a lift, something! He had to get back and warn the others. He tried his pocket communicator, suspecting that it wouldn’t work. It didn’t. A communicator who couldn’t communicate. He almost started giggling again, but caught himself this time. He began to search for a way out. He did not know it, and probably would not have cared anyway, but his situation was remarkably analogous to that of a very ancient and very imaginary Terran female named Alice.