ght appeared in one, growing larger and brighter as the snooper
approached the top of the shaft; two more came on as the bomb-robots
followed.

"All right; follow me," he said into the inter-vehicle radio, and
started the jeep slowly up the shaft.

The snooper popped out of the shaft, onto a gallery that had been cut
into the solid rock, fifty feet high and a hundred and fifty across,
with a low parapet on the outside and the mile-deep crater beyond.
There were a few grounded aircars and lorries in sight, and a medium
airboat rested a hundred or so feet on the right of the shaft-opening.
Fifteen or twenty men were clustered around it, with a lifter loaded
with ammunition. They looked like any crowd of farm-tramps. Suddenly,
one of them saw the snooper, gave a yell, and fired at it with a
rifle. Sylvie pulled it back into the shaft; her father and the chief
engineer sent the two bomb-robots up onto the gallery. The right-hand
robot sped at the airboat; the last thing Conn saw in its screen was a
face, bearded and villainous and contorted with fright, looking out
the pilot's window of the airboat. Then it went dead, and there was a
roar from above. On the other side, several men were firing straight
at the pickup of the other robot; it went dead, too, and there was a
second explosion.

In the communication screen, somebody was yelling, "Give them another
one for Milt Hennant!" and his father was urging him to get in fast,
before they recovered.

In peace or war, screen communication was a wonderful thing. The only
trouble was that it let in too many kibitzers.

The gallery, when the jeep emerged onto it, was empty except for
casualties, a few still alive. The side of the airboat was caved in;
the lifter-load of ammunition had gone up with the bomb. He moved the
jeep to the right of the shaft and waited for the vehicles behind him,
suffering a brief indecision.

_Never divide your force in the presence of the enemy._

There had been generals who had done that and gotten away with it, but
they'd had names like Foxx Travis and Robert E. Lee and
Napoleon--Napoleon; that was who'd made that crack about omelets!
They'd known what they were doing. He was playing this battle by ear.

There was a lot of shouting ahead to the right. That meant live
pirates, a deplorable situation which ought to be corrected at once.
The communication screen was noisy, now; his father had gotten to the
top gallery with the three gun cutt