The gap through which they had arrived was gone. Not closed off: obliterated. As if it had never existed. Follingston-Heath and Iranaputra searched vainly for a seam or crack in the wall, found none. The way to the vent, the outside of the city, and the tunnel which led back to the surface and comfortable Lake Woneapenigong Village had been spirited away in utter silence.
“This is just wonderful.” Hawkins slumped against the smooth alien wall. “I’d planned on dying in the lake; not under it. Preferably in battle with a trout, a really big trout.”
Follingston-Heath tried his portable phone and, as Iranaputra had feared, made contact only with static. “Take it easy, friends.” He began rapping the butt end of the instrument against the wall and listening for echoes, progressing from left to right. “No handles, hinges, buttons, grip recesses: nothing. This is engineering most wonderful.”
A dour Hawkins glared at the taller man. “Pardon me if I don’t fall to the floor and thrash about in unbridled ecstasy.”
“There is no need for sarcasm.”
“Are you kidding? There’s always a need for sarcasm. Society floats on a sea of sarcasm and hypocrisy.”
“Calm yourself, Wallace,” Gelmann advised him. “You’ll have a stroke.” Hawkins rolled his eyes but held his tongue.
“We must look at this as a temporary setback.” A persistent Follingston-Heath continued his profitless examination of their surroundings.
Half an hour later he had to confess that he was not sanguine about their immediate prospects. Hawkins restricted his commentary to a derisive grunt.
“Perhaps there is another way out,” Shimoda suggested. “Since the one we used is evidently closed to us, we should look to other possibilities. The big cargo door, for example.”
“If it is a door,” Iranaputra murmured as they started back across the floor of the empty chamber. “Booby traps. We must have tripped some ancient security device.”
“Wouldn’t think anything like that would still be working down here,” Follingston-Heath commented. “Obviously that is an assumption we can no longer make.” He eyed Hawkins expectantly but that worthy was, for the moment at least, subdued.
“Then there may be other things still in working order, you should excuse my pointing it out.” Gelmann was studying the opposite wall. “Including doors. But we need to go carefully.”
“Even if this room is now vacuum-sealed, it’s big enough that we should have ample air for a little while longer,” Shimoda remarked. Hawkins made a face at him.
“Thank you for that reassuring observation, Kahei.” He glanced sourly at Ksarusix. “Hey, you! You got any suggestions?”
“Me? I’m just a lowly kitchen tool. You expect ideas from me? Analytical cogitation ain’t my department. Peas and napkins are. Besides, I don’t mind being trapped down here. I’ve fulfilled my higher function. Found what I was supposed to look for.”
“If we do not find a way out of here, then no one, human or machine, will know of your success,” Iranaputra told it. “‘A discovery not shared is a discovery not made.’ Mahabharata, Eighth Book, Chapter …”
“Spare us,” Hawkins growled unhappily.
An hour spent carefully inspecting the thin lines that ran along the floor and up the wall located nothing resembling a switch, handle, or more sophisticated control, at which point even Follingston-Heath’s eternal optimism was starting to suffer. He sat down, leaning his angular, still muscular frame against the immutable wall.
“When they start looking for us, maybe they’ll find the tunnel, we should be so lucky.” Gelmann tried to sound hopeful.
“They’ll certainly check the woods around the Village,” Shimoda agreed, “but even with the brush pulled away from the entrance, the cave is still hard to see. It took a robot to find it in the first place.”
“Damn straight,” murmured Ksarusix.
“Maybe they will use other robots.” Iranaputra perked up at the thought. “The police have such specialty units. They are always having to chase down lost tourists.”
“Right,” said Hawkins. “Why, in a month or two, I’m sure they’ll stumble right into us. Five dehydrated, desiccated, grateful corpses.”
“Don’t be morbid, Wallace.” Gelmann was hopeful. “If they use the machines like Victor says, they could just as soon find us tomorrow.”
“They’d better.” Hawkins nodded in the direction of Ksarusix. “We only packed a picnic lunch and a few snacks, and none of us is as physically durable as we used to be.”
“Speak for yourself, old boy,” Follingston-Heath murmured haughtily.
Eyes slightly wild, Hawkins scrambled to his feet, his light waving around as he rose. “I’ll do better than that. I’ll shut up. I’ll even leave. I’ve had all I want of this place.”
“Wallace, dear …,” Gelmann began.
“You hear me?” Head thrown back, Hawkins turned a slow unsteady circle as he bawled loudly at the ceiling. “I’m leaving! Right now!” If he expected a dramatic riposte, he was disappointed. The silent, perfectly smooth walls did not reply.
“Wallace!” Gelmann confronted him. “Come back over here and sit down. You’ll strain your throat. You’re also wasting your light.”
“Come to think of it, we all are.” Follingston-Heath promptly switched off the beam he carried. “We should try to conserve what battery power remains to us, don’t you know.”
One by one they turned off their lights. Only Hawkins demurred. Turning away from the worried Gelmann, he started back across the chamber, the cone of light that projected from his hand shrinking with distance. A little while later they were able to hear him cursing the far wall, his words mixed with a dull thumping, as though he was kicking something.
“Open up.” The words drifted forlornly across the floor. “I’ve had enough of this. I’m coming out.” This continued for some fifteen minutes, after which the thumping and cursing ceased and the light came bobbing back toward them.
“No luck.” Hawkins sounded thoroughly dispirited, drained of the antagonistic energy that always kept him going. He switched off his light, leaving them in utter blackness.
A couple of minutes passed in mutual silent introspection before he added, “Not to alarm anybody, but I think there’s something coming through the door.”
In the temperate artificial night Gelmann turned to her right. “Not to accuse you, Wallace, but the door isn’t opening.”
“Did I say it was? I said there’s something coming through it.”
A blue nimbus was drifting slowly into the room, pale as ghost sky. It was hard to tell as it coalesced whether it was composed of pure gas or a mixture of gas and tiny particles. Surrounded by its pale blue aurora, the nucleus of the lambent sphere was about the size of a human head. There was no distinct line of demarcation between the central core and the rest of the object. The middle portion defined itself because it was a slightly deeper, more coherent blue. It sifted through the wall like oil oozing through water.
Once completely inside, it hovered ten meters above the floor, emitting enough light to illuminate the five elderly humans below. As they looked on, it elongated into an ellipse. Including the faint blue halo, it was now about the same size as the serving robot.
