“Well, no, not actually.”

Somehow Iranaputra wasn’t surprised.

“But I have found,” the robot added enthusiastically, “a really neat cave.”

“Ah, a cave. That is interesting.” Iranaputra was familiar with the tourist caverns of upstate Newyork Province. He had visited several of them, marveling at the beauty of their sparkling, dripping speleothems. They were quite attractive places. Such a cavern on Village property would be a welcome novelty, and its discovery would accrue to him a modicum of notoriety.

He glanced skyward. “It is getting quite dark, and I did not bring any lights with me.”

“I did.” Ksarusix’s eyes became night-piercing beams, illuminating the ground ahead.

“Interesting optional equipment. For locating trays left outside doors at night?” They were off the grass and in the woods now.

“Among other things.”

Like the rest of North America’s lovingly restored forests, the one which surrounded Lake Woneapenigong was thick and flourishing. Iranaputra’s feet shuffled through just the right amount of leaf litter and other organic detritus, as just the ecologically sound number of mosquitoes buzzed about his ears. There were wolves around, which would run if confronted, and the occasional bear, which might not. His pulse raced a little faster. No one would be likely to notice his absence until midday tomorrow, if then. It had been a long time since he’d exposed himself to even minimal danger. It felt good.

He ran more of a risk of being gored by a startled deer, though the robot was making enough noise to frighten off anything ambulatory within a hundred meters. As for getting lost, that was most unlikely. Not with a mechanical guiding him.

If they did find a cavern worthy of development, perhaps he would be allowed to participate in the layout and design of the trails and waste-management system. It would be good to exercise long-dormant skills again. As he trailed the robot, he found himself mentally constructing hydronic schematics for an underground tourist attraction.

He also took to whistling, both to entertain himself and to drown out the Ksaru model’s incessant blatterings about the need to find evidence of higher intelligences.

He was mildly surprised when, after a considerable hike which included some scrambling over rocks and fallen trees, they came to an opening in a hillside. He could see where the Ksaru, or something else, had pushed aside the scrub which had concealed the entrance. It wasn’t very big. Even he would have to bend to enter.

“I found this,” announced the robot proudly.

“Very nice.” Iranaputra regarded the hole warily while speculating on possible toothy, quadrupedal occupants. “But I thought you were searching for a nonhuman, higher intelligence.”

“Actually,” Ksarusix replied somewhat embarrassedly, “I was attempting to communicate with a large, furry animal of indeterminate genus with regard to evaluating its intelligence level, when it ran into this opening and disappeared. It had a black streak across its face.”

“That was most probably a raccoon,” Iranaputra informed it. “It is not a higher mind. Just a tricky one.”

“Of course. I knew that. I was just fooled momentarily because it was washing its food, which struck me as a sign of possible intelligence.”

“Raccoons are intelligent, but not that intelligent,” Iranaputra told the robot.

“So I eventually surmised. However, by the time I had followed it into the opening, which I at first interpreted to be a faulty air-conditioning vent. Given the distance from the Village, I quickly determined that this was most unlikely.”

“A not unreasonable assumption,” Iranaputra murmured. It was late, and he was starting to feel tired.

“Nobody else knows this place is here except me; and now you.”

“I will keep it a secret if you wish. For a while. You know, you strike me as quite a sensible piece of machinery. I think that as we have the opportunity to talk some more you will see that it is not necessary for you to be making these little excursions. You are not going to find any higher intelligences out here. Meanwhile, Shiva knows you are making life for poor Mr. Ibrahim even more miserable than usual.”

“Forget that crummy circuit breaker. Don’t you want to see the cave?” One of four humanlike hands powerful enough to remove ceramic linings yet sensitive enough to deposit a single olive in a martini reached out to tug him forward. The robot’s twin eyelights lit the way.

A dubious Iranaputra knelt to squint inside, unable to see much. “What is the floor like?”

“There’s a slight slope, but it’s easily negotiable. Even with legs.”

“Very well. Then can we go back to the Village?”

“Yes.”

He dropped to hands and knees and began to crawl. Gravel and clods of earth soon gave way to a smoother surface.

“When I found this, it was barely large enough to admit the raccoon,” Ksarusix announced unencouragingly from just ahead. Its lights threw into sharp relief gnarled tree roots which pierced the cave walls like grasping arms. Abruptly the passageway opened up and Iranaputra was able to stand.

It was a very interesting cave indeed.

V

Iranaputra was immediately struck by the complete absence of speleothems. There were no stalactites, stalagmites, helictites … nothing. The cave was round, slightly flattened at top and bottom, and perfectly smooth-sided. He reached out and ran the fingers of his right hand along the surface of the nearest wall. It had a glassy, slightly granular texture. So did the floor, fortunately, or he would have found himself slip-sliding inexorably down the gentle unvarying slope.

Walls, ceiling, and floor were fashioned of the same material. It looked like white glass frosted with mercury. Except for the ominous void directly ahead, which was black as the inside of a toxic dumper’s heart.

His interest in solitary nocturnal cave exploring waned rapidly as he regarded the silent pit in front of him. The longer he considered his surroundings, the more they reminded him of a tunnel than a cave. Either it had been created by an explosive upward thrust of magma … or its origin was artificial. To the best of his admittedly limited knowledge, this part of North America was and had been for some time tectonically dormant. There were no lava tubes or domes in the vicinity.

Cool air drifted past him, rising from below. As near as he could tell it was scentless.

“How far down this have you gone?”

“Quite a ways.” Ksarusix had continued to advance. Now it stopped and pivoted to regard him. “You coming or not?”

“Coming where? Have you been to the end of this?”

“Well, yes and no, yes and no.”

Definitely something seriously wrong with its AI controller, Iranaputra mused. Robots were not supposed to equivocate. Maybe Ibrahim ought to replace it.

What was he doing here anyway? Was he that bored? Instead of sitting on the couch in his den watching his favorite evening vidcasts, he found himself standing in some kind of ancient, unmaintained service tunnel listening to a deranged kitchen robot.

“I think maybe it is time for us to go back.”

“Oh, you don’t want to go back now.” Bright lights illuminated Iranaputra’s slight figure, making him blink. “Don’t you wanna see what’s at the end of the cave?”

“I do not know.” He began retreating cautiously. “What is at the end of this tunnel?”

“Oh no. I’m not gonna tell you. You have to see for yourself. I know something you don’t know, nyah-nyah.”

This is crazy, Iranaputra admonished himself as he continued to backpedal. I am no explorer. What am I doing here, in the middle of the night, when nobody knows where I am?

Still, the tunnel intrigued him. He recalled what he knew of Earth’s history, when humanity had been confined to a single world and tribes called nations had engaged in murderous battle over an endless list of trivialities. Some had built land-based missiles with intercontinental range. Hadn’t many of these been sited in shafts in the ground?

He peered past the taunting robot. Was that what the Ksaru had found? An ancient missile launcher, or part of some similar subterranean military complex? If he continued downward, would he eventually find himself staring at the nose of some nuclear-armed rocket, whose control systems had degraded over the centuries from lack of maintenance? Not that his mere presence was likely to cause it to erupt in mindless fury, but there might be other, more volatile chemicals present that could constitute a more immediate danger.

Surely the Ksarusix would have mentioned anything like that. And the longer he thought about it, the more he was sure that the ancient weapons shafts had been dug perpendicular to the surface, whereas the tunnel in which he was standing cut into the earth at a much less extreme angle. His knowledge of such matters was considerably less than encyclopedic. No doubt Follingston-Heath could shed greater light on the matter.