Read Zelazny, Roger - Novel 05 for Free Online Page B

not bothering to
check my burns, bringing the laser to bear on the nearest of the advancing
robots. There were three of them still in action, and I held the beam upon the
foremost for an intolerably long while before I burned a hole through its
turret and it came to a sputtering, smoking halt.
                   I shifted it to the second one immediately,
and it occurred to me then that they had not necessarily been designed for
combat purposes. They were not sufficiently specialized. It seemed as if he had
marshaled and armed a horde of multi-use machines and sent them against me.
They could have been designed to move faster and perform with deadlier
efficiency. Their weapons were not really built into them, but borne by them.
                   "Of course the race is worth
saving," I said through the taste of salt. "But whenever
circumstances conspire against it, its own irrationality pushes it forward for
the kiss. This madness is its doom. If it were mine to do, I would beat it out,
breed it out." I laughed then, as the second robot came apart. "Hell!
I'd start with myself!"
                   I could hear the crackling of flames at my
back, as well as the swishing of a sprinkler system. I had my beam on the final
robot now, and I was beginning to fear I had gotten to it too late. Its own
beam was melting and pulverizing my heap of protective junk, and I kept ducking
my head and pulling it to the side, blinking dust from my eyes, blowing it from
my nose, smelling my burning hair and my charred ear.
                   It came, it came, it came. My left hand seemed
to be on fire, but I knew that I would not move until one of us was
extinguished by the blaze.
                   I kept firing after it had stopped, I guess,
because I had my eyes squeezed shut by then and my head turned to the side, and
I did not see it happen.
                   When I realized that too much time had passed
for me to be alive if things had not gone right, I stopped firing and raised my
head. Then I let it fall again and just lay there, knowing it was all right
now, aching, unable to move.
                   After perhaps half a minute, I knew that I had
to get up and go on, or I would just lie there losing the benefit of all that
adrenalin, growing weaker and sleepier before my pain and fatigue. I pushed
myself upright, reeled back. I almost fell as I stooped to retrieve my final
grenade from its place at the hip of my armor. Then I turned and faced the
building.
                   The large metal doors were closed. When I
moved to them and tried them, I found that they had been secured. While I had
knocked many holes in the building, fires seemed to be burning behind all of
them. I backed away, half-expecting an explosion when I tried it, raised my gun
and burned away the locking mechanism.
                   Nothing happened. No hidden charges.
                   I moved forward, opened one of the doors,
entered.
                   It was a simple lobby, of the sort to be found
in office buildings anywhere. Deserted, though. And hot and smoky.
                   I stalked ahead, ready to fire at the first
movement of anything, wondering about concealed guns, bombs, gas nozzles,
hoping they were damaged now or powerless, if present, and going over the plans
for the place which I held in my mind.
                   My feelings were that he would be downstairs
in the brain room. It was the safest as well as the most sensitive place in the
entire installation.
                   As I worked my way toward the rear of the
building in search of a stairwell, Styler's voice came to me over the
loudspeaker system:
                   "I was not mistaken about you," he
said. "I was afraid of you from the first. It is a pity that we could only
meet under these circumstances. You possess a quality I admire