Lucky no longer had a choice. He had miscalculated. It had never occurred to him to doubt the validity of the Three Laws under all circumstances. The truth had come to him too late, and his miscalculation had brought him to this: the danger of his own life and the necessity of destroying a robot.
He raised his blaster sadly.
And almost at once he realized that he had made a second miscalculation. He had waited too long, and the accumulation of heat and weariness had made his body as imperfect a machine as was the robot's. His arm lifted sluggishly, and the robot seemed to be twice life-sized to his own reeling mind and sight.
The robot was a blur of motion, and this time Lucky's tired body could not be driven into quick enough movement. The blaster was struck from Lucky's hand and went flying. Lucky's arm was clamped tight in the grip of one metal hand, and Ms waist was embraced by a metal arm.
Under the best of circumstances, Lucky could not have withstood the steel muscles of the mechanical man. No human being could have. Now he felt all capacity for resistance vanish. He felt only the heat.
The robot tightened its grip, bending Lucky backward as though he were a rag doll. Lucky thought dizzily of the structural weakness of the inso-suit. An ordinary space-suit might have protected him even against a robot's strength. An inso-suit could not. Any moment, a section of it might buckle and give.
Lucky's free arm flailed helplessly, his fingers dragging into the black grit below.
One thought flicked through his mind. Desperately he tried to drive his muscles into one last attempt to fend off what seemed inevitable death at the hands of a mad robot.
12. Prelude to a Duel
And the blaster was coming loose. In fact, it came free so suddenly that Bigman's numbed fingers nearly dropped it.
"Sands of Mars!" he muttered, and held on.
If he had known where in the tentacles a vulnerable spot might be, if he could have blasted any part of those tentacles without killing either Urteil or himself, his problem would have been simple. As it was, there was only one gamble, not a good one either, open to him.
His thumb worked clumsily on the intensity control, pushing it down and down. He was getting drowsy, which was a bad sign. It had been minutes since he had heard any sign of life from Urteil.
He had intensity at minimum now. One more thing; he must reach the activator with his forefinger without dropping the blaster.
Space! He mustn't drop it.
The forefinger touched the proper spot and pushed against it.
The blaster grew warm. He could see that in the dull red glow of the grid across the muzzle. That was bad for the grid since a blaster was not designed to be used as a heat ray, but to deep Space with that.
With what strength was left him, Bigman tossed the blaster as far as he could.
It seemed to him then as though reality wavered for a moment, as though he were on the edge of unconsciousness.
Then he felt the first glow of warmth, a tiny leakage of heat entering his body from the laboring power-unit, and he shouted in weak joy. That heat was enough to show that power was no longer being drained directly into the voracious bodies of the heat-sucking tentacles. He moved his arms. He lifted a leg. They were free. The tentacles were gone.
His suit-light had brightened, and he could see clearly the spot where the blaster had been thrown. The spot, but not the blaster. Where the blaster should be was a sluggishly moving mass of gray, intertwining tentacles.
With shaky motions, Bigman snatched at Urteil's own blaster, setting it to minimum and tossing it past the position of the first. That would hold the creature if the energy of the first gave out.
Bigman said urgently, "Hey, Urteil. Can you hear me?"
There was no answer.
With what strength he could muster he pulled the space-suited figure away with him. Urteil's suit-light glimmered, and his power-unit gauge showed itself as not quite empty. The temperature inside his suit should return to normal quickly.
Bigman called the Dome. There was no other decision possible now. In their weakened condition, with their power supply low, another encounter with Mer-curian life would kill them. And he would manage to protect Lucky's position somehow.
It was remarkable how quickly men reached them.
With two cups of coffee and a hot meal inside him and the Dome's light and heat all about him, Bigman's resilient mind and body put the recent horror into proper perspective. It was already only an unpleasant memory.
Dr. Peverale hovered about him with an air partly like that of an anxious mother, partly like that of a nervous old man. His iron-gray hair was in disarray. "You're sure you're all right, Bigman. No ill effects?"
"I feel fine. Never better," insisted Bigman. "The question is, Doc, how's Urteil?"
"Apparently he'll be all right." The astronomer's voice grew cold. "Dr. Gardoma has examined him and reported favorably on his condition."
"Good," said Bigman almost gloatingly.
Dr. Peverale said with some surprise, "Are you concerned for him?"
"You bet, Doc. I've plans for him."
Dr. Hanley Cook entered now, almost trembling with excitement. "We've sent men into the mines to see if we can round up any of the creatures. They're taking heating pads with them. Like bait to a fish, you know." He turned to Bigman. "Lucky you got away."
Bigman's voice rose in pitch and he looked outraged, "It wasn't luck, it was brains. I figured they were after straight heat most of all. I figured it was their favorite kind of energy. So I gave it to them."
Dr. Peverale left after that, but Cook remained behind, talking of the creatures, walking back and forth, bubbling with speculation. "Imagine! The old stories about the freezing death in the mines were true. Really true! Think of it! Just rocky tentacles acting as heat sponges, absorbing energy wherever they can make contact. You're sure of the description, Bigman?"
"Of course I'm sure. When you catch one, see for yourself."
"What a discovery."
"How come they were never discovered before?" asked Bigman.
"According to you, they blend into their environment. Protective mimicry. Then, too, they attack only isolated men. Maybe," his words grew quicker, more animated, and his long fingers intertwined and twisted with one another, "there is some instinct there, some rudimentary intelligence that kept them hidden and out of sight. I'm sure of it. It's a kind of intelligence that kept them out of our way. They knew their only safety was in obscurity, so they attack only single, isolated men. Then for thirty years or more no men appeared in the mines. Their precious kernels of unusual heat were gone, and yet they never succumbed to the temptation to invade the Dome itself. But when men finally appeared once more in the mines, that temptation was too great and one of the creatures attacked, even though there were two men there and not one. For them, that was fatal. They have been discovered."
"Why don't they go to the Sun-side if they want energy and they're all that intelligent?" demanded Big-man.
"Maybe that's too hot," said Cook at once.
"They took the blaster. It was red hot."
"The Sun-side may be too full of hard radiation. They may not be adapted to that. Or maybe there is another breed of such creature on the Sun-side. How can we know? Maybe the dark-side ones live on radioactive ores and on the coronal glow."
Bigman shrugged. He found such speculation unprofitable.
And Cook's line of thought seemed to change too. He stared speculatively at Bigman, one finger rubbing his chin rhythmically. "So you saved Urteil's life.'
"That's right."
"Well, maybe it's a good thing. If Urteil had died, they would have blamed you. Senator Swenson could have made it darned hot for you and for Starr and for the Council. No matter what explanation you gave, you would have been there when Urteil died, and that would have been enough for Swenson."