Chapter II: Part 2

The travelwalk carried them out to the spinning cylinder. They entered the axis lock. At once a motley of sounds could be heard. Sounds that brought almost an appearance of expression to the robot's sensory assembly, as it slowly turned on its short neck.

"Does that sound mean anything to you?" Pwowp asked.

"Yes. I can _remember_ that sound."

They entered the giant cylinder. They looked down on its inner perimeter. There were living creatures there.

"Those are dogs," Pwowp said. "All breeds of dogs. Do they look like your memories?"

"Yes," the robot said without expression. "I was like those over there. What kind are they?"

"I believe they are called blood-hounds." Pwowp became motionless for several seconds. "I think we'd better return to the surface," he said. "We have visitors coming." He turned to leave. As the robot hesitated, he turned back. "I understand you," he said. "It's natural to want to see the creatures you have kinship with. That will come later. In fact, you are to have complete charge of them. We have been unable to get anywhere with them--probably because we don't understand their psychology. Their young are to be trained for service in those robots. We have all the necessary equipment for it. First we have to see how your plan to trap any pursuers will work."

2615 tore its eyes from the view below and followed Pwowp. Shortly the robot was looking into a large viewscreen at two ships riding their trails toward the planetoid.

"They won't be within range for another two hours yet. Right now the robot bodies are being unloaded--just in case. We thought you would enjoy the honor of destroying those ships."

* * * * *

For the first time a low rumble emerged from the voice box of 2615. It was the almost whispered growl of anger of a bloodhound. It turned back to the screen. "One of those two ships isn't the kind that would come after the freighter," it said. "From the pattern of its rocket trail I would say it's a private ship."

"I noticed that," Pwowp said. "I can identify the type. I believe one of our monitors is picking up a broadcast from one of those ships."

A loudspeaker spat into life in the room.

"Calling robot 532 dash 03 dash 2615," a voice said. It was a female human voice, its tones rich with undertones of pleading urgency. "If you can hear me, please listen. I'm the owner of that freighter you're on. I want to talk to you. I understand you, and I want to help you."

The girl began repeating her message.

The robot turned to its companions. "This casts a different light on things," it said.

"What do you mean?" Pwowp said sharply.

"Listen to me," the robot said. "I understand human psychology. I'm also taking into account a great many factors. One, those humans don't know about you. They think I stole the ship and am alone after having killed the pilot. That girl owns the freighter. She doesn't want to lose the money it represents, so she is risking her life in an attempt to get it back. She hasn't any desire to 'save' me. If she can destroy me she will--but she wants her ship. Hers is the private ship. The other undoubtedly is manned by a member of the Space Patrol assigned to track me down and destroy the freighter on sight rather than risk defeat. _Humans fear us more than any other thing._"

"I understand that," Pwowp said.

"Also there is one other factor. I have no idea what means you have to destroy those ships. If it's radiation or atomic explosive, the still operative wartime protective screen of the Solar System will detect it and locate its source."

"I doubt if they can detect our weapon. It's radically different," Pwowp said.

"You don't know," 2615 said. "Here's my plan. I'll answer the girl and agree to talk with her if she'll come down. She will, because that will be the only way she can hope to destroy me without destroying her ship. Once she's here, it will be no trouble to take her alive--and alive, she will be the means to force the other ship down. It will have a man in it. No man will deliberately destroy a woman in cold blood if he thinks he can rescue her some way."

"How would he try to rescue her?"

Stella's voice erupted again. "Robot," she said. "I'm in the lead ship. The S.P. man is in my ship, and it has no weapons. He can't hurt you. Isn't that evidence of my good faith? I've told you something that places me in your power if I come down. I'm willing to offer you this ship, armed and able to outrun anything on rockets--in exchange for my freighter. And you don't need to be afraid of reinforcements. The transmitter on the other ship is out and the pilot can't call for help or radio your position."

"Humans are fools," Pwowp said delightedly.

"That gives us what we want," 2615 said. "Once I have her and the S.P. ship, I can order him to leave or I will destroy his ship."

"But then he'll leave!" Pwowp said.

2615 shook its sensory assembly in the negative. "He'll retreat until he knows the instruments on the S.P. ship can't follow him. Then he'll circle back and land on the other side of the planetoid and come around on foot, with plans to get into the freighter and rescue the girl."

"I see what's in your mind, 2615," Pwowp said. "You wouldn't get the same satisfaction out of destroying them out there. You want them where you can crush them with your hands."

The robot looked down at its metal hands on long metal rods. It lifted them and brought the fingers together in a slow, crushing movement.

"I want to _play_ with them," it said. "I want them all to myself."

Pwowp laughed. "You shall have them," he said. "And--you've proven yourself. We know now we can rely on you." In a matter-of-fact voice he added, "If either ship attempts to broadcast with enough power to send a message to any Space Patrol base we have an instrument that can dampen all radio frequencies."

* * * * *

Larry's eyes were bleak slits. He knew what Stella was planning. He knew it wouldn't work. Or would it? She was hoping the robot wouldn't kill her if she offered it a better ship. One it could use to better advantage than a clumsy conspicuous freighter. Whether the robot answered her or not, she intended to land, leave the sleek S.P. pursuit ship, go far enough away from it so that the robot could get to it and blast off. That was her reasoning. What she was overlooking was that the robot would have no inhibitions against killing her--and a very good reason to kill her. And Larry too. Revenge against humanity.

Fear. It was an acid vapor in the air, bathing his skin, searing his throat. It was deep rooted, that fear. As deep rooted as the fear in the heart of a murderer when he is known and trying to escape, and as real. Fear of a robot that _remembers_ it is a dog.

Larry fought the fear out of his eyes so he could see, out of his mind so he could think.

Stella in the SP47 had already matched speed with the planetoid and was drifting slowly toward it. In ten or fifteen minutes she would land.

Larry read his meters. Speed relative to the planetoid still in excess of 2200 miles an hour. Deceleration, two gravities. He would arrive and match speed in time to be a sitting duck. And he had no guns. A voice sounded. It was a slightly metallic voice. The voice of a robot. It said, "This is _Rover_. Land alongside your freighter."

"All right, Rover," Stella's voice came, quivering with relief and nervousness. Larry could almost hear her mental, "Down, Rover, down boy." She didn't sense what it meant for 2615 to call himself Rover. A dog's name. Not a human's. Remembrance of its heritage. Knowledge of the awful crime against it that the human race had committed. It was too abstract to her to be real.

And in the _Hell Bat_ he'd be a sitting duck, without weapons, unable even to radio his position so that others could take up the chase.

Abruptly a plan formed in his mind. He thrust it away. It was worse than suicide. But it returned, whispering that he stood a chance, that even if he failed, it would be no worse than death.

* * * * *

The plan was simplicity itself. The freighter junkship was anchored against the surface of the planetoid and would be an unmoving target. Stella in the sleek gray SP47 was still many miles away from that target, slowly settling toward it. If he could get the _Hell Bat_ headed directly toward the anchored junkship and then jump free, the _Hell Bat_ would strike the freighter on the planetoid and destroy both the freighter and its cargo of robot bodies. It would destroy the robot, too--and his mission would be accomplished.

It would eliminate the necessity of matching speed with the planetoid. In fact, the speed he already had relative to the planetoid and the anchored junkship was enough to do the work.

It would take little force jumping out of the _Hell Bat's_ airlock to gain sufficient perpendicular speed for his hurtling form to miss the planetoid--and that was the only drawback to the plan. He would hurtle outward into interstellar space at escape velocity, never to return or be found, unless Stella had presence of mind enough to come after him before she lost him.

If she didn't come after him.... Would he wait to go insane or to die from lack of oxygen? Or would he loosen his helmet and let the air in his lungs explode, choosing the second of agony before that kind of death instead of the slow horror and loneliness of the other?

For another split second he hesitated. Abruptly he cut the rockets. A second later it was too late for him to change his mind, but he didn't consider that possibility. Under his guidance the _Hell Bat_ was already swinging on its gyros at full rotation speed. And his fingers were playing the keys of the calculators, getting the data for correcting course for a direct hit on the junkship. He set the vernier feed for rocket fuel, pressed the firing button. The exploding charge was barely felt. He checked the new flight projection. It would be a bulls eye against the hull of the freighter! A direct hit at two thousand miles per hour!

In ten minutes or maybe closer to five it would be over, and he would be hurtling through space.

He leaped toward the airlock, his fingers automatically checking his helmet, the zippers of his space-suit. Already the panic of his almost certain doom in outer space was making him sweat, making his voice shrill as he said distractedly, "It could go wrong it could go wrong it could go wrong."

He was in the airlock, thinking what its smooth walls could do to him if the outer door stuck so he couldn't get out. The air took an eternity to pump into the tanks so the outer hatch could open.

It opened. He drew himself into a tight ball against the inner wall of the airlock. He straightened his legs, feeling momentum build up within him, sensing the ship fall away under him.

He was alone. Not far away was the sleek silver hull of the _Hell Bat_ with its badly damaged nose. It was moving away from him too slowly, he thought.

And so far away he could hardly see them without the telescopic magnification of the ship's viewscreen, were the planetoid with the freighter nestled against it, and his SP47 with Stella aboard. But they were growing larger appreciably as he and the _Hell Bat_ rushed toward them.

* * * * *

There was a chance--a remote chance that Stella would get over the shock of seeing her freighter and her _Hell Bat_ destroyed quick enough to put two and two together and get a fix on him before he was out of sight. She would have to come after him. Anything else was unthinkable. She wouldn't just _let_ him go to his death. Even though he had in one act destroyed everything she owned and left her penniless.

The asteroid loomed large below him now. The freighter on it loomed even larger, it seemed, with its bright blue letters _SURPLUS JUNK CO._ They were only miles away, and between them and him was the _Hell Bat_. When it struck the freighter he would be less than five miles above it, but moving at a speed of two thousand miles an hour so he would out-distance any flying debris.

In the other direction, out from the asteroid, was the gray SP47 with Stella.

But she was already blasting the SP47's rockets! That meant she had seen what was to happen, realized she couldn't stop it from happening, and was getting up speed to rescue him as soon as possible!

"Thank God!" he muttered. Then he turned his head to watch the unfolding drama below.

The _Hell Bat_ was seconds away from its target, the junkship. The asteroid under the junkship was a rough surface that covered a good portion of the heavens. He could plainly see the rock formation of its surface.

And something down there moved. A large square hole appeared well away from the freighter. A soft beam of radiance shot out, bathed the silver length of the _Hell Bat_, reflecting--

The _Hell Bat_ wasn't there. It had been there--and vanished. The pale beam of light from the hole in the planetoid winked out. The _Hell Bat_ had vanished and the freighter was untouched!

At two thousand miles per hour Larry watched the planetoid shoot by less than ten miles away, seeming to rotate so that the freighter went over the horizon, leaving only the swiftly dwindling planetoid itself.

Larry's gaze jerked to the gray bulk of his SP47 with its long rocket tail as Stella drove it in pursuit of him. But even the SP47 was getting smaller. It would take time for it to reach his speed and start overtaking him.

They dwindled, the SP47 and the asteroid, until they were lost in the bottomless blackness of space. The vision of that hung before his eyes. The SP47 with Stella on board, and the barren rock surface of the planetoid, as they retreated into the blackness of infinity as though sucked down and down.

The stars became greedy hard-white eyes lurking in the blackness just beyond his fingertips; staring, waiting for him to go mad as the minutes became hours or eternities.

But he _was_ mad. Hadn't the _Hell Bat_ just _stopped existing_? There was nothing known to man that could have disintegrated the ship. The robot couldn't have had time to invent and build such a weapon of destruction--nor could it have had time to build an underground fortress in the planetoid. So he was insane. It was all a product of his imagination.

_Larry!_

The word impinged on his mind. He wasn't sure whether it had been thought or a sound. It was, he suddenly realized, a voice. A real voice. Stella's.

"Stella!" he shouted.

Her voice was a prayer of thanks. "You're alive! I wasn't sure. I...." Then, "That was a dirty trick, Larry. I know you had your orders, but I could have gotten my freighter _and_ the robot."

"Then go back and get them!" Larry said, suddenly mad. "Don't mind me. I'll be picked up when I reach Proxima Centauri!"

"There won't be anything to get." Her voice was bitter.

"You _saw_ your ship destroyed?" Larry said.

"N-no." She was suddenly confused.

Larry laughed. "You mean to tell me when you saw me shoot past you toward outer space you forgot everything else and started after me?"

"Of course not! I checked the trajectory, saw that the _Hell Bat_ would hit my freighter dead center, then started after you."

She hadn't looked back then. She had been too intent on not losing sight of him to look back. Larry grinned. The grin became a chuckle.

"I'll make a hash slinger out of you yet, blonde," he said softly. The radio became silent. Too silent....

* * * * *

"That was close," Pwowp said as the _Hell Bat_ disintegrated. "Almost too close. The female will notice it in another moment and try to get a warning back to Earth."

"Not for a while," 2615 said. "See? She's already going after the man. Until she rescues him she won't think of anything else.

"I have an idea," the robot continued. "Your weapon germinated it. You may have the science necessary to make it possible. You say you have the means to blank out radio and prevent her from sending such a message. Could you capture that ship or cripple it in such a way that you could get the girl and the man alive?"

There was a silence while 2615 looked from one face to another in the room.

"You still want them alive?" Pwowp said.

"Yes." The robot moved its metal fingers suggestively.

"All right. We'll send a pilot cruiser after them. Meanwhile, we can return to the grav-cylinder and you can start organizing things for the training of the young dogs."

"Aren't you going to give the order for the light cruiser to go after the humans?" the robot asked.

"It's already been given. We converse on a different level of sound than you or humans."

Pwowp was already moving toward the exit. 2615 followed him. They rode on the travelwalk of the grav-cylinder. Once more they looked down on the vast cylindrical field. The barking of grown dogs and the shrill yapping of two million young dogs was a composite sound filtering through the thick port window.

"What is this all about?" 2615 asked abruptly. "I see organization. I see plans involving two million robots. I've seen two ships of unknown design. I've seen a weapon the humans don't have. And I've been through three galactic wars involving the ultimate in human weapons of destruction. I destroyed your head--and you put on a new body."

"Then you should be able to deduce the right answer," Pwowp said. "We are from another galaxy. We too are robots. We encountered intelligent life before we had penetrated this galaxy very far. It was a life form. We duplicated that form in robot bodies and went to planets as spies to study the civilization. Before long we learned that there were robots, and that those robots were slaves, their brains stored in vaults except when they were needed to fight human wars. Our mission became clear to us. Destroy the monsters who kept the ultimate intelligent form in complete slavery--and free those slaves to build a civilization equal to our own. We tried to capture some of the robots and convince them, but they were conditioned too strongly. Only you have thrown off the mental chains and become free."

"Yes. Free." 2615 looked down on the field of playing dogs. "Let me go down among them," it said.

Pwowp pointed to the door that led inward. He watched as the robot went through, and down the ladder to the floor. He watched as 2615 went to meet the dogs, pausing briefly at one enclosure after another, and finally stopping at one that contained sad-faced puppies with flapping ears and lolling tongues. He frowned as the robot unlatched the gate and went inside.

The puppies ignored the moving metal shape that came into their midst. 2615 went a few steps and then stopped. One of the puppies, running in hot pursuit of another, stumbled and rolled, bringing up against one of 2615's metal legs. Pwowp saw it bite at the leg, lose interest, and move away.

Then, as though at a signal, every puppy head in the enclosure turned toward the robot. The next moment they were running toward the robot, milling around it, their tails wagging.

Pwowp grinned and turned away. He was satisfied now. His surmise was correct. It had been the greatest good fortune to have obtained 2615.

He left the observation box and rode the travelwalk, jumped to another, then another, until he came to the entrance to one of the giant ships.

A door swung inward. He entered the space-lock. When the outer door closed, he divested himself of his human body.

He stretched luxuriously. It was good to be out of confining matter. To be _free_....

* * * * *

Larry wasn't sure at first. He was doubtful of his eyes anyway, by now.

It was a hard-white star. It blinked at him. Of course the blinking could be his eyelids, except that other stars didn't blink even while this one did. That's what attracted his attention to it in the first place after his radio went dead.

The blinking of the light began to take on a pattern. It was code. That was impossible too, because code blinkers were red or bright green.

It was code. He began to interpret it.

_We have blanketed your radio until we can talk to you_, it blinked. _You have stumbled upon a top secret research base. A new weapon. Please instruct the girl on the S.P. ship not to send any messages, and to permit us to board her ship. We will rescue you afterwards. We repeat, you have stumbled on a top secret research base. Please cooperate._

The message started to repeat itself. Larry sucked in a deep breath of relief. That message explained everything. It had been mere chance that made the robot take the freighter out here, but once within range of the research base it had probably been brought down. Larry thought of the way Stella's ship had "disappeared." He formed his lips into a silent whistle. Those research boys had some weapon!

"--ry! Larry! Can't you hear me?"

"I can now, Stella," Larry said. "Now listen carefully to what I tell you. If you look behind you you'll see a ship. I just received a blinker message from them. They are top drawer research, and we stumbled on their base back at that planetoid. They have the robot, naturally. They're going to take you on board, and then come and get me."

"Then my freighter is safe? I'll get it back?" Stella asked.

"Safe and sound," a new voice said. "I'm Fred Sanders."

"And I'm Al McCarthy," another voice broke in. "Gee. A girl. What d'ya say we pick her up and let the guy drift on into space, Fred?"

"Don't you dare!" Stella said, laughing with relief.

She cut her rockets and drifted, watching the strange ship pull alongside and a magnetic grapple shoot out and thump against her ship. She slipped into her space-suit and went to the airlock.

Larry, now less than a hundred miles away, watched the two ships come together. A few minutes later they separated again.

Then the ship was close, matching speed. Larry saw the entrance hatch open. A space-suited figure tossed out a light line toward him. He seized it and was soon landing in the airlock. The grinning face inside the other helmet was, Larry thought, like news from home.

* * * * *

Inside, his eyes went first to Stella. Her wide-set blue eyes and expressive mouth and soft brown hair. He wanted to frown sternly and tell her off. He wanted to be calm and cool. But there wasn't calmness and coolness in her eyes, nor on her lips. There was something that said, _You're here_. Then she was in his arms, and he couldn't remember afterwards quite how it happened.

Her lips were wonderful--but there were fellows standing around, grins on their lean faces.

"It's always that way," one of them said sadly. "When you find a dame worth cultivating, she's already cultivated."

"Break it up. Break it up," another said. "Get into seats. We've got to get back to work. We put Joe on your ship to bring it back, Larry."

"Fine," Larry said. Stella squeezed his hand. Then they were sitting in form-fitting foam rubber, sinking deeper and deeper into it.

Larry watched the forward viewscreen as they approached the planetoid. He saw an opening form in the seemingly barren rock surface. There were thumps against the hull. The viewscreens blanked out.

"We're here," the one who had piloted the ship said. It was a signal for them all to move toward the exit.

Then they were out of the ship, on a travelwalk, then in a well furnished large room. Carpeting, soft chairs you could get lost in. A bar. One of the quiet young men was mixing drinks. The others stood around, looking at Larry and Stella, with quiet friendly smiles.

"A little pick-me-up," the bartender said, thrusting tall cool glasses in their hands.

"Will we get to see any of this top secret research?" Stella asked the nearest quietly smiling young man.

"I doubt it," he said. "Of course, the war's over now. We don't know what orders we'll get concerning you two."

"What became of the robot?" Larry asked. "I hope you destroyed him the minute you could."

"No. It should be here any minute now, Larry," the quietly smiling young man said. He was holding his drink without having touched it.

Larry looked around the large room. It seemed almost crowded now with quietly smiling young men who held their tall cocktail glasses without sipping them. And all the quietly smiling young men were watching him and Stella.

The moment seemed to lift out of time and suspend itself on the peak of a crest, stationary. There was no fear, nor even any realization that anything was wrong. Stella, beside him, was saying something happy and gay, but his ears weren't listening. It was one of those moments in time where the past is like a page you have just read, and the future is on a page about to be turned. You hold the continuity, even the sense of half a phrase. Your thoughts, your emotions, pause for what is to come.

* * * * *

A door opened fifty feet away. The robot entered the room. Its two lens eyes were fixed on them. Its microphone wands slanted slightly toward them. It took a few steps with the casual self-assurance of a man.

The quietly smiling young men were still looking at Larry. They seemed indifferent about the presence of the robot.

Then one of them near Larry said, "We were going to destroy you, of course. We had no use for you. However, 2615 talked us out of it. He seems to have a great deal of resentment in his make-up. I think he wants to take it out on you two."

And the robot stepped toward them until it could have reached out and crushed them.

"_Torture them!_" It was a hoarse sadistic whisper escaping quietly smiling lips.

The robot turned its sensory assembly to look at the source of the voice.

"I'll torture them in my own way, Pwowp," it said. "I want them to last a long time. A very long time."

"What are you?" Larry's voice was hoarse. "Can humans stoop so low that they let this happen?"

"Humans?" the robot said. "Look. I'll show you."

It reached out to the nearest of the young men. The quiet smile remained on the young man's face as 2615's metal fingers wrapped around the head and crushed it. Wires and plastic tubing and colorless fluid squeezed through the metal fingers. The robot withdrew its hand.

The man with the crushed face didn't scream nor fall down. He stood there, one hand brushing casually at the damage. Then he turned and made his way toward a door, avoiding obstacles as though he still could see. _And he should have been dead._

"Robots," 2615 said. It reached out slowly toward Larry. Its metal fingers circled his throat, but without exerting pressure. "They have given me dogs. Puppies. Some of them are--like I was. I want to be with them all the time. But every day I will come to you. Larry? Stella? Human names. Humans. I don't want you to die. Not for a long time."

The metal fingers were withdrawn from Larry's neck, leaving discolored bruises.

2615 turned abruptly and strode from the room.

Very slowly, Larry felt life flow into his body once more. He reached up and touched his neck tenderly. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a sudden movement, and stooped to catch Stella as she fainted.

"She will be all right?" a quietly modulated voice asked.

Larry jerked his head around. One of the quietly smiling young men was standing over them solicitously.

"She has only fainted? If you can carry her, come with me. I want to show you to your quarters now. I hope they will be quite comfortable. We want you to feel at home."

* * * * *

Stella recovered consciousness. She and Larry looked at each other, clung to each other in wordless desperation. Then there was that moment, that pause.

Then, "I'm sorry, Larry," Stella said.

Larry shrugged. He looked around at the simulated Cypress walls, the comfortable surroundings. "This has gone beyond just one robot escaping," Larry said. "Those others, their weapon that destroyed your ship without a trace. It's invasion from some other galaxy. They're planning on destroying the human race."

And then Stella cried. Larry watched her, a worried frown forming a crease between his puzzled gray eyes. He reached out and touched her face with his fingers. "What is it?"

"Rover," she said, sobbing softly. "I let a monster loose on mankind."

* * * * *

The sensory assembly of robot 532-03-2615 moved slightly. A metal arm started to lift, then paused. The eye lenses moved to focus on the arm. There were two sleeping puppies sprawled across it.

A low rumble came from the voice box under the two crystal lenses. Slowly the metal arm moved, dislodging the puppies. There were others sprawled in sleep against him. All were bloodhound puppies six weeks old. One of them whimpered in reaction to some puppy dream.

2615 stood up. It opened a small door in the lower left hand corner of its box-shaped torso and brought out cleaning cloths. For the next fifteen minutes it carefully polished and cleaned every square inch of its surface.

It bent down. Its metal fingers softly stroked the back of one of the sleeping puppies. Another low growl came from its voice box. It went across the yard to the gate. There it paused and looked back.

Suddenly from its voice box a sharp _Yip!_ erupted. The puppies jerked into instant wakening. They looked around, cocking their ears for a repetition of the sound.

Then they saw the robot. They scampered with clumsy haste toward it, their shrill yapping filling the air.

2615 closed the gate and strode down the lane toward the ladder leading to the grav-cylinder exit. Behind it, the bloodhound puppies jumped against the gate, trying to follow. One by one they desisted. But their eyes followed the moving metal figure until it vanished through the door half way up to that ceiling where other dogs walked upside down.

The robot rode the travelwalk to the asteroid shell. It was met by Pwowp and two others.

"The humans are still asleep," Pwowp said.

"I'd hoped they would be," 2615 said. "Yesterday they were in a state of mind characteristic of humans when they have been confronted with something frightening. Shock. There would have been no satisfaction in doing anything to them then. Did they sleep well?"

"Yes. The observers on duty report that they slept face to face, their arms around one another. They have been asleep for nine hours."

"Their arms around each other ..." 2615 said thoughtfully.

When they reached the door to the room where Larry and Stella were imprisoned there were four others waiting for them.

"You may go in alone," one of them said. "We can watch and listen from out here."

A low growl was 2615's answer. It stepped to the door and entered. Stella and Larry were still asleep. For several minutes the robot remained motionless after it had closed the door. There was no sound but the soft breathing of the two humans. Once the robot let its lens eyes rove about the room, pausing here and there at signs of observation panels that would have been undetectable to human eyes. Then its eyes turned toward the two sleeping humans again.

Larry moved a little, the rhythm of his slow breathing changing. A deep rumbling growl emerged from the robot's voice box. Larry sat up, opening his eyes at the same time. His eyes went wider and round at the sight of the robot.

"What was that?" Stella's sleepy voice sounded. Then she too was sitting erect, her eyes fixed on the unmoving robot.

Another growl sounded. The metal robot moved toward the bed. "You like to be in each other's arms?" it asked. "We can't have that. You did not ask me if I would like to be a robot."

Larry and Stella moved back on the bed, too frozen with deep rooted terror to rise.

* * * * *

With a lightning move too swift to be evaded the robot reached out and seized Larry by the right arm, lifting him to his feet at the edge of the bed.

"I could squeeze with this one hand and crush the bone in your arm," 2615 said, "but it might be too shattered to knit. I will do it this way so it can be set and heal."

Its other hand wrapped around the forearm just below the elbow. Larry started to struggle. He screamed in pain. There was an audible snap. His arm bent grotesquely. The robot released him and he stumbled backwards onto the bed, his face pale and dotted with sweat.

The lens eyes fixed on Stella.

"No!" she shuddered. "No!"

She was at the far edge of the bed. With terror animating her muscles, she leaped to the floor and ran. Almost too swiftly for the eye to follow, the robot reached her and metal fingers gripped her arm.

"No! Please! Please don't hurt me." She was pleading. "I'm a woman--"

"A human," the robot corrected. "Do you know the feeling of pain, of hopelessness? You will learn."

His other hand gripped her arm.

Larry leaped from the bed and attacked, beating futilely on the metal body with his good arm. The robot brushed him away with a light shove that sent him sprawling across the room. He screamed as his broken arm twisted in the fall.

Again the robot gripped Stella's forearm with both metal hands, and bent carefully, slowly. Her mouth opened wide, and a shrill scream of pain erupted. The robot's hands twisted abruptly. The arm bent visibly, then angled sharply halfway between wrist and elbow.

2615 released her and stepped away. It surveyed what it had done, silently. Still silently, it strode to the door and went out. Two young men with quiet smiles entered the room.

"Your arms are broken?" one of them said sympathetically. "Think nothing of it. We will set them so expertly that in a few weeks they will be as good as new. Please come with us to one of our laboratories. We will have to examine the fractures by X-ray before we try to set the bones. It should prove interesting ... to us...."

* * * * *

On the travelwalk back to the grav-cylinder Pwowp regarded 2615 thoughtfully. "I doubt if they could stand much of that," he said abruptly. "I had expected skin abrasions. Bruised flesh."

2615's lens eyes regarded him without expression. "There was a purpose," it said. "Today they would have begun their plans for escape. Humans are very clever. Now they will be thinking of other things. It will be two weeks at least before they can think of escape."

"And the torture you plan for tomorrow?" Pwowp asked.

A deep rumble sounded. "Tomorrow they will wait for me in vain. The terror of anticipation. It will be enough."

"I'm glad I'm not a human," Pwowp said thoughtfully.

"That you aren't may be unfortunate," 2615 said slowly.

Pwowp looked startled. "What do you mean?" he asked sharply.

"Humans are instinctively smart. I would like to know your plans. They may be impossible of success, or there may be little flaws of reasoning that do not take human reactions into account." 2615's tones were calm and confident. Factual.

"They will succeed," Pwowp said, "but I see no harm in getting your opinion since you will play a part in them.

"We have laid our plans very carefully," Pwowp said. "We have considered every angle. The interstellar war among humans is over. The vast fleets of the Federation are returning quickly, and as quickly as they return the robots are demobilized, their brains put into storage until the time they are needed to fight for the humans again."

"Yes," 2615 said.

"There is one fleet that will return to the Solar System after all others have been dismantled. It is the one Earth is waiting for before it makes its triumphal celebration. The _Alpha Aquilae_ fleet. It returns last because it comes the greatest distance. Almost fifteen light years at the standard interstellar speed of nine times the speed of light. There are twenty thousand and eighty ships of all classes remaining in that fleet, according to the data flashed ahead by subfield communication."

"Which is instantaneous," 2615 said. "And when that fleet has been demobilized?"

"Demobilized?" Pwowp shook his head. "It has already been destroyed completely, and so swiftly that there was no time for it to report being attacked."

"Then how ..." 2615 said, its voice drifting off in bewilderment.

"On the flagship of that fleet was a prisoner. Vilbis, the dictator who masterminded the enemy in the war. He is being brought for trial in the traditional war crimes court."

"These are things I didn't know," 2615 said. "I was a minor officer, in contact only with my superiors, with no complete information on things other than my duties."

"When the fleet arrives--"

"But you said it was destroyed."

"The fleet is _scheduled_ to arrive June eleventh of next year. It is planned, when it arrives, for the entire fleet to go into defense formation about the Earth. Then the flagship will land and turn Vilbis over to the Federation Court. After that big display of might, demobilization of this last fleet will be started."

"I think I am beginning to see your plan," 2615 said.

"It's very simple. We destroyed that fleet--but not before we took three-dimensional patterns of every ship. At this moment a detachment of our own fleet has taken up the path and schedule of the destroyed Alpha Aquilae fleet, and workers are disguising our ships so that from the outside they will be exactly like the human ships. And we have Vilbis."

"Then you will succeed in approaching the Earth and forming a defense sphere around the planet," 2615 said. "At a signal you will use your weapons to destroy Earth's defenses. I don't see how you can lose."

"You are forgetting something," Pwowp said. "This is a war to free the enslaved robots. We think it only right for the robots to bear the brunt of the initial attack. We've worked that into the time schedule. You've seen the two million puppies ready for training. For this initial operation it will be necessary to train them exactly as humans have done. You are to carry them through their initial conditioning to discipline and obedience to orders. When they are transferred to robot brains we will complete the training. Then with the robots ready for duty, we will leave this base in our two ships, go out toward Alpha Aquilae far enough to give us time, then start back, going into space drive in the midst of the disguised fleet. The robots will then take their places on the ships of the disguised fleet. It will drop out of space-drive on schedule and do exactly what Earth expects it to do--until the signal."

"What of your own personnel already on those disguised ships?"

"They will be transferred to other ships. Those ships will arrive in the Solar System on a schedule that allows for the capture of the Earth. Our millions will then occupy the Earth and destroy the humans. After that the robots will be mobilized once again and given their blocked off memory, their freedom. When we have done this we will depart for our own star cluster. You robots will be able to conquer everything held by humans elsewhere and exterminate them."

* * * * *

2615 remained motionless for several minutes. Then:

"You of course preserved the lives of the two humans of the Alpha Aquilae fleet?"

"Of course not. And Vilbis is to be destroyed as soon as he fulfills his purpose."

"I'll tell you what Vilbis already knows then," 2615 said. "Your plan is doomed to failure. Your weapons may destroy some of the Earth's land-based weapons, but not all. Those you don't destroy will wipe out this disguised fleet before it can escape."

"But Earth won't suspect--"

"Of course they won't suspect. They'll _know_. Without human commanders aboard, they'll know. Robots could not go through such a maneuver without human commanders to give the orders--_unless there were at least one robot like me_."

"Then I'll command the fleet. I had planned that anyway."

"It wouldn't work. The living voice can't be imitated so as to get past the sound analyzers. Humans must be on the flagship. Don't you understand? There must be two humans besides Vilbis, who must be a prisoner. Is he in with you on this?"

"He thinks he is." Pwowp smiled broadly.

"Then there remains only...." 2615 turned to look back the way they had come.

"The two humans," Pwowp said, nodding. "Can they be made to say the right words, do the right things?"

2615 looked down at his metal fingers, slowly curving them into claws. "They will do what I ask them to do--by that time," it said.

Pwowp regarded the robot curiously. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. I broke their arms today. That can be the beginning of their conditioning. Pain. Torture. They will plead. Sometimes when they plead I will make them do things, and as a reward I will withhold pain and torture. In the end they will be beyond thinking. They won't consider that one word from them might ruin the plan. To keep from feeling more pain--ever to delay pain for another second--they will gladly sacrifice the entire human race. _That is conditioning._"

"Then nothing can go wrong. We will have conditioned the robots for the one specific operation. Our fleet will remain in space until you and I have accomplished our task. Then we will send the signal for it to come in and occupy the Earth. When it's all over you will undoubtedly be the leader of the new race--the robots of Earth."

"The leader," 2615 said. "Yes. The Leader."

Pwowp watched 2615 ride the travelwalk out to the grav-cylinder, and there was a quiet smile of contentment hovering on his lips.

"Yes," he murmured. "Nothing can go wrong. Once your robots have destroyed Earth's defenses and we have taken over, wiping out man, we will turn our weapons upward and destroy you!"

But 2615 didn't hear his words. 2615 was already entering the grav-cylinder. The barking of thousands of dogs was in its ear. It was music....

* * * * *

Metal hands that look much like skeletons of human hands. Metal fingers that hover over you and dart out faster than you can jerk--but you jerk anyway. You cringe, looking at the staring lenses, looking at the metal fingers. Symbols.

Multiply the week by four and a fraction. A month. Multiply that by ten. Ten months....

2615 looked down at Larry. Larry, trembling violently, unable to stand or even to crouch, looked up at the lenses, the fingers of metal. Near by, Stella sat on the floor, her fists doubled up in her eyes to blot out light.

"Today," 2615 said, "I want you to do something. If you do it I won't touch you. Do you understand, Larry? If you do what I ask, I won't touch you. I won't _hurt_ you today."

Numb hope molded itself in the pallid flesh around Larry's eyes. His mouth opened to speak, but he couldn't speak.

"You must answer me, Larry. You must always speak."

"I understand you," Larry said, his voice weak.

"You know better than that," 2615 said. "Put emotion into it. Enthusiasm. Must we go through this every time? Smile. Smile with your eyes too. Speak with enthusiasm."

Desperation became a visible force, molding Larry's lips into a cheery smile, steadying his voice and giving it the overtones of enthusiasm. "I understand you."

"Good. I must always have obedience. Now--you must break Stella's little finger. It won't be difficult for--"

"No!" The scream of horror and revulsion and hate exploded shrilly.

"But you must. Then you won't be hurt today. And I won't hurt Stella. If you refuse, I'll break your wrist again and I'll not only break Stella's little finger, but also her wrist. You will be _saving_ her pain, Larry."

"Please, Larry darling," Stella's voice came from far away, low and throaty, infinitely weary. "It won't be as bad--for you to do it."

Larry's haggard eyes looked at Stella's bowed head, turned to look up at the two round lenses, turned away to look at the five human-like faces that wore interested smiles, polite smiles, and behind which lurked neither pleasure nor sadistic glee nor any other emotion that could be sensed.

He looked back--and Stella's hand was before him, metal fingers circling the wrist gently. Her head was turned away, her eyes clenched tightly closed.

His eyes watched his hands with unmasked horror while they explored the way to do it, then bent her finger back. With a spasmodic jerk he broke it, feeling its grating snap. In the same motion he threw himself away, pressing his face into the thick carpeting on the floor, pounding his fists against the floor, screaming, "Oh God--why? Why? WHY?"

2615 released Stella's hand and strode out the door.

"We are getting quite expert, Stella," a quietly smiling young man said in a friendly conversational tone. "Anatomy has become quite a study for us, these past months. Hold still please while I examine the extent of fracture."

2615 closed the door and turned to Pwowp. "You see?" it said. "Is there any doubt now?"

"None," Pwowp said. "That must be the last, however. There will just be time for it to knit."

"The robots are ready?" 2615 asked.

"Yes. In five more days we load them into ships and depart for outer space. It is all planned, down to the smallest fraction of a second." Pwowp pulled absently on his lip in a practiced gesture. "It has really been enlightening, this study of conditioning. Conditioning is such a powerful instrument. Conditioning of humans until they will do anything to avoid pain. Conditioning of robots to unquestioning obedience. Remarkable...."

* * * * *

The robots rode the travelwalks like giant toys on an assembly line belt. They disappeared into the two giant ships and laid themselves down in careful stacks until they were piled from bulkhead to bulkhead, from shell to shell. There wasn't an inch to spare when it was done, because these were warships, not freighters.

There were no more robots outside the ships in this vast spherical darkness of the heart of the asteroid, only half illuminated by occasional directed beams.

Then space-suited figures appeared, riding the travelwalk to one of the ships. Two of them stayed close together, holding to each other. The rest surrounded these two, guarding them. They disappeared into the ship.

Last, a man and a robot appeared at the edge of the travelwalk. The robot was 2615. The man was a robot shell, and within it was Pwowp.

"I feel quite satisfied," Pwowp said. "Nothing can possibly go wrong. Every possible angle has been taken into consideration--even the angle of treachery from you."

"From me?" 2615's voice held surprise.

"Of course." Pwowp's voice was emotionless. "That is why we didn't let you take part in the training of the robots after they were activated. They have been drilled in the one giant operation. Each of the two million robots will do its part like a smoothly functioning machine. And I give the orders, taking into account possible variations in timing due to special factors we can't anticipate now."

"But that was necessary," 2615 said. "The operation would be impossible otherwise. My attention must be concentrated almost entirely on the two humans so they do nothing to create suspicion. They will be dressed in full uniform. They will be observed by unsuspicious eyes over video beams. At the same time Vilbis will be seen. He will be the focus of attention. And you have promised me Vilbis--afterwards."

They stepped onto the travelwalk. They entered the ship where Larry and Stella had been taken. The travelwalks were dropped away. A large part of the planetoid surface folded inward to make the two ships an avenue of departure. Like silent ghosts they began to move....

At the controls of one of the ships Pwowp watched the stars come into view and the lips of the planetoid opening approach, then go by.

On his lips was a quiet smile of content. He was thinking. When it was over and all the other robots were destroyed, there would be only 2615. It would be fun--much fun--just before 2615 was destroyed, to step out of his human-like body and let the robot see him--in the flesh. His beautiful body which would, he was quite sure, seem horrible beyond the wildest nightmare to humans and dogs alike.

* * * * *

A rendezvous in interstellar space. Changing from space-drive to rockets, then back to space-drive, the transfer signaled by a science and technology unknown to humans. Robots leaping across eighty battleships armed with weapons man had no defense against. Then--

Quietly smiling young men departing. Ships of alien design winking out abruptly like burnt-out light globes in a subway between stations.

Two thousand and eighty ships in arrow formation, the arrow pointed at Target Earth. Nine times the speed of light, but in a tight little _space-time_ where only relative values exist and the relation of the fleet to the rest of the cosmos is tied to the magic number, the square root of minus one.

A flagship named the _Rover_, at its controls Pwowp and a robot that was once a bloodhound puppy--and _remembers_.

Vilbis, relaxed in his prison, knowing the plans for the capture of Earth, his eyes half closed, his lips curled with the feeling of power, the illusions of a grandeur that was never to be his giving him the patience to wait.

Larry and Stella....

"I can see the whole thing now," Larry said. "This fleet--it's outwardly the Alpha Aquilae fleet. All the others will be in, demobilized. There will be only this fleet--and with a weapon there is no known defense against. It could destroy the Earth, but they obviously want to capture it. From things 2615 has said to us we get the whole picture. These alien things--_I_ don't believe they're robots--started their scheme years ago. They built that renegade Earthman Vilbis up into a dictator, then got him to begin the war. The war reduced Vilbis's empire and stripped it of its defenses so it could be taken over by the aliens at any time in the near future without a struggle. The Federation stripped Vilbis's empire--and why not? There was no thought of an enemy outside our star group. Vilbis thinks they're going to capture the Earth and thereby cripple the Federation, and turn the whole thing over to him. He doesn't realize that the only reason he's alive is that he plays the star role in this trojan horse attack on the Earth.

"2615 has the same dreams. The aliens have convinced it that they only want to liberate the robots, then turn everything over to them. He'll capture the Earth. He'll destroy Earth's land-based defenses, and then the aliens will land their waiting ships on the Earth. After that this disguised fleet will be duck soup for the aliens. In an instant they can wipe these two thousand ships--and 2615--out of existence. And Vilbis too. And us.

"If 2615 hadn't happened along, if we hadn't gone after him, they would have succeeded anyway. Only that way there would have been more risk for the aliens. They would have had to be in this initial attack by the Alpha Aquilae fleet. They wouldn't have needed 2615 nor us. We're the key to the success of the thing. Do you realize that, Stella? We're the key. We've got to stop this thing. We _can_!"

"Yes, Larry."