“Wow!” said Evgeny, wiping away sweat. “What a sight!”
“A typical scene of predatory dinosaurs hunting a large diplodocus,” the librarian said in a businesslike tone. “They ate each other all the time. Almost all the data which we receive from that epoch is uninterrupted predation. But how did you like the quality of the image, Comrade Slavin?”
“Excellent quality,” said Evgeny. “Except for some reason it’s always blinking.”
Above the tops of the acacias, a pot-bellied six-engined craft thundered by. The librarian ran out of the studio. “The equipment!” she shouted. “Let’s go, Comrade Slavin—that’s the equipment coming in.”
“But please!” yelped Evgeny. “What about the rest? You promised to show me another one!”
“You don’t want to see it, believe me,” the librarian said with conviction. She hurriedly folded up the chair. “I don’t know what got into Paul’s head. Number seven-five-one-two is the slaughter in Constantinople. Fifteenth century. The image quality is excellent, but it’s such an unpleasant scene. Really, Comrade Slavin, you don’t want to see it. Let’s go watch Paul catch the monsters instead.”
The enormous six-rotored helicopter had landed near the place where Evgeny had left his pterocar, and the unloading of equipment was in full swing. Platforms on high wheels, loaded with dull yellow boxes, rolled out of the opened holds. They took the boxes to the foot of one of the acacias, where in the space between two mighty roots the indefatigable Rudak supervised their assembly. His stentorian voice rang out far across the evening savanna.
The film librarian excused herself and ran off somewhere. Evgeny began walking in uncertain circles around Rudak. Curiosity was getting the better of him. The platforms on high wheels rolled up, unloaded, and departed, and the “servants of CODD”-guys and girls-put the yellow boxes in place and screwed them together, and soon the contours of an enormous angular construction had taken form under the acacia. Rudak rushed off somewhere into its bowels, humming, whistling, and emitting booming shouts. It was noisy and cheerful.
“Strong and Joy, get busy with the intravisors!”
“Dum-didi-dum-didi-dum-dum! Whoever’s there, hand me the contact thingie.”
“The feeders! Where did the damn feeders get to?”
“Ooh-la-la! Farther to the right! That’s good.”
“Frost, get me out of this mess!”
Someone innocently poked Evgeny in the side, and he was asked to move out of the way. At last the enormous helicopter was unloaded, and it began to roar, stirring up a wind and shreds of grass, and moved off from under the acacia over to the landing pad. Rudak crawled out from under the assembly on hands and knees, got up, brushed his hands, and said, “Well, we can get started. Stations, everyone.” He jumped up on the platform where a small control panel was set up. The platform creaked. “Pray for us, Great CODD,” yelled Rudak.
“Stanislav hasn’t come back yet!” someone shouted.
“That spells trouble!” Rudak said, and climbed down from the platform.
“Does Professor Lomba know about all this?” a slim maiden with a boyish hair cut asked timidly.
“Professor Lomba will find out,” Rudak said grandly. “But just where is Stanislav?”
The ground in the clearing in front of the acacias bulged and cracked. Evgeny jumped a full yard. It seemed to him that the pale, tooth-filled maw of a dinosaur was poking up from the grass.
“At last!” said Rudak. “I had already started worrying-his oxygen ran out a minute ago. Or two minutes, actually.”
A ringed metallic body half a yard thick drew itself out of the ground slowly and clumsily, like a giant earthworm. It kept crawling and crawling, and it was still unclear how many rings might yet be hidden underground, when its front part started turning rapidly, screwed itself off, and fell into the grass. A damp, scarlet face with a wide-gaping mouth stuck out of the black aperture.
“Aha!” Rudak roared. “Took you long enough, Stanislav!”
The face hung over the edge, spat, and declared in a strong voice, “It’s got a whole damn arsenal down there. Entire armadas of crawling disks. Get me out of this thing.”
The ringed worm kept crawling and crawling out of the ground, and rays of the red setting sun played on its metal sides.
“Let’s get going,” Rudak declared, and again climbed onto the platform. He smoothed his beard out on the left and on the right, made faces at the girls who had crowded below, and with a pianist’s gesture lay his hands on the board. The board blazed with indicator lights.
Then everything in the clearing went quiet. Evgeny, picking up his movie camera, noted worriedly that several people had scrambled into an acacia and were sitting on the branches, while the girls crowded more closely toward the platform. Just in case, Evgeny moved closer himself.
“Strong and Joy, get ready!” Rudak thundered.
“Ready!” two voices shouted.
“I’ll start warbling on the main frequency. You sing on the flanks. And let’s have a lot of noise.”
Evgeny expected everyone to begin singing and drumming, but it got even quieter. A minute went by.
“Turn up the voltage,” Rudak ordered softly.
Another minute went by. The sun set, and the brighter stars appeared in the sky. Somewhere an emu cried sleepily. A girl standing next to Evgeny sighed heavily. Suddenly there was movement up above, on the acacia branch, and someone’s voice, trembling with excitement, shouted, “There they are! There, in the clearing! You’re looking in the wrong direction!”
Evgeny did not understand where he ought to look, nor did he know who “they” might be, or what one might expect of them. He picked up the movie camera and moved back a little more, crowding the girls toward the platform, and suddenly he saw them. At first he thought it was an illusion, that it was simply spots swimming before his tired eyes. The black starlit savanna began to stir. Indistinct gray shadows rose up on it, unspeaking and ominous; the grass rustled, something squeaked, and he could hear a solid tapping, jingling, crackling. In an instant the quiet was filled with deep indistinct rustlings.
“Light!” bellowed Rudak. “The enemy cometh!”
A joyful howl rang out from the acacia. Dry leaves and twigs rained down. In the same instant a blinding light flashed over the clearing.
Over the savanna marched the army of the Great CODD. Marched to surrender. Evgeny had never seen such a parade of mechanical monsters in his life. Obviously the servants of the Great CODD were seeing them for the first time too. Homeric laughter shook the acacia. The designers, those experienced warriors in the cause of mechanical perfection, were enraged. They toppled from the branch in bunches, and dashed into the clearing.
“No, look. You just look!”
“The seventeenth century! Watt’s linkage!”
“Where’s Robinson? Robinson, were you the one who figured that CODD was smarter than you?”
“Let’s hear it for Robinson! Yea, Robinson!”
“Guys, get a load of these wheels! They won’t even make it all the way to us!”
“Guys! Guys! Look! A steam engine!”
“Author! Author!”
Horrible scarecrows moved into the clearing. Lopsided steam-tricycles. Dish-like rattling contrivances that sparked and gave off a burning smell. The familiar tortoises, furiously kicking their famous single hind legs. Spider-shaped mechanisms on extremely long wire legs on which, now and then, they lowered themselves to the ground. In back, mournfully wobbling, came the poles on wheels with the wilted mirrors on the tips. All these dragged themselves onward, limping, pushing, knocking, breaking down on the way, and emitting steam and sparks. Evgeny aimed the movie camera like a zombie.