rd the approaching robot, crunching and snapping its way through
the undergrowth like an onrushing forest fire. He froze. "Good Lord!
They communicate with each other! The one I jammed must be calling
others to help."

He began to move along the bank, away from the crashing sounds. Suddenly
he stopped, his eyes widened. "Of course! Radio! I'll bet anything
they're automatically controlled by the camp computer. That's where their
brain is!" He paused. "Then, if that were put out of commission ..." He
jerked away from the bank and half ran, half pulled himself through the
undergrowth towards the camp.

Trees exploded to his left as another robot fired in his direction, too
far away to be effective but churning towards him through the blackness.

Alan changed direction slightly to follow a line between the two robots
coming up from either side, behind him. His eyes were well accustomed to
the dark now, and he managed to dodge most of the shadowy vines and
branches before they could snag or trip him. Even so, he stumbled in the
wiry underbrush and his legs were a mass of stinging slashes from ankle
to thigh.

The crashing rumble of the killer robots shook the night behind him,
nearer sometimes, then falling slightly back, but following constantly,
more unshakable than bloodhounds because a man can sometimes cover a
scent, but no man can stop his thoughts. Intermittently, like
photographers' strobes, blue flashes would light the jungle about him.
Then, for seconds afterwards his eyes would see dancing streaks of
yellow and sharp multi-colored pinwheels that alternately shrunk and
expanded as if in a surrealist's nightmare. Alan would have to pause and
squeeze his eyelids tight shut before he could see again, and the robots
would move a little closer.

To his right the trees silhouetted briefly against brilliance as a third
robot slowly moved up in the distance. Without thinking, Alan turned
slightly to the left, then froze in momentary panic. "I should be at the
camp now. Damn, what direction am I going?" He tried to think back, to
visualize the twists and turns he'd taken in the jungle. "All I need is
to get lost."

He pictured the camp computer with no one to stop it, automatically
sending its robots in wider and wider forays, slowly wiping every trace
of life from the planet. Technologically advanced machines doing the job
for which they were built, completely, thoroughly, without feeling, and
without human masters