“Kill the intruders! Cut them down with your spears!”
Asir glanced back to see two of them racing toward the room, lances cocked for the throw. If a spear struck a triger-tile—
“Stop!” he bellowed, facing around.
The two priests paused. Wondering if it would result in his sudden death, he rested a hand lightly against the huge steel arm of the robot, then leaned against it. The huge eyes were staring down at him, but Big Joe did not move.
The spearmen stood frozen, gaping at the thief’s familiarity with the horrendous hulk. Then, slowly they backed away.
Continuing his bluff, he looked up at Big Joe and spoke in a loud voice. “If they throw their spears or try to enter, kill them.”
He turned his back on the throng in the hall and continued the cautious advance. Five to go, four, three, two—
He paused to stare into the room beyond. Gleaming machinery—all silent—and great panels, covered with a multitude of white circles and dials. His heart sank. If here lay the magic that controlled the Blaze of the Great Wind, he could never hope to rekindle it.
He stepped through the doorway, and the girl followed. Immediately the robot spoke like low thunder.
“The identity of the two technologists is recognized. Hereafter they may pass with impunity. Big Joe is charged to ask the following: why do the technologists come, when it is not yet time?”
Staring back, Asir saw that the robot’s head had turned so that he was looking directly back at the thief and the girl. Asir also saw that someone had approached the door again. Not priests, but townspeople.
He stared, recognizing the Chief Commoner, and the girl’s father Welkir, three other Senior Kinsmen, and—Slubil, the executioner who had nailed him to the post.
“Father! Stay back.”
Welkir remained silentt, glaring at them. He turned and whispered to the Chief Commoner. The Chief Commoner whispered to Slubil. The executioner nodded grimly and took a short-axe from his belt thong. He stepped through the entrance, his left foot striking the zero-tile. He peered at Big Joe and saw that the monster remained motionless. He grinned at the ones behind him, then snarled in Asir’s direction.
“Your sentence has been changed, thief.”
“Don’t try to cross, Slubil!” Asir barked.
Slubil spat, brandished the axe, and stalked forward. Big Joe came up like a resurrection of fury, and his elbow was explosive in the vaults. Slubil froze, then stupidly drew back his axe.
Asir gasped as the talons closed. He turned away quickly. Slubil’s scream was cut off abruptly by a ripping sound, then a series of dull cracks and snaps. The girl shrieked and closed her eyes. There were two distinct thuds as Big Joe tossed Slubil aside.
The priests and the townspeople—all except Welkirhad fled from the corridor and up the stairway. Welkir was on his knees, his hands covering his face.
“Mara!” he moaned. “My daughter.”
“Go back, Father,” she called.
Dazed, the old man picked himself up weakly and staggered down the corridor toward the stairway. When he passed the place of the first warning voice, the robot moved again—arose slowly and turned toward Asir and Mara who backed quickly away, deeper into the room of strange machines. Big Joe came lumbering slowly after them.
Asir looked around for a place to flee, but the monster stopped in the doorway. He spoke again, a mechanical drone like memorized ritual.
Big Joe is charged with announcing his function for the intelligence of the technologists. His primary function is to prevent the entrance of possibly destructive organisms into the vaults containing the control equipment for the fusion reaction which must periodically renew atmospheric oxygen. His secondary function is to direct the technologists to records containing such information as they may need. His tertiary function is to carry out simple directions given by the technologists if such directions are possible to his limited design.
Asir stared at the lumbering creature and realized for the first time that it was not alive, but only a machine built by the ancients to perform specific tasks. Despite the fresh redness about his hands and jaws, Big Joe was no more guilty of Slubil’s death than a grinding mill would be if the squat sadist had climbed into it while the Mars oxen were yoked to the crushing roller.
Perhaps the ancients had been unnecessarily brutal in building such a guard—but at least they had built him to look like a destroyer, and to give ample warning to the intruder. Glancing around at the machinery, he vaguely understood the reason for Big Joe. Such metals as these would mean riches for swordmakers and smiths and plunderers of all kinds.
Asir straightened his shoulders and addressed the machine.
“Teach us how to kindle the Blaze of the Great Wind.”
“Teaching is not within the designed functions of Big Joe. I am charged to say: the renewal reaction should not be begun before the Marsyear 6,000, as the builders reckoned time.”
Asir frowned. The years were not longer numbered, but only named in honor of the Chief Commoners who ruled the villages. “How long until the year 6,000?” he asked.
Big Joe clucked like an adding machine. “Twelve Marsyears, technologist.”
Asir stared at the complicated machinery. Could they learn to operate it in twelve years? It seemed impossible.
“How can we begin to learn?” be asked the robot.
“This is an instruction room, where you may examine records. The control mechanisms are installed in the deepest vault.”
Asir frowned and walked to the far end of the hail where another door opened into—another anteroom with another Big Joe! As he approached the second robot spoke:
“If the intruder has not acquired the proper knowledge, Big Oswald will kill.”
Thunderstruck, he leaped back from the entrance and swayed heavily against an instrument panel. The panel lit up and a polite recorded voice began reading something about “President Snell’s role in the Eighth World War.” He lurched away from the panel and stumbled back toward Mara who sat glumly on the foundation slap of a weighty machine.
“What are you laughing about?” she muttered.
“We’re still in the first grade!” he groaned, envisioning a sequence of rooms. “We’ll have to learn the magic of the ancients before we pass to the next.”
“The ancients weren’t so great,” she grumbled. “Look at the mural on the wall.”
Asir looked, and saw only a strange design of circles about a bright splash of yellow that might have been the sun. “What about it?” he asked.
“My father taught me about the planets,” she said. “That is supposed to be the way they go around the sun.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“One planet too many,” she said. “Everyone knows that there is only an asteroid belt between Mars and Venus. The picture shows a planet there.”
Asir shrugged indifferently, being interested only in the machinery. “Can’t you allow them one small mistake?”
“I suppose.” She paused, gazing miserably in the direction in which her father had gone. “What do we do now?”
Asir considered it for a long time. Then he spoke to Big Joe. “You will come with us to the village.”
The machine was silent for a moment, then: “There is an apparent contradiction between primary and tertiary functions. Request priority decision by technologist.”
Asir failed to understand. He repeated his request. The robot turned slowly and stepped through the doorway. He waited.
Asir grinned. “Let’s go back up,” he said to the girl.
She arose eagerly. They crossed the anteroom to the corridor and began the long climb toward the surface, with Big Joe lumbering along behind.