Chapter 5

AI worked his magic to control just a small section of the gravity zone. First, he ran the gravity up to 200 g to crush everything to dust, then he reversed the gravity to 0.01 g and raised the adjacent area to 3 g to cause a strong wind to blow the dust away. Presto! There was a cleared area in front of the tunnel entrance. AI then reset the gravity to the 1 g that we were comfortable with.

We approached the tunnel mouth and halted. AI said, "I checked, and the tunnel is clear for its full length. As far as I could tell, there are no traps to cause you trouble, but you will have to crawl the full 40 m of the tunnel length. Have fun."

"How about cutting the gravity to 0.5 g inside the tunnel until we are all through? That would make it much easier on our knees."

"Done."

We parked our scooters and proceeded to start through the tunnel. I led the way—such is the prerogative of the leader. What this meant was that my head might well be the first one chopped off if there were traps in the tunnel. Fortunately, nothing of the like was in the tunnel, but I was forced to stop because of a sealed door that I had no idea how to open.

"Okay, AI, how do I get past this locked door?"

"Sorry about that, Andy. I didn't know that there was a seal at that end of the tunnel. Give me a moment to see what I can do." Seconds later, the door opened and I was facing a walkway between two banks of blank walls, each one taller than my head when I stood up. I moved in far enough to allow the rest of the guys to enter and stand upright.

This was a disgustingly drab and featureless couple of walls, and we walked the length, about 95 m with no change in what we could see. We came to a lower wall that we could see over, and there we spotted several machines that we assumed to be maintenance robots. To one side was a doorway with a sign that proclaimed this to be the storage place for spare parts. Dammit, still nothing that would tell us where to find the central computer.

We had just turned away when a siren started screeching and a voice began shouting "INTERLOPERS!" over and over. Suddenly, the air was sucked out of the chamber where we were, and we dropped to the floor in hopes of getting enough oxygen. It took about 12-15 seconds before air was returned to the section where we were; I don't know about the rest of the structure.

"I am sorry about that little incident, folks. Please don't be mad at me, but it caught me by surprise as much as it did you. I had to fight with the defense system to get the air returned to you. Poison gas was supposed to follow the loss of air, but I managed to block that system before all of the valves were opened. I surmise that this reaction to your presence must mean that we have finally reached a sensitive area. I will maintain a closer watch for traps from now on."

"That's okay, AI. No harm was done, and we did get some useful information from the incident. At least, now we know that we are getting close to something considered important to the central computer."

"Thank you, Andy. I appreciate your attitude. Yes, there is something important here, but I have not found it yet."

"Try looking below ground level for cables leading away from this structure. I doubt, for security reasons, that the central computer would want electromagnetic waves to be airmailed from here. It would be much more secure for all communication between this interface and the central computer to be confined to buried cables. At least, that's what I would do under the circumstances."

"That was an excellent idea, Andy. I spent the last four milliseconds while you were talking to look for that sort of thing, and I have found it. There is a small cable snaking underground with many twists and turns as if it were trying to escape detection. Furthermore, if it were detected, it would be very difficult to tell just where it led because of all of the twists and turns. I will have to follow it step by step to know where it goes. Therefore, I suggest that you wait at your scooters while I make the detailed search. I have no idea how long it will take."

That was a good idea, and we made our way back to the scooters. While there, we ate a picnic lunch as we waited for AI to find the other end of the cable. After about an hour, a red ball appeared before us and AI said, "Andy, all of you, please follow the red ball. I am in great need of your help!..."

AI's voice kind of faded away, and we could not get anything more from him. My God! What could have grabbed hold of a being as powerful as AI? We left our mess and jumped onto our scooters. The red ball started to move, and we ran our scooters as fast as they would go, dodging back and forth around the huge trees that appeared before us.

We barely missed some of the trees, but we did get to where the red ball stopped without accidents. By this time, we were so pumped up from adrenalin that we might have been able to run as fast as the scooters were moving. We gathered around the red ball just as it faded out of sight. Now what?

"AI, where are you?" I almost shouted in panic, but a mental shout was really meaningless, so I was able to contain myself. I got no answer, so I set all of us to hunting for some sign of where we should go. In only moments, Ed Snow spotted a hole similar to the one we had used to reach the interface dome. With nothing else to guide us, we clambered down the hole and came to a tunnel that was large enough for us to stand.

I led the way as we ran down the tunnel looking for some clue as to where to find AI. Dammit, we came to another nearly closed door, but we were able to push it open by the use of brute strength. We rushed into a room that resembled the one we had seen within the interface dome, but this room was vast in floor area, though not in ceiling height.

There were four corridors leading in different directions, so I split us up into pairs and sent each pair down a different hallway. Sue and I took the one to the extreme left and began to run down it looking for some sign of where AI might be caught. At one point, we ran past a place that looked like it had sustained a huge fire, but we did not stop to investigate. There was nothing there but ashes and slag, so we did not think that could be the place where AI was located.

We were well past the site of the fire when Jim Potter, our electronics expert, called me. "Hey, Andy, I found what must be the main power control. I am going to kill the power to the system. That might free AI from what is holding him."

"Go ahead. Everybody, dig out your emergency lights. The main power is about to go offline."

I had not quite finished my sentence when the whole place went dark. A few moments later, we heard the relieved voice of AI, "Thank you for rescuing me. I was trapped inside a magnetic field that was so strong that I could not escape. I don't know what the original purpose of the magnetic field might have been, but it made an excellent trap for me. It may even have been intended as a trap for a being such as I—I can't tell at this point. Jim, you can turn the power back on now as I am clear of where I ran into trouble."

A few seconds later, the lights came back on, and AI was still able to talk to us in his normal manner and voice. "Andy, one of you organic beings will have to investigate the area where I was entrapped. I don't dare go back there as long as the power is on."

We started to move toward the place where AI had been caught when a flashing orange sign appeared on the ceiling where anyone within the room could see it. It said "EMERGENCY! PRESS ONE OF THE RESET BUTTONS!" The language used, of course, was that of the Ancients, but we had no trouble grasping its meaning. One of the buttons was adjacent to the power switch that Jim had pulled, so he asked if he should press it. We formed a committee of nine to discuss the situation. After a few minutes of discussion, AI said, "I think that Jim should press that button. He can kill the main power if something goes wrong."