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ACID BATH
By VASELEOS GARSON
_The starways' Lone Watcher had expected some odd developments in his singular, nerve-fraught job on the asteroid. But nothing like the weird twenty-one-day liquid test devised by the invading Steel-Blues._
Jon Karyl was bolting in a new baffle plate on the stationary rocketengine. It was a tedious job and took all his concentration. So hewasn't paying too much attention to what was going on in other parts ofthe little asteroid.
He didn't see the peculiar blue space ship, its rockets throttled down,as it drifted to land only a few hundred yards away from his plasticigloo.
Nor did he see the half-dozen steel-blue creatures slide out of thepeculiar vessel's airlock.
It was only as he crawled out of the depths of the rocket power plantthat he realized something was wrong.
By then it was almost too late. The six blue figures were only fiftyfeet away, approaching him at a lope.
Jon Karyl took one look and went bounding over the asteroid's rockyslopes in fifty-foot bounds.
When you're a Lone Watcher, and strangers catch you unawares, you don'tstand still. You move fast. It's the Watcher's first rule. Stay alive.An Earthship may depend upon your life.
As he fled, Jon Karyl cursed softly under his breath. The automaticalarm should have shrilled out a warning.
Then he saved as much of his breath as he could as some sort of powerwave tore up the rocky sward to his left. He twisted and zig-zagged inhis flight, trying to get out of sight of the strangers.
Once hidden from their eyes, he could cut back and head for theunderground entrance to the service station.
He glanced back finally.
Two of the steel-blue creatures were jack-rabbiting after him, andrapidly closing the distance.
Jon Karyl unsheathed the stubray pistol at his side, turned the oxygendial up for greater exertion, increased the gravity pull in hisspace-suit boots as he neared the ravine he'd been racing for.
The oxygen was just taking hold when he hit the lip of the ravine andbegan sprinting through its man-high bush-strewn course.
The power ray from behind ripped out great gobs of the shelteringbushes. But running naturally, bent close to the bottom of the ravine,Jon Karyl dodged the bare spots. The oxygen made the tremendous exertioneasy for his lungs as he sped down the dim trail, hidden from the twosteel-blue stalkers.
He'd eluded them, temporarily at least, Jon Karyl decided when hefinally edged off the dim trail and watched for movement along the routebehind him.
He stood up, finally, pushed aside the leafy overhang of a bush andlooked for landmarks along the edge of the ravine.
He found one, a stubby bush, shaped like a Maltese cross, clinging tothe lip of the ravine. The hidden entrance to the service station wasn'tfar off.
His pistol held ready, he moved quietly on down the ravine until the oldwater course made an abrupt hairpin turn.
Instead of following around the sharp bend, Jon Karyl moved straightahead through the overhanging bushes until he came to a dense thicket.Dropping to his hands and knees he worked his way under the edge of thethicket into a hollowed-out space in the center.
* * * * *
There, just ahead of him, was the lock leading into the service station.Slipping a key out of a leg pouch on the space suit, he jabbed it intothe center of the lock, opening the lever housing.
He pulled strongly on the lever. With a hiss of escaping air, the lockswung open. Jon Karyl darted inside, the door closing softly behind.
At the end of the long tunnel he stepped to the televisor which wasfixed on the area surrounding the station.
Jon Karyl saw none of the steel-blue creatures. But he saw their ship.It squatted like a smashed-down kid's top, its lock shut tight.
He tuned the televisor to its widest range and finally spotted one ofthe Steel-Blues. He was looking into the stationary rocket engine.
As Karyl watched, a second Steel-Blue came crawling out of the ship.
The two Steel-Blues moved toward the center of the televisor range.They're coming toward the station, Karyl thought grimly.
Karyl examined the two creatures. They were of the steel-blue color fromthe crown of their egg-shaped heads to the tips of their walkingappendages.
They were about the height of Karyl--six feet. But where he tapered frombroad shoulders to flat hips, they were straight up and down. They hadno legs, just appendages, many-jointed that stretched and shrankindependent of the other, but keeping the cylindrical body with its fourpairs of tentacles on a level balance.
Where their eyes would have been was an elliptical-shaped lens, coveringhalf the egg-head, with its converging ends curving around the sides ofthe head.
Robots! Jon gauged immediately. But where were their masters?
The Steel-Blues moved out of the range of the televisor. A minute laterJon heard a pounding from the station upstairs.
He chuckled. They were like the wolf of pre-atomic days who huffed andpuffed to blow the house down.
The outer shell of the station was formed from stelrylite, the toughestmetal in the solar system. With the self-sealing lock of the sameresistant material, a mere pounding was nothing.
Jon thought he'd have a look-see anyway. He went up the steel ladderleading to the station's power plant and the televisor that could lookinto every room within the station.
He heaved a slight sigh when he reached the power room, for right at hishand were weapons to blast the ship from the asteroid.
Jon adjusted one televisor to take in the lock to the station. Histeeth suddenly clamped down on his lower lip.
Those Steel-Blues were pounding holes into the stelrylite withround-headed metal clubs. But it was impossible. Stelrylite didn't breakup that easily.
Jon leaped to a row of studs, lining up the revolving turret whichcapped the station so that its thin fin pointed at the squat ship of theinvaders.
Then he went to the atomic cannon's firing buttons.
He pressed first the yellow, then the blue button. Finally the red one.
The thin fin--the cannon's sight--split in half as the turret opened andthe coiled nose of the cannon protruded. There was a soundless flash.Then a sharp crack.
Jon was dumbfounded when he saw the bolt ricochet off the ship. This wasno ship of the solar system. There was nothing that could withstand eventhe slight jolt of power given by the station cannon on any of the Sun'sworlds. But what was this? A piece of the ship had changed. A bubble ofmetal, like a huge drop of blue wax, dripped off the vessel and struckthe rocket of the asteroid. It steamed and ran in rivulets.
He pressed the red button again.
Then abruptly he was on the floor of the power room, his legs strangelycut out from under him. He tried to move them. They lay flaccid. Hisarms seemed all right and tried to lever himself to an upright position.
Damn it, he seemed as if he were paralyzed from the waist down. But itcouldn't happen that suddenly.
He turned his head.
A Steel-Blue stood facing him. A forked tentacle held a square blackbox.
Jon could read nothing in that metallic face. He said, voice muffled bythe confines of the plastic helmet, "Who are you?"
"I am"--there was a rising inflection in the answer--"a Steel-Blue."
There were no lips on the Steel-Blue's face to move. "That is what Ihave named you," Jon Karyl said. "But what are you?"
"A robot," came the immediate answer. Jon was quite sure then that theSteel-Blue was telepathic. "Yes," the Steel-Blue answered. "We talk inthe language of the mind. Come!" he said peremptorily, motioning withthe square black box.
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The paralysis left Karyl's legs. He followed the Steel-Blue, aware thatthe lens he'd seen on the creature's face had a counterpart on the backof the egg-head.
Eyes in the back of his head, Jon thought. That's quite an innovation."Thank you," Steel-Blue said.
There wasn't much fear in Jon Karyl's mind. Psychiatrists had provedthat when he had applied for this high-paying but man-killing job as aLone Watcher on the Solar System's starways.
He had little fear now, only curiosity. These Steel-Blues didn't seeminimical. They could have snuffed out my life very simply. Perhaps theyand Solarians can be friends.
Steel-Blue chuckled.
* * * * *
Jon followed him through the sundered lock of the station. Karyl stoppedfor a moment to examine the wreckage of the lock. It had been punchedfull of holes as if it had been some soft cheese instead of a metalwhich Earthmen had spent nearly a century perfecting.
"We appreciate your compliment," Steel-Blue said.