The robot, meanwhile, looked on at the scientist -- the red glow of its eyes shrinking and expanding as it focused its vision.And that, that effect, small and insignificant, frightened the Lord of the Thundercat beyond bearing.It dawned on him that the cyborg was studying its creator, thinking, judging -- reasoning?

“Could it think?” the lion wondered to himself.“Did it matter?”

The doctor returned to the levers at the center of the laboratory.He pulled the closest one to the sounds of unoiled gears turning their axles, crunching their teeth.A ring dropped from the ceiling, guided along its way by a series of wires at its rim.The area of the circle shined in the weak light and even had spotty reflections that betrayed the presence of a clear plastic.The unusual material separated from the hoop and spread around the robot -- its eyes attentively followed the course of action -- and covered completely the creature’s topographical details.

“That,” he said, rubbing his hands together maniacally, “is for later.”He turned to the lion and put a hand on his back -- it was a nonverbal cue that signaled that it was time to leave.

Phaeton was not about to resist that idea.He was led out of the same door he had entered in and walked through areas of the old house that he was not too familiar with.Apparently, Algernon had remodeled his home in preparation for the robot -- or robots.

Past a set of swinging doors he found himself in a storehouse of unspeakable ghastliness, accentuated and magnified by the abject darkness.He treaded across a thin trail of exposed, hardwood floor.To his left and right he was surrounded by the shadows of deranged figures and vague forms.Limbs and open chests were sprawled on long tables and at the faraway distance were glowing dots of red, tiny, pinpricks of light that followed him as he tried to catch-up to his host.

“What are those things?More of those robotic machines?”

The half-human, half-tiger stopped:“I have a couple that are almost finished -- the rest that you see here are the failures.”

The two passed under the intense light of the chamber’s single, naked bulb that was suspended over a set of doors.

The doctor helped the lion out of the room and as he passed through the unblocked frame he sighed in relief that he had left that chamber of horrors intact.He did not give the room a second look.Oddly, he felt that its claustrophobic atmosphere was so totally blackened, so absolutely obscured that the oblivion seemed to form walls where there was on air.

Past a set of stairs he stepped into more familiar, less threatening territory.The hybrid-tiger’s office, a room almost as large as his own stately quarters -- a medium-high ceiling, wooden-tile floor, walls replete with books both out-of-print and modern, well-known and obscure.An open window cast light upon a cluttered desk.

Algernon saw that his guest lingered in the recess of the room, hesitant to come closer, so, as was the custom, he stifled the curtains shut, isolating the study from the world outside.

“As always, when my experts fail I come to you.”He reached into his side pocked and pulled out scraps of linen and cloth, setting them on the desk.

The doctor examined the items.He turned on a lamp and produced magnifying glasses from a drawer.For minutes he inspected the strips of cloth, hemming and hawing.He did not find anything out of the ordinary, anything unusual about the materials that could have told him who or what had produced them.On a hunch he put down the confiscated evidence and turned his attention to a section of the library.He looked up a series of books and skimmed through their pages.

The lion waited patiently for an answer -- the answer.

The tiger lay a volume open on the tabletop for the lord to see.It was a centuries’ old edition of a government publication.It even had the double insignia of the Thundercat and Amazonian symbols embossed on the front cover.

Phaeton’s face indicated confusion, Algernon told him to read on.The tome was open to a specific page, a reference to an event that had occurred one hundred-thousand years before.It was a case study of a minor throwback revolt, one that had been quenched swiftly by the Imperial Amazonian guard.Plans were found among the leaders -- the lion turned the page -- to his shock and horror he saw he saw the photographs of treasonous documents.Linens upon which were inscribed the very same marks and designs that the three, executed workers had had on them.

“The cloths you have here,” the doctor said, picking up the pristine sheets, “have been surfacing, intermittently, every one hundred-thousand years or so for as long as we’ve been keeping records on the matter.Remarkable how it’s always been the same, exact pattern.The lines, the shapes appear to be a map but nothing known now or then matches the proportions.They’re also quite expertly manufactured, they show a kind of detail an engineer might use.Clearly the throwbacks are incapable of stuff like this -- it makes you wonder if there’s not something else, something more in the depths with them.”

“Every one hundred-thousand years?Why?What’s the significance?”

“Off the top of my head, well,” he reclined on his chair, “that’s how long it takes Third Earth and this solar system to revolve around the galaxy.The configurations of the outermost objects in the night sky return to their original positions after about that much time has passed.Still, I’m not sure that’s not significant at all.”

“Even when you think you’re wrong, you could be right, old friend.It’s the position of stars and galaxies that give the sword its power.Maybe, after all those years pass, a constellation or an arrangement re-forms and to conveys power to someone or something that --”

“Could be something to consider -- what, who could it be?Still, I suspect that whatever is behind it all, it probably acts every hundred-thousand years to ensure that the people forget --”

“What on Third Earth could possibly exist for that long?That it could show up time and time --”

A slight pause momentarily echoed within the chamber.

“What about these other ones?The ones on scraps?”

Algernon sighed:“Simple enough, I recognized them form the start.I remembered it from my days investigating the subterranean world.It’s a map to Cat’s Lair.The ruins date back to a time before Metropolis had begun,” he tapped a finger on the shredded, burnt cloths that had been found on the throwbacks killed in the dynamo accident.

“Hmmm, I wonder what the workers would want to do with that?”

“Don’t know.”The doctor returned the books to their places on the shelves.

“Were there weapon at the site?”

“No, we found none -- the older Thundercats did not have out sensibilities, my lord.”

“If one knows then more must know, too -- it cannot be allowed.”He stood and rubbed his eyes.“What goes on down there?What do they do there in the dark?”

“Why don’t we go and see?”

Phaeton looked up at the doctor:“You know how to get there?”

“I worked in the caverns for so long that I memorized many routes and passages.”He reached into his desk and pulled out a set of night-vision goggles, dusty and encrusted with soil.“These, I found, were better than flashlights.”

The lion took a pair and studied them in his hands.

“Come, sire, there’s only one way to find out what’s been going on.Fortunately for us, there’s an old sewage tunnel under this house that’ll take us close to the area.”

The lord nodded and spun around to look at the stairwell.The prospect of having to go through the doctor’s laboratories again did not appeal to him and he wondered if it would have been better to return to his office and worry about the goings-on deep underground then to go to see the situation for himself.But he sighed and rubbed his face -- he followed the tiger half-breed, ready to do what had to be done.