“Half-life over one hundred years,” Reynolds answered shortly. “The last skirmish of the war was fought near here. Apparently this is where they buried the radioactive equipment left over from the battle.”

“But what the hell, that was seventy years ago—”

“There’s still enough residual radiation to contaminate anything inside a quarter-mile radius.”

“They must have used some hellish stuff.” Mayfield stared at the dull shine half a mile distant.

“Reynolds, how are you going to stop this thing?” The mayor had turned on the PA engineer.

“Me stop it? You saw what it did to my heaviest rigs: flattened them like pancakes. You’ll have to call out the military on this one, Mr. Mayor.”

“Call in Federation forces? Have them meddling in civic affairs?”

“The station’s only sixty-five miles from here. I think you’d better call them fast. It’s only moving at about three miles per hour but it will reach the south edge of the Mall in another forty-five minutes.”

“Can’t you mine it? Blast a trap in its path?”

“You saw it claw its way up from six hundred feet down. I checked the specs; it followed the old excavation tunnel out. It was rubble-filled and capped with twenty-inch compressed concrete.”

“It’s incredible,” Eaton said from the screen. “The entire machine was encased in a ten-foot shell of reinforced armocrete. It had to break out of that before it could move a foot!”

“That was just a radiation shield; it wasn’t intended to restrain a Bolo Combat Unit.”

“What was, may I inquire?” The mayor glared from one face to another.

“The units were deactivated before being buried,” Eaton spoke up, as if he were eager to talk. “Their circuits were fused. It’s all in the report—”

“The report you should have read somewhat sooner,” the mayor snapped.

“What—what started it up?” Mayfield looked bewildered. “For seventy years it was down there, and nothing happened!”

“Our blasting must have jarred something,” Reynolds said shortly. “Maybe closed a relay that started up the old battle reflex circuit.”

“You know something about these machines?” The mayor beetled his brows at him.

“I’ve read a little.”

“Then speak up, man. I’ll call the station, if you feel I must. What measures should I request?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Mayor. As far as I know, nothing on New Devon can stop that machine now.”

The mayor’s mouth opened and closed. He whirled to the screen, blanked Eaton’s agonized face, punched in the code for the Federation station.

“Colonel Blane!” he blurted as a stern face came onto the screen. “We have a major emergency on our hands! I’ll need everything you’ve got! This is the situation…”

9