The Minority Report and Other Classic Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

menace above, the frantically eager factory opened up and guided its mobile unit directly inside. And the hawk had what it wanted.
    Before the barrier could close, the hawk swooped down in a long glide parallel with the ground. As the cart disappeared into the depths of the factory, the hawk shot after it, a swift shimmer of metal that hurtled past the clanking cart. Suddenly aware, the factory snapped the barrier shut. Grotesquely, the cart struggled; it was caught fast in the half-closed entrance.
    But whether it freed itself didn’t matter. There was a dull rumbling stir. The ground moved, billowed, then settled back. A deep shock wave passed beneath the three watching human beings. From the factory rose a single column of black smoke. The surface of concrete split like a dried pod; it shriveled and broke, and dribbled shattered bits of itself in a shower of ruin. The smoke hung for a while, drifting aimlessly away with the morning wind.
    The factory was a fused, gutted wreck. It had been penetrated and destroyed.
    O’Neill got stiffly to his feet. “That’s all. All over with. We’ve got what we set out after—we’ve destroyed the autofac network.” He glanced at Perine. “Or was that what we were after?”
    They looked toward the settlement that lay behind them. Little remained of the orderly rows of houses and streets of the previous years. Without the network, the settlement had rapidly decayed. The original prosperous neatness had dissipated; the settlement was shabby, ill-kept.
    “Of course,” Perine said haltingly. “Once we get into the factories and start setting up our own assembly lines…”
    “Is there anything left?” Judith inquired.
    “There must be something left. My God, there were levels going down miles!”
    “Some of those bombs they developed toward the end were awfully big,” Judith pointed out. “Better than anything we had in our war.”
    “Remember that camp we saw? The ruins-squatters?”
    “I wasn’t along,” Perine said.
    “They were like wild animals. Eating roots and larvae. Sharpening rocks, tanning hides. Savagery, bestiality.”
    “But that’s what people like that want,” Perine answered defensively
    “Do they? Do we want this?” O’Neill indicated the straggling settlement. “Is this what we set out looking for, that day we collected the tungsten? Or that day we told the factory truck its milk was—” He couldn’t remember the word.
    “Pizzled,” Judith supplied.
    “Come on,” O’Neill said. “Let’s get started. Let’s see what’s left of that factory—left for us.”
     
    They approached the ruined factory late in the afternoon. Four trucks rumbled shakily up to the rim of the gutted pit and halted, motors steaming, tailpipes dripping. Wary and alert, workmen scrambled down and stepped gingerly across the hot ash.
    “Maybe it’s too soon,” one of them objected.
    O’Neill had no intention of waiting. “Come on,” he ordered. Grabbing up a flashlight, he stepped down into the crater.
    The sheltered hull of the Kansas City factory lay directly ahead. In its gutted mouth, the ore cart still hung caught, but it was no longer struggling. Beyond the cart was an ominous pool of gloom. O’Neill flashed his light through the entrance; the tangled, jagged remains of upright supports were visible.
    “We want to get down deep,” he said to Morrison, who prowled cautiously beside him. “If there’s anything left, it’s at the bottom.”
    Morrison grunted. “Those boring moles from Atlanta got most of the deep layers.”
    “Until the others got their mines sunk.” O’Neill stepped carefully through the sagging entrance, climbed a heap of debris that had been tossed against the slit from inside, and found himself within the factory—an expanse of confused wreckage, without pattern or meaning.
    “Entropy,” Morrison breathed, oppressed. “The thing it always hated. The thing it was built to fight. Random particles everywhere. No purpose to