The two black Klikiss robots strode forward, their clawlike arms extended and clacking. With sick revulsion Louis saw the splatters of scarlet on their metal appendages. Arcas’s blood.

Rushing to their tools strewn against the wall, he grabbed a pickax resting on one of the stone shelves. They had used the tool to chop through crumbling walls and clear away debris. Louis hefted it. The pickax was heavy in his arms, but the handle felt strong. He brandished it, knowing the weapon would do little good against these powerful machines.

Meanwhile, Margaret stared as the stone trapezoid crackled and fuzzed with static. Then the smooth rock faded away, suddenly replaced with another scene—an opening that gave her a view of a different place entirely, a new world.

“Louis!” she shouted.

The Klikiss robots converged toward the two archaeologists, their articulated arms extended. Louis swung the pickax from side to side. He looked over his shoulder at his wife, took a brief but significant gaze, like a snapshot in his memory. He memorized the determined face he had loved for so long, the inner beauty and the weathered features that had made her more attractive to him than any other woman he had ever met. “Go!” he shouted. “Just go!”

Margaret hesitated. “I’m not leaving you!”

“Well then, I’m coming right after you.” The pickax slammed into Sirix’s black body core with a loud clang, and the impact sent a jolt through Louis’s arms, hurting his shoulders. The point of the digging tool left only a small scratch on the black carapace.

The Klikiss robot rocked back in surprise, then reached out with a segmented insectlike forelimb. Louis dodged, yanking the tool away and hefting it over his shoulder.

“Now, Louis!” Margaret called. Then, without hesitation, she stepped into the image that had been only flat stone moments before. The portal wall crackled—and Margaret vanished.

Elated to see that his wife had escaped, Louis hurled the pickax at the advancing Klikiss robot. It clattered against the dark casing. Sirix knocked it aside with his bloodstained limbs, and the pickax crashed to the floor.

Turning, Louis raced toward the trapezoidal portal wall where the window looked out upon a sanctuary. Another planet… somewhere foreign and far away.

But in front of his eyes, the stone window shimmered, then solidified again, sealing itself into a blank and impenetrable rock barrier.

Louis skidded to a halt, his heart sinking, despair etched across his face. “No,” he moaned. He had not seen which tablet Margaret had pushed, didn’t know what she had done to activate the system.

Sirix and Dekyk closed in on him now. Having seen Margaret escape, they would not give him the same opportunity. Deadly weapon arms extended from hidden openings in the robots’ bodies, claws clacking.