The robot
entered this, and in its headlight they could see reconnaissance-cars,
and contragravity tanks with 90-mm guns. It swerved slightly to the
left, and then the screen stopped receiving, the telemetered
instruments went dead and the robot's signal stopped.

"Tom," Rodney Maxwell said, "you keep the crowd back. Klem, stay with
the screens; I'll transmit to you. I'm going in to see what's wrong."

He started to give Conn an argument when he wanted to accompany him.

"No," Conn said. "I'm going along. What do you think I went to Terra
to study robotics for?"

His father snapped on the screen and pickup of the jeep that was
standing nearby. "You getting it, Klem?" he asked. "Okay, Conn. Let's
go."

Half a mile ahead, at the other end of the tunnel, they could see a
flicker of light that grew brighter as they advanced. The snooper
still had its light on and was moving about. Once they caught a
momentary signal from it. As Rodney Maxwell piloted the jeep, Conn
kept talking to Klem Zareff, outside. Then they were at the end of the
tunnel and entering the room ahead; it was full of vehicles, like the
one on the bottom level at Tenth Army HQ. As soon as they were inside,
Klem Zareff's voice in the radio stopped, as though the set had been
shot out.

"Klem! What's wrong? We aren't getting you," his father was saying.

The snooper was drifting aimlessly about, avoiding the parked
vehicles. Conn used the manual control to set it down and deactivate
it, then got out and went to examine it.

"Take the jeep over to the tunnel entrance," he told his father.
"Move out into the tunnel a few feet; relay from me to Klem."

The jeep moved over. A moment later his father cried, "He's getting
me; I'm getting him. What's the matter with the radio in here? The
snooper's all right, isn't it?"

It was. Conn reactivated it and put it up above the tops of the
vehicles.

"Sure. We just can't transmit out."

"But only half a mile of rock; that set's good for more than that.
It'll transmit clear through Snagtooth."

"It won't transmit through collapsium."

His father swore disgustedly, repeating it to Zareff outside. Conn
could hear the old soldier, in the radio, make a similar remark. They
should have all expected that, in the first place. If the Third Force
High Command was expecting to sit out a nuclear bombardment in this
place, they'd armor it against anything.

"Bring the gang in; it's safe as far as we've gotten," his