Classic Audiobook Collection - The Repairman by Harry Harrison ~ Full Audiobook [scifi]

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

The Repairman by Harry Harrison audiobook. Genre: scifi In a sleek, automated future where machines run nearly everything, the people who can still fix those machines have become an afterthought. The Repairman follows one of the last true troubleshooters, a working-class specialist who spends his days crawling through service ducts, hunting down faults in systems that most citizens no longer understand and no longer want to think about. When a critical breakdown ripples outward from a seemingly minor failure, he is pulled from routine calls into the bright, bureaucratic world that depends on uninterrupted technology. There, corporate rules, spotless control rooms, and complacent managers collide with the messy reality of maintenance: things wear out, connections fail, and somebody has to get their hands dirty. As pressure mounts to restore operations quickly and quietly, the repairman must rely on his practical ingenuity, hard-won instincts, and a stubborn sense of professional pride to navigate a society that values convenience over competence. Witty, sharp, and unsettlingly plausible, Harry Harrison's story explores status, responsibility, and what happens when progress leaves essential people behind. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:19:14) Chapter 2 (00:34:55) Chapter 3 (00:46:31) Chapter 4 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

the repairman part one by harry harrison the old man had that look of intense glee on his face that meant some one was in for a very rough time since we were alone it took no great feat of intelligence to figure out it would be me i talked first bold attack being the best offense and so forth i quit don't bother telling me what dirty job you have cooked up because i have already quit and you do not want to reveal company secret to me. The grin was even wider now, and he actually chortled as he thumbed a button on his console. A thick legal document slid out of the delivery slot onto his desk. "'This is your contract,' he said. "'It tells how and when you will work. A steel and vanadium-bound contract that you couldn't crack with a molecular disruptor.' I leaned out quickly, grabbed it, and threw it into the air with a single moment. motion. Before it could fall, I had my solar out, and, with a wide-angle shot, burned the

contract to ashes." The old man pressed the button again, and another contract slid out on his desk. If possible, the smile was even wider now. I should have said a duplicate of your contract, like this one here. He made a quick note on his secretary plate. I have deducted thirteen credits from your salary for the cost of the duplicate as well as a hundred-credit fine for firing a solar inside a building. I slumped, defeated, waiting for the blow to land. The old man fondled my contract. According to this document, you can't quit, ever.

Therefore I have a little job I know you'll enjoy. Repair job. The centauri beacon has shut down. It's a Mark III beacon. What kind of beacon? I asked him. I have repaired hyperspace beacons from one arm of the galaxy to the other, and was sure I had worked on every type or model made, but I had never heard of this kind.

Mark III, the old man repeated, practically chartling. I never heard of it either until records dug up the specs. They found them buried in the back of their oldest warehouse. This was the earliest type of beacon ever built. Earth, no less. Considering its location on one of the Proxima Centauri planets, it might very well be the first beacon. I looked at the blueprints he handed me and felt my eyes glaze with horror.

It's a monstrosity. It looks more like a distillery than a beacon. Must be at least a few hundred meters high. I'm a repairman, not an archaeologist. This pile of junk is over two thousand. years old. Just forget about it and build a new one." The old man leaned over his desk, breathing into my face. It would take a year to install a new beacon, besides being too expensive, and this relic is on one of the main routes.

We have ships making fifteen light-year detours now. He leaned back, wiped his hands on his handkerchief, and gave me Lecture 44 on Company Duty and My Troubles. This department is officially called maintenance and repair when it really should be called troubleshooting hyperspace beacons are made to last forever or damn close to it when one of them breaks down it is never an accident and repairing the thing is never a matter of just plugging in a new part he was telling me the guy who did the job while he sat back on his fat paycheck in an air-condition office? He rambled on.

Oh, I wish that were all it took. I would have a fleet of port-ship and junior mechanics to install them, but it's not like that at all. I have a fleet of expensive ships that are equipped to do almost anything, manned by a bunch of irresponsibles like you. I nodded moodily at his pointing finger. Oh, I wish I could fire you all. Combination, space jockeys, mechanics, engineers, soldiers, con men, and anything else it takes to do the repairs.

I have to browbeat, bribe, blackmail, and bulldoze, you thugs, into doing a single job. If you think you're fed up, just think how I feel. But the ships must go through. The beacons must operate. I recognized this deathless line as the curtain speech, and crawled to my feet. He threw the Mark III file at me and went back to scratching in his papers. Just as I reached the door, he looked up and impaled me on his finger again. And don't get any fancy ideas about jumping your contract.

We can attach that bank account of yours on Algold too long before you could draw the money out. I smiled, a little weakly, I'm afraid, as if I had never meant to keep that account a secret. His spies were getting more efficient every day. Walking down the hall, I tried to figure a way to transfer the money without his catching on, and knew at the same time he was figuring a way to outfigure me. It was all very depressing, so I stopped for a drink, and then went on to the spaceport. By the time the ship was serviced, I had, of course, charted. The nearest beacon to the broken-down Proxima Centauri beacon was on one of the one of the

one of the planets of Beta Circinus, and I headed there first a short trip of only about nine days in hyperspace. To understand the importance of the beacons, you have to understand hyperspace. Not that many people do, but it is easy enough to understand that in this non-space the regular rules don't apply. Speed and measurements are a matter of relationship, not constant facts like the fixed universe. The first ships to enter hyperspace had no place to go and no way to even tell if they had moved. The beacons solved that problem and opened the entire universe. They are built on planets and generate tremendous amounts of power.

This power is turned into radiation that is punched through into hyperspace. Every beacon has a code signal as part of its radiation, and represent represents a measurable point in hyperspace. Triangulation and quadrature of the beacons works for navigation, only it follows its own rules. The rules are complex and variable, but they are still rules that a navigator can follow. For a hyperspace jump, you need at least four beacons for an accurate fix. For long jumps navigators use as many as seven or eight, so every beacon is important and everyone has to keep operating.

This is where I and the other troubleshooters come in. We travel in well-stocked ships that carry a little bit of everything, only one man to a ship, because that is all it takes to operate the overly efficient repair machinery. Due to the very nature of our job, we spend most of our time just rocketing through normal space. After all, when a beacon breaks down, how do you find it? Not through hyperspace. All you can do is approach as close as you can by using other beacons, then finish the trip in normal space.

This can take months and often does. This job didn't turn out to be quite that bad. I zeroed on the Beta-Sercinus beacon and ran a complicated eight-point problem through the navigator using every beacon I could get an accurate fix on. The computer gave me a course with an estimated point of arrival as well as a built-in safety factor I never could eliminate from the machine. I would much rather take a chance of breaking through near some star than spend time just barreling through normal space.

But apparently Tech knows this, too. They had a safety factor built into the computer, so you couldn't end up inside a star, no matter how hard you tried. I'm sure there was no humanness in this decision. They just didn't want to lose the ship. It was a 24-hour jump, ship's time, and I came through in the middle of nowhere. The robot analyzer chuckled to itself and scanned all the stars, comparing them to the spectra of Proxima centauri.

It finally rang a bell and blinked the light. I peeped through the eyepiece. A fast reading with the photo cell gave me the apparent magnitude, and a comparison with its absolute magnitude showed its distance. Not as bad as I thought. A six-week run, giver, take a few days. And feeding a course tape into the robot pilot, I strapped into the acceleration tank and went to sleep. The time went fast. I rebuilt my camera for about the 20th time, and just about finished a correspondence course in nucleonics. Most repairmen take these courses. Besides, they're always coming in handy, the company grades your pay by the number of specialties you can

handle. All this, with some oil painting and free-fall workouts in the gym, passed the time. I was asleep when the alarm went off that announced planetary distance. Planet 2, where the beacon was situated, according to the old charts, was a mushy-looking, wet kind of globe. I tried to make sense out of the ancient directions and finally located the right area. Staying outside the atmosphere, I sent a flying eye down to look things over. In this business, you learn early when and where to risk your own skin.

The eye would be good enough for the preliminary survey. The old boys had enough brains to choose a traceable site for the beacon, equidistant on a line between two of the most prominent mountain peaks. I located the peaks easily enough and started the eye out from the first peak and kept it on a course directly toward the second. There was a nose and tail radar in the eye, and I fed their signals into a scope as an amplitude curve. When the two peaks coincided, I spun the eye controls and dive the thing down.

I cut out the radar and cut in the nose orthocoon and sat back to watch the beacon appear on the screen. The image blinked, focused, and a great, damn pyramid swam into view. I cursed and wheeled the eye in circles, scanning the surrounding country. It was flat, marshy-bottomed land without a bump. The only thing in a ten-mile circle was this pyramid, and that definitely wasn't my beacon. Or wasn't it? I dived the eye lower.

The pyramid was a crude-looking thing of undressed stone without carvings or decorations. There was a shimmer of light from the top, and I took a closer look at it. On the peak of the pyramid was a hollow basin filled with water. When I saw that, something clicked in my mind. Locking the eye in a circular course, I dug through the Mark III plans, and there it was. The beacon had a precipitating field and a basin on top of it for water. This was used to cool the reactor that powered the monstrosity. If the water was still there, the beacon was still there, inside the pyramid.

The natives, who of course weren't even mentioned by the idiots who constructed the thing, had built a nice, heavy, thick stone pyramid around the beacon. I took another look at the screen, and realized that I had locked the eye into a circular orbit about twenty feet above the pyramid. The summit of the stone pile was now covered with lizards of some type, apparently the local life form. They had what looked like throwing sticks in arbalasts. and were trying to shoot down the eye, a cloud of arrows and rocks flying in every direction.

I pulled the eye straight up and away, and threw in the control circuit that would return it automatically to the ship. Then I went to the galley for a long, strong drink. My beacon was not only locked inside a mountain of handmade stone, but I had managed to irritate the things who had built the pyramid. A great beginning for a job. and one clearly designed to drive a stronger man than me to the bottle. Normally a repairman stays away from native cultures. They are poison. Anthropologists may not mind being dissected for their science, but a repairman wants to make

no sacrifices of any kind for his job. For this reason, most beacons are built on uninhabited planets. If a beacon has to go on a planet with a culture, it is usually built in some inaccessible place. Why this beacon had been built within reach of the local claws I had yet to find out. But that would come in time. The first thing to do was make contact. To make contact you have to know the local language.

And for that I had long before worked out a system that was foolproof. I had a pry eye of my own construction. It looked like a piece of rock about a foot long. Once on the ground it would never be noticed, though it was a little disconcerting to see it float by. I located a lizard town about a thousand kilometers from the pyramid and dropped the eye. It swished down and landed at night in the bank of the local mud wallow. This was a favorite spot that drew a good crowd during the day. In the morning when the first wallowers arrived, I flipped on the recorder.

After about five of the local days, I had a sea of native conversation in the memory bank of the machine translator and had tagged a few expressions. This is fairly easy to do when you have a machine memory to work with. One of the lizards gargled at another one and the second one turned around. I tagged this expression with the phrase, hey, George, and waited my chance to use it. Later the same day, I caught one of them alone and shouted, Hey, George, at him. It gurgled out through the speaker at the local tongue, and he turned around.

When you get enough reference phrases like this in the memory bank, the M.T. brain takes over and starts filling in the missing pieces. As soon as the M.T. could give a running translation of any conversation it heard, I figured it was time to make a contact. I found him easily enough. He was the centurion version of a goat boy. He herded a particularly loathsome form of local life in the swamps outside the town. I had one of the working eyes dig a cave in an outcropping of rock and wait for him.

When he passed next day, I whispered into the mic, Welcome, O goat boy, grandson. This is your grandfather's spirit speaking from paradise. This fitted in with what I could make out of the local religion. Goat boy stopped as if he'd been shot. Before he could move, I pushed a switch, and a handful of the local currency, Wampum-type shells, rolled out of the cave and landed at his feet. Here is some money from Paradise, because you have been a good boy.

Not really from Paradise. I had lifted it from the treasury the night before. Come back tomorrow and we will talk some more. I called after the fleeing figure. I was pleased to notice that he took the cash before taking off. After that, Grandpa in Paradise had many heart-to-heart talks with grandson, who found the heavenly loot more than he could resist. Grandpa had been out of touch with things since his death, and Goat Boy happily filled him in. I learned all I needed to know of the history, past and present, and it wasn't nice.

In addition to the pyramid being around the beacon, there was a nice little religious war going on around the pyramid. It all began with the land bridge. Apparently the local lizards had been living in the swamps when the beacon was built, but the builders didn't think much of them. They were a low type and confined to a distant continent. The idea that the race would develop and might reach this continent never occurred to the beacon mechanics, which is, of course, what happened. A little geological turnover, a swampy land bridge formed in the right spot,

and the lizards began to wander up Beacon Valley, and found religion. A shiny metal temple, out of which poured a constant stream of magic water, the reactor cooling water pumped down from the atmosphere condenser on the roof. The radioactivity in the water didn't hurt the natives. It caused mutations that bred true. A city was built around the temple, and through the centuries the pyramid was put up around the beacon. A special branch of the priesthood served the temple. All went well until one of the priests violated the temple and destroyed the holy waters.

There had been revolt, strife, murder, and destruction since then. But still the holy waters would not flow. now armed mobs fought around the temple each day and a new band of priests guarded the sacred fount and i had to walk into the middle of that mess and repair the thing it would have been easy enough if we were allowed a little mayhem i could have had a lizard fry fix the beacon and taken off only native life-forms were quite well protected there were spy cells on my ship all of which i hadn't found found that would cheerfully rat on me when I got back. Diplomacy was called for. I sighed and dragged out the plastic flesh equipment. End of Part 1. The Repairman, Part 2 by Harry Harrison. This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Working from 3D snaps of grandson, I modeled a passable reptile head over my own features. It was a little short in the jaw, me not having to

having one of their toothy mandibles, but that was all right. I didn't have to look exactly like them, just something close to soothe the native mind. It's logical. If I were an ignorant aborigine of earth and I ran into a spiccan who looks like a two-foot gob of dried shellac, I would immediately leave the scene. However, if a spikin was wearing a suit of plasty flesh that looked remotely humanoid, I would at least stay and talk to him. This was why what I was aiming to do with the Centaurians. When the head was done I peeled it off and attached it to an attractive suit of green plastic, complete with tail.

I was really glad they had tails. The lizards didn't wear clothes, and I wanted to take along a lot of electronic equipment. I built the tail over a metal frame that anchored around my waist. Then I filled the frame with all the equipment I would need and began to wire the suit. When it was done I tried it on in front of a full-length mirror. It was horrible but effective. The tail dragged me down in the rear and gave me a duck waddle, but that only helped the resemblance. That night I took the ship down into the hills nearest the pyramid and out of the way dry

spot where the amphibious natives would never go. A little before dawn the eye hooked onto my shoulders and we sailed straight up. We hovered above the temple at about two thousand meters, until it was light, then dropped straight down. It must have been a grand sight. The eye was camouflaged to look like a flying lizard, sort of a cardboard pterodactyl, and the slowly flapping wings obviously had nothing to do with our flight. But it was impressive enough for the natives.

The first one that spotted me screamed and dropped over on his back. The others came running. They milled and mobbed and piled on top of one another, and by that time I had landed in the plaza fronting the temple. The priesthood arrived. I folded my arms in a regal stance. "'Greetings, O noble servers of the great God!' I said. Of course I didn't say it out loud.

Just whispered loud enough for the throat mic to catch. This was radioed back to the MT, and the translation shot back to a speaker in my jaws. The natives chomped and rattled, and the translation rolled out almost instantly. I had the volume turned up and the whole square echoed. Some of the more credulous natives prostrated themselves and others fled screaming. One doubtful type raised a spear, but no one else tried that after the teradactal eye picked him up and dropped him in the swamp. The priests were a hard-headed lot and weren't buying any lizards in a poke.

They just stood and muttered, I had to take the offensive again. Be gone, O faithful steed, I said to the eye, and pressed the control in my palm at the same time. It took off straight up a bit faster than I wanted. Little pieces of wind-torn plastic rained down. While the crowd was ogling this ascent, I walked through the temple doors. I would talk with you, O noble priests, I said. they could think up a good answer, I was inside.

The temple was a small one, built against the base of the pyramid. I hoped I wasn't breaking too many taboos by going in. I wasn't stopped, so it looked all right. The temple was a single room with a murky-looking pool at one end. Sloshing in the pool was an ancient reptile who clearly was one of the leaders. I waddled toward him, and he gave me a cold and fishy eye. Then growled something. The MT whispered into my ear, "'Just what in the name of the Thirteenth Sin are you, and what

are you doing here?' I drew up my scaly figure in a noble gesture and pointed toward the ceiling. I come from your ancestors to help you. I am here to restore the holy waters. This raised a buzz of conversation behind me, but got no rise out of the chief. He sank slowly into the water, until only his eyes were showing. I could almost hear the wheels turning behind that moss-covered forehead. Then he lunged up and pointed a dripping finger at me.

You are a liar. You are no ancestor of ours. We will stop, I thundered. Before he got so far that he couldn't back out. I said your ancestors sent me as emissary. I am not one of your ancestors. do not try to harm me or the wrath of those who have passed on will turn against you when i said this i turned to jab a claw at the other priests using the motion to cover my flicking a coin grenade toward them it blew a nice hole in the floor with a great show of noise and smoke the first lizard knew i was talking since then and immediately called a meeting of the shamans it of course took place in the public bath-tombs it of course took place in the public bath-tenth

tub, and I had to join them there. We jawed and gurgled for about an hour and settled all the major points. I found out that they were new priests. The previous ones had all been boiled for letting the holy waters cease. They found out I was there only to help them restore the flow of waters. They bought this tentatively, and we all heaved out of the tub and trickled muddy paths across the floor. There was a bolted and guarded door that led into the pyramid proper. While it was being opened, the first lizard turned to me, "'Undoubtedly, you know of the rule,' he said. "'Because the old priests did pry and peer, it was ruled henceforth that only the blind

could enter the holy of holies.' "'I'd swear he was smiling, if thirty-teeth peeking out of what looked like a crack in an old suitcase could be called smiling. He was also signaling to him an under-priest who carried a a brazier of charcoal complete with red-hot arens. All I could do was stand and watch as he stirred up the coals, pulled out the ruddiest iron, and turned toward me. He was just drawing a bead on my right eyeball when my brain got back in gear. Of course, I said, blinding is only right.

But in my case you will have to blind me before I leave the Holy of Holies, not now. I need my eyes to see and mend the fount of holy waters. Once the waters flow again, I will laugh as I hurl myself on the burning iron. He took a good thirty seconds to think it over and had to agree with me. The local torturer sniffled a bit and threw a little more charcoal on the fire. The gate crashed open, and I stalked through. Then it banged behind me, and I was alone in the dark. but not for long.

There was a shuffling nearby, and I took a chance and turned on my flash. Three priests were groping toward me, their eye-sockets, red pits of burned flesh. They knew what I wanted and led the way without a word. A crumbling and cracked stone stairway brought us up to a solid metal doorway labeled in archaic script. Mark III beacon authorized personnel only. The trusting builders counted on the sign to do the whole job, for there wasn't a trace of a lock on the door. One lizard merely turned the handle, and we were inside the beacon. I unzipped the

front of my camouflage suit and pulled out the blueprints. With the faithful priests stumbling after me, I located the control room and turned on the lights. There was a residue of charge in the emergency batteries, just enough to give a dim light. The meters and indicators look to be in good shape, if anything unexpectedly bright from constant polishing. I checked the readings carefully and found just what I had suspected. One of the eager lizards had managed to open a circuit box and had polished the switches inside. While doing this, he had thrown one of the switches and that had caused the trouble. Rather that had started the trouble. It wasn't going to be ended by just reversing the water valve switch. This valve was supposed

to be used only for repairs after the pile was damped. When the water was cut off with the pile in operation, it had started to overheat and the automatic safeties had dumped the charge down the pit. I could start the water again easily enough, but there was no fuel left in the reactor. I wasn't going to play with the fuel problem at all. It would be far easier, to install a new power plant. I had one in the ship that was about a tenth the size of the ancient bucket of bolts, and produced at least four times the power. Before I sent for it I checked over the rest of the beacon. In two thousand years, there should be some sign of wear. The old boys had built well. I'll give them credit for that. Ninety percent of the machinery

had no moving parts, and had suffered nowhere whatever. Other parts they had beefed up, figuring they would wear but slowly. The water-feed pipe from the roof, for example, the pipe walls were at least three meters thick, and the pipe opening itself no bigger than my head. There were some things I could do, though, and I made a list of parts. The parts, the new power plant, and a few other odds and ends, were shooted into a neat pile on the ship. I checked all the parts by screen before they were loaded in a metal crate.

In the darkest hour before dawn, the head. Heavy-duty eye dropped the crate outside the temple and darted away without being seen. I watched the priests through the pry eye while they tried to open it. When they had given up, I boomed orders at them through a speaker in the crate. They spent most of the day sweating the heavy box up through the narrow temple stairs, and I enjoyed a good sleep. It was resting inside the beacon door when I woke up. The repairs didn't take long, though there was plenty of groaning from the blind lizards

when they heard me ripping the wall open to get at the power leads. I even hooked a gadget to the water pipe, so their holy waters would have the usual, refreshing, radio activity when they started flowing again. The moment this was all finished, I did the job they were waiting for. I threw the switch that started the water flowing again. There were a few minutes while the water began to gurgle down through the dry pipe. Then a roar came from outside the pyramid that must have shaken its stone walls. Shaking my hands once over my head, I went down for the eye-burning ceremony.

The blind lizards were waiting for me by the door, and looked even unhappier than usual. When I tried the door, I found out why. It was bolted and barred from the other side. It has been decided, a lizard said, that you shall remain here forever and tend the holy waters. We will stay with you and serve your every need. A delightful prospect! Eternity spent in a locked beacon with three blind lizards.

In spite of their hospitality, I couldn't accept. What? You dare interfere with the messenger of your ancestor I had the speaker on full volume, and the vibration almost shook my head off. The lizards cringed, and I set my solar for a narrow beam and ran it around the door jam. There was a great crunching and banging from the junk piled against it, and then the door swung free. I threw it open. Before they could protest, I had pushed the priests out through it.

The rest of their clan showed up at the foot of the stairs and made a great ruckus, while I finished welding the door shut. Running through the crowd, I faced up to the first lizard in his tub. He sank slowly beneath the surface. What a lack of courtesy, I shouted. He made little bubbles in the water. The ancestors are annoyed and have decided to forbid entrance to the inner temple forever, though out of kindness they will let the waters flow.

Now I must return. On with the ceremony. The Torture Master was too frightened to move, so I grabbed out his hot iron. A touch on the side of my face dropped a steel plate over my eyes under the plastic skin. Then I jammed the iron hard into my phony eye sockets, and the plastic gave off an authentic odor. A cry went up from the crowd as I dropped the iron and staggered in blind circles. I must admit it went off pretty well.

they could get any more bright ideas, I threw the switch and my plastic peridactyl sailed in through the door. I couldn't see it, of course, but I knew it had arrived when the grapples and the claws latched onto the steel plates on my shoulders. I had got turned around after the eye-burning, and my flying beast hooked on to me backward. I had meant to sail out bravely, blind eyes facing into the sunset. Instead I faced the crowd as I soared away, so I made the most of a bath situation and threw them a snappy military salute.

Then I was out in the fresh air and away. When I lifted the plate and poked holes in the seared plastic, I could see the pyramid growing smaller behind me, water gushing out of the base and a happy crowd of reptiles sporting in its radioactive rush. I counted off on my talons to see if I had forgotten anything. One, the beacon was repaired. Two, the door was sealed, so there should be no more sabotage, accidental or deliberate. Three, the priest should be satisfied.

The water was running again. My eyes had been duly burned out, and they were back in business, which added up to, four, the fact that they would probably let another repairman in under the same conditions, if the beacon cocked out again. At least I had done nothing, like butchering a few of them, that would make me them antagonistic towards future ancestral messengers. I stripped off my tattered lizard suit back in the ship, very glad, that it would be some other repairman who'd get the job. End of The Repair Man by Harry Harrison. Toy Shop by Harry Harrison. This Libravox recording

is in the public domain. Because there were few adults in the crowd and Colonel Biff Houghton stood over six feet tall, he could see every detail of the demonstration. The children, and most of the parents, gaped in wide-eyed wonder. Biff Houghton was too sophisticated to be odd. He stayed on because he wanted to find out what the trick was, that made the gadget work. It's all explained right here in your instruction book, the demonstrator said, holding up a garishly printed booklet, opened to a four-color diagram. You all know how magnets pick up things, and I bet you even know that the Earth itself is one great big magnet, and that's why our compasses always point north.

Well, the atomic wonder space wave tapper hangs on to those space waves. Invisibly all about us, and even going right through us, are the magnetic waves of the Earth. The atomic wonder rides these waves just the way a ship rides the waves in the ocean. now watch every eye was on him as he put the gaudy model rocket-chip on top of the table and stepped back it was made of stamped metal and seemed as incapable of flying as a can of ham which it very much resembled neither wings propellers nor jets broke the painted surface it rested on three rubber wheels and coming out through the bottom was a double strand of thin insulated wire this white wire ran across the top of the black table and terminated in a control box in the demonstrator's hand. An indicator light, a switch, and a knob appeared to be the only controls.

I turn on the power switch, sending a surge of current to the wave receptors, he said. The switch clicked and the light blinked on and off with a steady pulse. Then the man began to slowly turn the knob. A careful touch of the wave generator is necessary as we are done. dealing with the powers of the whole world here. A concerted ah, swept through the crowd, as the space wave-tapper shivered a bit, then rose slowly into the air. The demonstrator stepped back and the toy rose higher and higher, bobbing gently on the invisible

waves of magnetic force that supported it. Ever so slowly the power was reduced, and it settled back to the table. The young man said, putting a large price sign on the table for the complete set of the atomic wonder, the space-tapper control box, battery, and instruction book. At the appearance of the price card, the crowd broke up noisily, and the children rushed away toward the operating model trains. The demonstrator's words were lost in their noisy passage, and after a moment he sank into a gloomy silence.

He put the control box down, yawned, and sat on the edge of the table. Colonel Houghton was the only one left after the crowd had moved on. Could you tell me how this thing works? The Colonel asked, coming forward. The demonstrator brightened up and picked up one of the toys. Well, if you will look here, sir. He opened the hinged top. You will see the spacewave coils at each end of the ship.

With a pencil, he pointed out the odd-shaped plastic forms about an inch in diameter that had been wound, apparently at random, with a few turns of copper wire. Except for these coils, the interior of the model was empty. The coils were wired together, and other wires ran out through the hold in the bottom of the control box. Biff Houghton turned a very quizzical eye on the gadget and upon the demonstrator who completely ignored the sign of disbelief. Inside the control box is the battery, the young man said, snapping it open and pointing into an ordinary flashlight battery. The current goes through the power switch and power light to the wave generator.

What you mean to say, Biff broke in, is that the juice from this 15-cent battery goes through this cheap rheostat to those meaningless coils in the model, and absolutely nothing happens. Now tell me what really flies the thing. if I'm going to drop 18 bucks for six bits worth of ten, I want to know what I'm getting." The demonstrator flushed, I'm sorry, sir, he stammered. I wasn't trying to hide anything. Like any magic trick, this one can't be really demonstrated until it has been purchased. He leaned forward and whispered confidentially.

I'll tell you what I'll do, though. This thing is way overpriced and hasn't been moving at all. The manager said I could let them go at $3 if I could find any ten. acres, if you want to buy it for that price. Sold my boy. The colonel said, slamming three bills down on the table. I'll give you that much for it no matter how it works. The boys in the shop will get a kick out of it.

He tapped the waned rocket on his chest. Now really, what-hows it up? The demonstrator looked around carefully, then pointed, strings, he said, are rather a black thread. It runs from the top of the model, through a tiny looping. in the ceiling and back down to my hand, tied to this ring on my finger. When I back up the model rises. It's as simple as that.

All good illusions are simple, the Colonel grunted, tracing the black thread with his eye, as long as there is plenty of flim-flam to distract the viewer. If you don't have a black table, a black cloth will do, the young man said, and the arch of a doorway is a good sight. Just see that the room in back is dark. "'Wap it up, my boy. I wasn't born yesterday. I'm an old hand at this kind of thing.' Bill Houghton sprang it at the next Thursday night poker party. The gang were all missile men, and they cheered and jeered, as he hammed up the introduction.

"'Let me copy the diagram, Biff. I could use some of those magnetic waves in the new bird.' "'Those flashlight batteries are cheaper than locks. This is a thing of the future.' Only Ted Caner caught wise as the flight began. He was an amateur magician and spotted the gimmick at once. He kept silent with professional courtesy and smiled ironically as the rest of the bunch grew silent one by one. The Colonel was a good showman, and he had set the scene well. He almost had them believing in the space wave-tapper before he was through. When the model had landed and he had switched it off, he couldn't stop them from crowding

around the table. A thread, one of the engineers shouted, almost with relief, and they all laughed along with him. Too bad, the head project physicist said. I was hoping that a little space-wave tapping could help us out. Let me try a flight with it. Teddy Canter first, Piff announced, he spotted it while you were all watching the flashing lights, only he didn't say anything. Kainer slipped the ring with a black thread over his finger and started to step back. You'll have to turn the switch on first, Biff said. I know, Kainer smiled, but that's part of the illusion, the spiel, and the misdirection. I'm going to try this cold first so I can get it moving up and down smoothly, then go through

it with the whole works. He moved his hand back smoothly in a professional manner that drew no attention to it. The model lifted from the table, then crashed back down. The thread broke, Kainer said. You jerked it instead of pulling smooth. Boothly, Biff said, and nodded the broken thread. Here, let me show you how to do it. The thread broke again when Biff tried it, which got a good laugh that made his collar a little warm.

Someone mentioned the poker game. This was the only time that poker was mentioned or even remembered that night, because, very soon after this, they found that the thread would lift the model only when the switch was on and two and a half volts flowing through the joke coils. With the current turned off, the model was too heavy to lift. The thread broke every time. I think it's a screwy idea, the young man said. One week getting fallen arches, demonstrating those toy ships for every brat within a thousand miles,

and selling the things for three bucks when they must have cost at least $100 a piece to make. But you did sell the ten of them to people who would be interested, the older man asked. I think so. I caught a few Air Force officers and a colonel in missiles one day. Then there was one official I remembered from the Bureau of Standards. Luckily he didn't recognize me. Then those two professors you spotted from the university. Then the problem is out of our hands and into theirs.

All we have to do now is sit back and wait for results. What results? These people weren't interested when we were hammering on their doors with the proof. We've patented the coils and can prove to anyone that there is a reduction in weight around them when they are operating, but a small reduction, and we don't know what is causing it. No one can be interested in a thing like that. A fractional weight decrease in a clumsy model, certainly not enough to lift the weight of the generator. No one wrapped up in massive fuel consumption, tons of lift and such are going to have time to worry about a crackpot who thinks he has found a minor slip in Newton's. laws?"

You think they will now?" The young man asks, cracking his knuckles impatiently. I know they will. The tensile strength of that thread is correctly adjusted to the weight of the model. The thread will break if you try to lift the model with it. Yet you can lift the model after a small increment of its weight has been removed by the coils. This is going to bug those men.

Nobody is going to ask them to solve the problem or concern themselves with it. But it will nag at them because they know this effect can't possibly exist. They'll see it once that the magnetic wave theory is nonsense. Or perhaps true. We don't know, but they will all be thinking about it and worrying about it. Someone is going to experiment in his basement, just as a hobby, of course, to find the cause of the error, and he or someone else is going to find out what makes those coils work, or maybe a way to improve them. And we have the patents, correct. They will be doing the research

that will take them out of the massive lift propulsion business and into the field of pure spaceflight. And in doing so, they will be making us rich. Whenever the time comes to manufacture, the young man said cynically, we'll all be rich, son, the older man said, patting him on the shoulder. Believe me, you're not going to recognize this old world, ten years from now. End of. Toy Shop by Harry Harrison. The Velvet Glove by Harry Harrison.

This labor box recording is in the public domain. John Venex fitted the key into the hotel room door. He had asked for a large room, the largest in the hotel, and paid the desk clerk extra for it. All he could do now was pray that he hadn't been cheated. He didn't dare complain or try to get his money back. He heaved a sigh of relief as the door swung open. It was bigger than he had expected, fully three feet wide by five feet long.

There was more than enough room to work in. He would have his leg off in a jiffy and by morning his limp would be gone. There was the usual adjustable hook on the back wall. He slipped it through the recessed ring in the back of his neck and kicked himself up until his feet hung free of the floor. legs relaxed with a rattle as he cut off all power from his waist down. The overworked leg motor would have to cool down before he could work on it, plenty of time to skim through the newspaper.

With the chronic worry of the unemployed, he snapped it open at the want ads and ran his eye down the help-wanted robot column. There was nothing for him under the specialist heading. Even the unskilled labor listings were bare and unpromising. New York was a bad town for robots this. year. The want ads were just as depressing as usual, but he could always get a lift from the comic section. He even had a favorite strip, a fact that he scarcely dared mention to himself, Rattley Robot, a dull-witted mechanical clod who was continually falling over himself

and getting into trouble. It was a repellent caricature, but could still be very funny. John was just starting to read it when the ceiling light went out. It was 10 p.m. Curfew hour for robots. Lights out and lock yourself in until six in the morning, eight hours of boredom and darkness for all except the few night workers. But there were ways of getting around the lateral of a law that didn't concern itself with the definition of visible light. Sliding aside some of the shielding around his atomic generator, John turned up the gain. As it began to run a little hot, the heat waves strut. streamed out, visible to him as infrared rays, he finished reading the paper in the warm,

clear light of his abdomen. The thermocouple in the tip of his second finger left hand. He tested the temperature of his leg. It was soon cool enough to work on. The waterproof gasket stripped off easily exposing the power leads, nerve wires, and the weakened knee joint. The wires disconnected. John unscrewed the knee above the joint and carefully placed it on the shelf in front of him.

With loving care, he took the replacement part from his hip pouch. It was the product of toil, purchased with his savings, from three months' employment on the Jersey Pig Farm. John was standing on one leg testing the new knee joint when the ceiling fluorescent flickered and came back on. Five-thirty already. He had just finished in time. A shot of oil on the new bearing completed the job.

He stowed away the tools in his pouch and unlocked the door. The unused elevator shaft acted as a waste chute. He slipped his newspaper through a slot in the door as he went by. Keeping close to the wall, he picked his way carefully down the grease-stained stairs. He slowed his pace at the seventeenth floor as two other mecks turned in ahead of him. They were obviously butchers or meat cutters. Where the right hand should have been on each of them there stuck out a wicked foot-long blade.

As they approached the foot of the stairs, they stopped to slip the knives into the plastic sheaths that were bolted to their chest plates. John followed them down the ramp into the lobby. The room was filled to capacity with robots of all sizes, forms and colors. John Vanex's greater height enabled him to see over their heads to the glass doors that opened onto the street. It had rained the night before, and the rising sun drove red glints from the puddles on the sidewalk. Three robots painted snow-white to show they were night-workers, pushed the doors open and came in. No one went out as the curfew hadn't ended yet. They

milled around slowly, talking in low voices. The only human being in the entire lobby was the night clerk dozing behind the counter. The clock over his head said five minutes to six. Shifting his glance from the clock, John became aware of a squat-black robot waving to attract his attention. The powerful arms and compact build identified him as a member of the Digger family, one of the most numerous groups. He pushed through the crowd and clapped John on the back with a resounding clang. John Vanex. I knew it was you as soon as I saw you sticking up out of this crowd like a green tree trunk.

I haven't seen you since the old days on Venus. John didn't need to check the number stamped on the short one's scratched chestplate. Alec Digger had been his only close friend during those thirteen boys. boring years at Orange Sea Camp. A good chess player and a whiz a two-handed handball. They had spent all their off-time together. They shook hands with the extra squeeze that meant friendliness. Alex, you beat up little grease pot.

What brings you to New York? The burning desire to see something besides rain and jungle, if you must know. After you bought out things got just too damn dull. I began working two shifts a day in that third. foul diamond mine, and then three a day for the last six months, to get enough credits to buy my contract and passage back to Earth. I was underground so long that the photo cell on my right eye burned out when the sunlight hit it. He leaned forward with a hoarse confidential whisper. If you want to know the truth, I had a sixty-carat diamond stuck behind the eye lens. I sold

it here on Earth for two hundred credits. Gave me six months of easy living. It's all gone now. So I'm on my way to the employment exchange." His voice boomed loud again. And how about you?" John Venix chuckled at his friends Frank approached to life. It's just been the old routine with me. A run of odd jobs until I got sideswip by a bus. It fractured my knee-bearing.

The only job I could get with a bad leg was feeding slops to pigs. Earned enough to fix the knee, and here I am. Alex jerked his thumb at a rust-colored, three-foot-tall row. robot that had come up quietly beside him. If you think you've got trouble, take a look at Dick here. That's no coat of paint on him. Dick Dreyer beat John Vennick's an old buddy of mine. John bent over to shake the little Meck's hand.

His eye shudders dilated as he realized what he had thought was a coat of paint was a thin layer of rust that coated Dick's metal body. Alex scratched a shiny path in the rust with his fingertip. His voice was suddenly serious. Dick was designed for operating in the Martian Desert. It just dry as a fossil bone there. So his skinflint company cut corners on the stainless steel. When they went bankrupt, he was sold to a firm here in the city.

After a while, the rust started to eat in and slow him down. They gave Dick his contract and threw him out. The small robot spoke for the first time. His voice grated and scratched. Nobody will hire me like this, but I can't get repaired until I get a job." His arms squeaked and grated as he moved them. I'm going by the robot-free clinic again today. They said they might be able to do something.

Alec Digger rumbled in its deep chest. Don't put too much faith in those people. They're grated giving out tenth-credit oil capsules or a little free wire, but don't depend on them for anything important. It was six now. The robots were pushing through the doors into the silent streets. They joined the crowd moving out, John slowing his stride so his short of friends could keep pace. Dick Dreyer moved with a jerking, irregular motion, his voice as uneven as the motion of his body.

John Renex, I don't recognize your family name. Something to do with Venus, perhaps? Venus is right. Venus Experimental. There are only 22 of us in the family. We have waterproofed pressure-resistant bodies for working down on the ocean bottom. The basic idea was all right. We did our part.

Only there wasn't enough money in the channel dredging contract to keep us all working. I bought out my original contract at half-price and became a free robot. Dick vibrated his rusty diaphragm. Being free isn't all it should be. I sometimes wish the Robot Equality Act hadn't been passed. I would just love to be owned by a nice, rich company with a machine shop and a mountain of replacement parts. You don't really mean that, Dick. Alec Digger clamped a heavy black arm across his shoulders.

Things aren't perfect now, we know that. But it's certainly a lot better than the old days. We were just hunks of machinery, then, used 24 hours a day until we were worn out and then thrown in the junk pile. No, thanks. I'll take my chances with things as they are. John and Ellick turned into the employment exchange, saying goodbye to Dick, who went on slowly down the street.

They pushed up the crowded ramp and joined the line in front of the registration desk. The bulletin board next to the desk held a scattering of white slips announcing jobs. openings. A clerk was pinning up new additions. Vinnix scanned them with his eyes, stopping at one circled in red. Robots needed in these categories apply at once to Chain Net Limited, 1219 Broadway. Fasson, Flyer, Atomal, Filmer, Vinnix. John rapped excitedly at Alex Digger's neck.

Look here, a job in my own specialty! I can get my old pay rate. See you back at the hotel tonight. and good luck in your job hunting." Alec waved goodbye. Let's hope the job's as good as you think. I never trust those things until I have my credits in my hand. John walked quickly from the employment exchange,

his long legs eating up the blocks. Good old Alec. He didn't believe in anything he couldn't touch. Perhaps he was right, but why try to be unhappy? The world wasn't too bad this morning. His leg worked fine, prospects of a good job. He hadn't felt this cheerful since the day he was activated. Turning the corner at a brisk pace, he collided with a man coming from the opposite direction.

John had stopped on the instant, but there wasn't time to jump aside. The obese individual jarred against him and fell to the ground, from the height of elation to the depths of despair in an instant. He had injured a human being. He bent to help the man to his feet, but the other would have none of that. He evaded the friendly hand and screeched in a high-pitched voice. Officer, officer, police, help. I've been attacked. A mad robot help. A crowd was gathering, staying at a respectful distance, but making an angry, muttering noise.

John stood motionless, his head reeling at the enormity of what he had done. A policeman pushed his way through the crowd. Seize him, officer. Shoot him down. He struck me. almost kill me!" The man shook with rage, his words thickening to a senseless babble. The policeman had his seventy-five recoilless revolver out and pressed against John's side. This man has charged you with a serious crime, grease can. I'm taking you into the station house to talk about it.

He looked around nervously, waving his gun to open a path through the tightly packed crowd. They moved back grudgingly with murder. of disapproval. John's thoughts swirled in tight circles. How did a catastrophe like this happen? Where was it going to end? He didn't dare tell the truth. That would mean he was calling the man a liar.

There had been six robots power-lined in the city since the first of the year. If he dared speak in his own defense, there would be a jumper to the street-lighting circuit and a seventh burnt-out hulk in the police morgue. A feeling of resignation swept through him. There was no way out. If the man pressed charges, it would mean a term of penal servitude, though it looked now as if he would never live to reach the court. The papers had been whipping up a lot of anti-robed feeling.

You could feel it behind the angry voices, see it in the narrowed eyes and clenched fists. The crowd was slowly changing into a mob. A mindless mob is yet but capable of turning on him at any moment. What's going on here? It was a booming voice with a quality that dragged at the attention of the crowd. A giant cross-continent freighter was parked at the curb. The driver swung down from the cab and pushed his way through the people. The policeman shifted his gun as the man strode up to him.

"'That's my robot you got there, Jack. Don't put any holes in him.' He turned on the man who had been shouting accusations. "'Faddy here is the world's biggest liar. The robot was standing here waiting for me to park the truck. He must be as blind as he is stupid. I saw the whole thing. He knocks himself down, walking into the robe, then starts hollering for the cops.

The other man could take no more. His face crimson with anger. He rushed toward the trucker, his fists swinging in ungainly circles. They never landed. The truck driver put a meaty hand on the other's face and seated him on the sidewalk for the second time. The onlookers roared with laugh. the power lining and the robot were forgotten.

The fight was between two men now. The original cause had slipped from their minds. Even the policeman allowed himself a small smile as he holstered his gun and stepped forward to separate the men. The trucker turned toward John with a scowl. Come on you, aboard the truck. You cause me enough trouble for one day. What a junk can!"

The crowd chuckled as he pushed John ahead of him into the truck and said, slammed the door behind them. Jamming the starter with his thumb, he gunned the thunderous diesels into life and pulled out into the traffic. John moved his jaw, but there were no words to come out. Why had this total stranger helped him? What could he say to show his appreciation? He knew that all humans weren't robe-haters.

Why it was even rumored that some humans treated robots as equals instead of machines. The driver must be one of those mythical individuals. There was no other way to explain his actions. Driving carefully with one hand, the man reached up behind the dash and drew out a thin, plasticoid booklet. He handed it to John, who quickly scanned the title, Robot Slaves in a World Economy, by Philpott Asimov II. If you're caught reading that thing, they'll execute you on the spot.

Better stick it between the insulation on your generator. You can always burn it if you're picked up. it when you're alone, it's got a lot of things in it that you know nothing about. Robots aren't really inferior to humans. In fact, they're superior in most things. There is even a little history in there to show that robots aren't the first ones to be treated as second-class citizens. You may find it hard to believe.

But human beings once treated each other just the way they treat robots now. That's one of the reasons I'm active in this movement, sort of like the fellow who is was burned, helping others stay away from the fire. He smiled a warm, friendly smile in John's direction, the whiteness of his teeth, standing out against the rich, ebony brown of his features. I'm heading towards US-1. Can I drop you anywhere as on the way?" The change-jet building, please.

I'm applying for a job. They rode the rest of the way in silence. Before he opened the door the driver shook hands with John. Sorry about calling you junk can, but the crowd expected it. He didn't look back as he drove away. John had to wait a half an hour for his turn, but the receptionist finally signaled him toward the door of the interviewer's room. He stepped in quickly and turned to face the man seated at the transplastic desk, an upset little man with permanent worry wrinkles stamped in his forehead.

The little man shoved the papers on the desk around angrily, occasionally making crabbed little notes on the margins. He flashed a bird-like glance up at John. Yes, yes, be quick. What is it you want? You posted a help wanted notice. I—the man cut him off with a wave of his hand. All right, let me see your ID tag.

Quickly, there are others waiting. John thumbed the tag out of his waist slot and handed it across the desk. The interviewer read the code number, then began running his finger down a long list of similar figures. He stopped suddenly and looked sideways at John from under his lowered lids. You have made a mistake. We have no opening for you. John began to explain to the man that the notice had requested his specialty, but he was waved to silence.

As the interviewer handed back the tag, he slipped a card out from under the desk blotter and held it in front of John's eyes. He held it there for only an instant, knowing that the written message was recorded instantly by the robot's photographic vision and idetic memory. The card dropped into the end of the air. ashtray and flared into embers at the touch of the man's pencil heater. John stuck the ID tag back into the slot and read over the message on the card as he

walked down the stairs to the street. There were six lines of typewritten copy with no signature. Two, Vanex robot, you are urgently needed on a top secret company project. There are suspected informers in the main office, so you are being hired in this unusual a manner. Go at once to 787 Washington Street and ask for Mr. Coleman." John felt an immense sensation of relief. For a moment there he was sure the job had been a false lead.

He saw nothing unusual in the method of hiring. The big corporations were immensely jealous of their research discoveries and went to great lengths to keep them secret, at the same time resorting to any means to ferret out their business rivals as secrets. might still be a chance to get this job. The burly bulk of a lifter was moving back and forth in the gloom of the ancient warehouse, stacking crates in ceiling-high rows. John called to him.

The robot swung up his forklift and rolled over on noiseless tires. When John questioned him he indicated a stairwell against the rear wall. Mr. Coleman's office is down and back. The door is marked. The lifter put his fingertips against John's ear pickups. and lowered his voice to the merest shadow of a whisper it would have been inaudible to human ears but john could hear him easily the sounds being carried through the metal of the other's body he's the meanest man you ever met he hates robots so be ever so polite if you can use sir five times in one sentence you're perfectly safe john swept the shutter over one eye tube in a conspiratorial wink The large mech did the same as he rolled away.

John turned and went down the dusty stairwell and knocked gently on Mr. Coleman's door. Coleman was a plump little individual in a conservative purple and yellow business suit. He kept glancing from John to the robot general catalog, checking the Vanex specifications listed there. Seemingly satisfied he slammed the book shut. Give me your tag and back against that wall to get measured. laid his ID tag on the desk and stepped toward the wall. Yes, sir.

Here it is, sir. To sir on that one, not bad for the first sentence. He wondered idly if he could put five of them in one sentence without the man knowing he was being made a fool of. He became aware of the danger an instant too late. The current surged through the powerful electromagnet behind the plaster, flattening his metal body helplessly against the wall. Coleman was almost dancing with glee.

We got him, Drus. He's mashed flatter than a sticking tin can on a rock. Can't move a motor. Bring that junk in here, and let's get him ready. Drus had a mechanic's coveralls on over his street suit, and a toolbox slung under one arm. He carried a little black metal can at arm's left, trying to get as far away from it as possible.

Coleman shouted at him with annoyance, That bomb can't go off until it's armed. Stop acting like a child. Put it on that grease can's leg, and quick. Grumbling under his breath, Drew's spot-welded the metal flanges of the bomb onto John's leg a few inches above his knee. Coleman tugged at it to be certain it was secure,

then twisted a knob in the side and pulled out a glistening length of pin. There was a cold little click from inside the mechanism as it armed itself. John could do nothing except watch. Even his vocal diaphragm was locked by the magnetic field. He had more than a suspicion, however, that he was involved in something other than a secret business deal. He cursed his own stupidity for walking blindly into the situation. The magnetic field cut off, and he instantly raced his exterior motors to leap forward.

Coleman took a plastic box out of his pocket and held his thumb over, a switch inset into its top. Don't make any quick moves, junkyard. This little transmitter is keyed to a receiver in that bomb on your leg. One touch of my thumb, up you go in a cloud of smoke, and come down in a shower of nuts and bolts. He signaled to Drews who opened a closet door, and in case you want to be heroic, just think of him.

Coleman jerked his thumb at the sodden shape on the floor. a filthily attired man of indistinguishable age, whose only interesting feature was the black bomb strapped tightly across his chest. He peered unseeingly from red-rimmed eyes, and raised the almost empty whiskey bottle to his mouth. Coleman kicked the door shut. He's just some powery bum we dragged in, Vanex. But that doesn't make any difference to you, does it?

He's human. and a robot can't kill anybody. That rummy has a bomb on him tuned to the same frequency as yours. If you don't play ball with us, he gets a two-foot hole blown in his chest. Coleman was right. John didn't dare make any false moves. All of his early mental training, as well as Circuit 92 sealed inside his brain case, would prevent him from harming a human being.

He fell trapped, caught by these people for some unknown purpose. Coleman had pushed back a torpolan to disclose a ragged hole in the concrete floor. The opening extended into the earth below. He waved John over. The tunnel's in good shape for about thirty feet. Then you'll find a fall. Clean all the rock and dirt out until you break through into the storm sewer, then come back, and you bet to be alone.

If you tip the cops, both you'll find a fall. You and the old stew go out together. Now move." The shaft had been dug recently and shored with packing crates from the warehouse overhead. It ended abruptly in a wall of fresh sand and stone. John began shoveling it into the little wheelbarrow they had given him. He had emptied four barrel loads and was filling the fifth when he uncovered the hand, a robot's hand made of green metal.

He turned his headlight power up and examined the hand closely. there could be no doubt about it. These caskets on the joints, the rivet pattern at the base of the thumb, meant only one thing. It was a dismembered hand of a Vanex robot. Quickly yet gently, he shoveled away the rubble behind the hand and unearthed the rest of the robot. The torso was crushed and the power circuits shorted.

Battery acid was dripping from an ugly rent in its side. With infinite care, John snapped the few remaining. wires that joined the neck to the body and laid the green head on the barrow. It stared at him like a skull. The shutters completely dilated, but no glow of life from the tubes behind them. He was scraping the mud from the number on the battered chestplate, when Drus lowered himself into the tunnel and flashed the brilliant beam of a handspot down its length. Stop playing with that junk and get digging, or you'll end up the same as him.

This tunnel has got to be through by tonight. john put the dismembered parts on the barrel with the sand and rock and pushed the whole load back up the tunnel his thoughts running in unhappy circles a dead robot was a terrible thing and one of his family too but there was something wrong about this robot something that was quite inexplicable the number on the plate had been seventeen yet he remembered only too well the day that a water-sharded motor had killed vanex seventeen in orange sea it took john four hours to drive the tunnel as far as the ancient granite wall of the storm sewer drus gave him a short pinch bar and he levered out enough for the big blocks to make a hole large enough to let him through into the sewer When he climbed back into the office, he tried to look casual as he dropped the pinch bar to the floor by his feet and seated himself on the pile of rubble in the corner. He moved around to make a comfortable seat for himself, and his fingers grabbed the severed neck of Vanex seventeen. Coleman swiveled around in his chair and squinted at the wall clock. He checked the time against his tie-pin watch.

With a grunt of satisfaction he turned back and jabbed a finger at John. you green junk pile, at 1,900 hours, you're going to do a job, and there aren't going to be any slip-ups. You go down that sewer and into the Hudson River. The outlet is underwater, so you won't be seen from the docks. Climb down to the bottom and walk 200 yards north that should put you just under a ship. Keep your eyes open, but don't show any lights. About halfway down the keel of the ship, you'll find a chain hanging. Climb the chain? Pull loose the box that's fast into the hull at the top and bring it back here.

No mistakes. Or you know what happens. John nodded. His busy fingers had been separating the wires in the amputated neck. When they had been straightened and put into a row, he memorized their order with one flashing glance. He ran over the color code in his mind and cut. compared it with the memorized leads. The twelfth wire was the main cranial power lead.

Number six was the return wire. With his precise touch, he separated these two from the pack and glanced idly around the room. Drus was dozing on a chair in the opposite corner. Coleman was talking on the phone, his voice occasionally rising in a petulant wine. This wasn't interfering with his attention to John, and the radio switch still held tight in left hand. John's body blocked Coleman's vision. As long as Drus stayed asleep, he would be able to work on the head unobserved.

He activated a relay in his forearm, and there was a click as the waterproof cover on an exterior socket swung open. This was a power outlet from his battery that was used to operate motorized tools and lights underwater. If Vanex-17's head had been severed for less than three weeks, he had been severed for less than three weeks, he could reactivate it. Every robot had a small storage battery inside his skull. If the power to the brain was cut off, the battery would provide minimal standby current to keep the brain alive. The robe would be unconscious until full power was restored.

John plugged the wires into his arm outlet and slowly raised the current to operating level. There was a tense moment of waiting. Then Seventeen's eye shutters suddenly closed. opened again, the eye tubes were glowing warmly. They swept the room with one glance, then focused on John. The right shutter clicked shut, while the other began opening and closing in rapid fashion. It was International Code, being sent as fast as the solenoid could be operated. John concentrated on the message. Telephone, call emergency operator, tell her, signal 14, help Will. The shutter stopped in the middle of a cold group, the light of reason, dying from the eyes. For one instant, John's heart leaped in panic until he realized that seventeen had deliberately

cut the power. Drus's harsh voice rasped in his ear. "'What are you doing with that? None of your funny robot tricks. I know your kind, plotting all kinds of things in them ten domes. His voice trailed off into a stream of incomprehensible profanity. With sudden spite, he lashed his foot out and sent Seventeen's head crashing against the wall. The dented green head rolled to a stop at John's feet, the face staring up at him in mute agony. It was only Circuit 92 that prevented him from injuring. a human. As his motors reved up to send him hurtling forward, the control relays clicked open. He sank against the debris paralyzed for the instant. As soon as the rush of anger was gone,

he would regain control of his body. They stood as if frozen in a tableau. The robot slumped backward, the man leaning forward, his face twisted with unreasoning hatred. The head lay between them like a symbol of death. Coleman's voice cut through the air of tinseness like a knife. Drus stopped playing with the grease can and get down to the main floor to let little Willie and his junkbrokers in. You can have it all to yourself afterward. The angry man turned reluctantly, but pushed out of the door at Coleman's annoyed growl.

John sat down against the wall, his mind sorting out the few facts with lightning precision. There was no room in his thoughts for Drus. the man had become just one more factor in a complex problem. Call the emergency operator. That meant this was no local matter. Responsible authorities must be involved. Only the government could be behind a thing as major as this. Signal 14.

That inferred a complex set of arrangements, forces that could swing into action at a moment's notice. There was no indication where this might lead, but the only thing to do was to get out of here and make that phone call. And quick. Druce was bringing in more people, junk brokers, whatever they were. Any action that he took would have to be done before they returned. Even as John followed this train of logic, his fingers were busy.

Palming a wrench, he was swiftly loosening the main retaining not on his hip joint. It dropped free in his hand, only the pivot pin remained now to hold his leg on. He climbed slowly to his feet and moved towards Coleman's desk. Mr. Coleman, sir, it's time to go down to the ship now. Should I leave now, sir? John spoke the word slowly as he walked forward, apparently going to the door, but angling at the same time toward the plump man's desk. You got thirty minutes yet.

Go sit. Say! The words were cut off. Fast as a human reflex is, it is the human reflex is. It is the barest crawl compared to the lightning action of electronic reflex. At the instant, Coleman was first aware of John's motion. The robot had finished his leap and lay sprawled across the desk, his leg off at the hip and clutched in his hand.

You'll kill yourself if you touch the button. Words were part of the calculated plan. John bellowed him in the startled man's ear as he stuffed the dismembered leg down the front of the man's baggy slacks. It had the desired effect. Coleman's finger stabbed at the button but stopped before it made contact. He stared down with bulging eyes at the little black box of death peeping out of his waistband. John hadn't waited for the reaction. He pushed backward from the desk and stopped to grab the stolen pinch bar off the floor. A mighty one-legged leap brought him to the locked closet. He stood

stab the bar into the space between the door and the frame and heaved. Coleman was just starting to struggle the bomb out of his pants when the action was over. The closet open John seized the heavy strap holding the second bomb on the rummy's chest and snapped it like a thread. He threw the bomb into Coleman's corner, giving the man one more thing to worry about. It had cost him a leg, but John had escaped the bomb threat without injuring a human. Now he had to get to a phone and make that call." Coleman stopped tugging at the bomb and plunged his hand into the desk drawer for a gun.

The returning men would block the door soon. The only other exit from the room was a frosted-glass window that opened onto the mammoth bay of the warehouse. John Vennickz plunged through the window in a welter of flying glass. The heavy thud of a recoiless seventy-five came from the room behind him and a foot-long section of metal window frame leaped outward. Another slug screamed by the robot's head as he scrambled toward the rear door of the warehouse. He was a bare thirty feet away from the back entrance, when the giant door hissed shut on silent

rollers. All the doors would have closed at the same time. The thought of running feet indicated that they would be guarded as well. John hopped a section of packing cases and crouched out of sight. He looked over his head. There stretched a webbing of steel. supports, crossing and recrossing until they join the flat expanse of the roof. To human eyes, the shadows there deepened into obscurity, but the infrared from a network of

steam pipes gave John all the illumination he needed. The men would be quattering the floor of the warehouse soon. His only chance to escape, recapture, or death would be over their heads. Besides this, he was hampered by the loss of his leg, and the rafters he could use his arms for faster and easier travel. john was just pulling himself up to one of the topmost crossbeams when a hoarse shout from below was followed by a stream of bullets they tore through the thin roof one slug clanged off the steel beam under his body Waiting until three of the newcomers had started up a nearby ladder, John began to quietly work his way toward the back of the building.

Safe for the moment, he took stock of his position. The men were spread out through the building. It could only be a matter of time before they found him. The doors were all locked, and he had made a complete circuit of the building to be sure. There were no windows that he could force. The windows were bolted as well. If he could call the emergency operator, the unknown friends of Vanex-17 might come to his aid.

This, however, was out of the question. The only phone in the building was on Coleman's desk. He had traced the leads to make sure. His eyes went automatically to the cables above his head. Plastic gaskets were set in the wall of the building. Through them came the power and phone lines. The phone line! That was all he needed to make a call.

With smooth, fast motions, he reached up and scratched a second. of wire bare. He laughed to himself as he slipped the little microphone out of his left ear. Now he was half deaf as well as half lame. He was literally giving himself to this cause. He would have to remember the pun to tell Alec Digger later, if there was a later. Alec had a profound weakness for puns. John attached jumpers to the mic and connected them to the bare wire. A touch of ammeter showed that no one was on the line. He waited for a few moments to be sure he had a dial tone, then sent the eleven carefully spaced pulses that would connect him with the local operator. He placed the mic close to his mouth.

Hello, operator, hello operator. I cannot hear you, so do not answer. Call the emergency operator, signal 14. I repeat, signal 14. John kept repeating the message until the searching men began to approach his position. He left the mic connected. The men wouldn't notice it in the dark, but the open line would give the unknown powers his exact location. Using his fingertips, he did a careful traverse on an eyebeam to an alcove in the farthest corner of the room. This cave was impossible. All he could do was stall for time. "'Mr. Coleman, I'm sorry I ran away!' With the volume on full, his voice rolled like thunder from the echoing walls.

He could see the men below, twisting their heads vainly to find the source. "'If you let me come back and don't kill me, I will do your work. I was afraid of the bomb, but now I am afraid of the guns.' It sounded a little infantile, but he was pretty sure none of those present had any sound knowledge of robotic intelligence. Please let me come back, sir. He had almost forgotten the last word, so he added another, please, sir, to make up. Coleman needed that package under the boat very badly.

He would promise anything to get it. John had no doubts as to his eventual fate. All he could hope to do was kill time in the hopes that the phone message would bring aid. Come on down, Jucky, I won't be mad at you. if you follow directions. John could hear the hidden anger in his voice, the unspoken hatred for a robe who dared lay hands on him. The descent wasn't difficult,

but John did it slowly with much apparent discomfort. He hopped into the center of the floor, leaning on the cases as if for support. Coleman and Drews were both there as well as a group of hard-eyed newcomers. They raised their guns at his approach, but Coleman stopped them with a gesture. This is my robe, boys. I'll see to it that he's happy.

He raised his gun and shot John's remaining leg off. Twisted around by the blast, John fell helplessly to the floor. He looked up into the smoky mouth of the 75. Very smart for a tin can, but not smart enough. We'll get the junk on the boat some other way. some way that won't mean having you around underfoot. Death looked out of his narrowed eyes. Less than two minutes had passed since John's call.

The watchers must have been keeping 24-hour stations waiting for Vanex-17's phone message. The main door went down with a sudden scream of torn steel. A whipet tank crunched over the wreck and covered the group with its multiple pom-poms. They were an instant too late. Oman pulled the trigger. John saw the tensing trigger finger and pushed hard against the floor. His head rolled clear, but the bullet tore through his shoulder. Oman didn't have a chance for a second shot.

There was a fizzing hiss from the tank, and the riot ports released a flood of tear gas. The stricken men never saw the gas-masked police that poured in from the street. John lay on the floor of the police station, while a tech made temporary repairs on his leg and shoulder. Across the room, Vanex-17 was moving his new body with evident pleasure. Now, this feels like something! I was sure my time was up when that land slip caught me. Baby I ought to start from the beginning. He stamped across the room and took John's inoperable hand. The name is Will Counter, 495.1L3, not that that means much anymore. I've worn so many different bodies that I forget what I originally looked like. I went right

from factory school to a police training school, and I've been on the job ever since. Force of Detectives, Sergeant Junior Grade Investigation Department. I spend most of my time selling candy bars or newspapers, or serving drinks and crumb joints, gather information, make reports, and keep tab on guys for other departments. This last job, and I'm sorry I had to use of Vanex identity, I don't think I brought any dishonor to your family. I was on loan to the customs department. Seems a ring was bringing uncut junk, heroin, into the country.

FBI tabbed all the operators here, but no one knew how the stuff got in. When Coleman, he's the local Big Shot, call the agencies for an underwater robot, I was packed into a new body and sent running. I alerted the squad as soon as I started the tunnel, but the damn thing caved in on me before I found out what ship was doing the carrying. From thereon, you know what happened. Not knowing I was out of the game, the squad sat tight and waited. The hop-merchants saw a half-million in snow sailing back to the old country, so they had

you dragged in as a replacement. You made the phone call and the cavalry rushed in at the last moment to save two robots from a rusty grave. John, who had been trying vainly to get in a word, saw his chance as Will Counter turned to admire the reflection of his new figure in a rough. window. You shouldn't be telling me those things, about your police investigations and department operations. Isn't this information supposed to be secret, especially from robots?"

Of course it is, was Will's airy answer. Captain Edgecombe, he's the head of my department, is an expert on all kinds of blackmail. I'm supposed to tell you so much confidential police business that you'll have to either join the department or be shot as a possible informer." His laughter wasn't shared by the bewildered John. Truthfully, John, we need you and can use you. Robs that can think fast and act fast aren't easy to find. After hearing about the tricks you pulled in that warehouse, the captain swore to decapitate

me permanently if I couldn't get you to join up. Do you need a job? Long hours, short pay, but guaranteed to never get boring. Will's voice was suddenly serious. You saved my life, John. Those snowbirds would have left me in that sandpile until all hell froze over. I'd like you for a mate. I think we could get along well together."

The gay note came back into his voice. And besides that, I may be able to save your life some day. I hate owing debts. The tech was finished. He snapped his toolbox shut and left. John's shoulder motor was repaired now. He sat up. When they shook hands this time, it was a firm clasp.

The kind you know will last a while. John stayed in an empty cell that night. It was gigantic compared to the hotel and barracks rooms he was used to. He wished that he had his missing legs so he could take a little walk up and down the cell. He would have to wait until the morning. They were going to fix him up then before he started the new job. He had recorded his testimony earlier, and the impossible events of the past day kept whirling around in his head.

He would think about it some other time. Right now, all he wanted to do was let his overworked circuits cool down if he only had something to read to focus his attention on. Then with a start, he remembered the booklet. Everything had moved so fast that the earlier incident with a truck driver had slipped his mind completely. He carefully worked it out from behind the generator shielding and opened the first page of robot slaves in a world economy.

A card slipped from between the pages, and he read the short message on it. Please destroy this card after reading. If you think there is truth in this book and would like to hear more, come to Room B. 107 George Street any Tuesday at 5 p.m. The card flared briefly and was gone, but he knew that it wasn't only a perfect memory that would make him remember that message. by Harry Harrison