Hell's Gate

die. As surely as he had killed Harold Jacobi. But this time, there was an assassin who did not bleed, who was not human. And what would the thing do with him when he was dead? Stuff him in some hole it would dig in the orchard? Let him rot out there to help grow the trees? He had a picture in his mind of this thing, full of eighteen.22 slugs, face half destroyed, chest almost one gaping hole, dragging Victor Salsbury to the orchard and putting him in a grave.
        Screaming, mad now with terror, Salsbury leaped, crashed onto the killer, bore him backwards. The other man's skull struck the bedpost, opened in two before he went on to the floor. His head, laid open, was mostly hollow, except for several sets of wires and transisters. While Salsbury pressed him down, the last false life leaked out of the robot and it was still at last.
        Robot. No blood. Wires in its face. Salsbury struggled off the inanimate form, his head pumping up and down on his neck like a wooden horse on a brass merry-go-round pole. Up. Down. Up-Down. Pretty music. Up. Down. A computer in a trunk. And he had a dead man's past. Up. Down. Up. Lizard-things lurked in the walls of his cellar. Up. Down. Down. Up. Sucker mouths. Down. Up. Now a robot with intent to kill. Up. Down. Round, round…
        He found the master bedroom, opened the door, welcomed Intrepid who bounded against him. His dislike for this room had faded now that he had become a victim too-or intended victim. It put him in sympathy with Jacobi. All he wanted was to sleep now. He was so tired. If he could only make his head stop going up and down. He clamped his hands on it and bit his tongue. Vaguely, he was aware that he could hurt himself biting on his tongue, that the next step was to swallow it. But his head did not go up and down any longer. Just down and down and down, down, down…

CHAPTER 7
        
        Once, he opened his eyes and saw a faint gray light seeping through the windows and across the floor, playing like soft fingers on his eyes. He thought about getting up, seriously thought about it. That seemed like the proper thing to do. He got his hands under himself and pushed, managed to raise his head a foot off the floor. Then the little strength he had left was gone, carried away by the fingers of gray light. His head fell and he cracked his chin on the floor. There was no more light at all.
         He was in a beautifully furnished room of pleasant and airy proportions, waiting for something, though he could not remember what. He paced around, admiring the decorating job, wondering if the Fabulous Bureau had done it, just generally passing time. When he touched the top of a smooth and darkly finished writing desk, the thing opened like a mouth. There were little sharp-edged teeth made of pipe. It slammed shut, trying to chomp off his hand. He retreated from the desk and sat down in a comfortable black chair, sucking the ends of his fingers which the desk had barely nipped. Suddenly bars slid out of the chair arms across his lap, locking him in. Nothing, it seemed, was what it appeared to be. He screamed as the chair began to swallow him.
        Someone told him to take it easy, that they were going to get help, get help very soon… now… He smiled- or at least he tried to smile-and told them that was all very nice and quite thoughtful of them but that the chair was swallowing him and could they please hurry. The black chair. The comfortable one. DO SOMETHING! Then the swirling face that he could not see clearly and the reassuring voice that accompanied it were gone. He was fading back into the room with the vicious chair and the cannibalistic desk.
         He didn't want to be in this room. He looked for a way out, found a tall, white door set flush with the walls. As he walked toward it, the desk to his right began flapping its wooden mouth and growling angrily. The chair, taking up the chorus, began thumping around, rattling its sturdy wooden legs against the floor and slowly converging on him. The ends of the legs were carved like animal paws, and Salsbury was certain he saw the toes wriggle. He hurried to the white door, flung it open, and found there was no escape. The door was nothing more than another mouth. He had opened it and stepped slightly into it. Beyond was a pink, wet throat, the heavy nodes of the tonsils hanging like stalactites. The big, black teeth started coming down to cut him in half. Oddly enough, he noticed that their