"You there--robot!" said Langley, looking at me. "How far across this
place?" The word was like a blow. I could not answer.
MS-33, glistening in the dying light of Mars, strode over to me,
clanking heavily up on the black rocks. He seized me with his grapples
and shook me until my wiring was in danger of shorting out. "Speak up
when you are spoken to, archaic mechanism!" he grated.
I would have struck out at him, but what use except to warp my own
aging limbs.
Jon Rogeson came to my rescue. "On Phobos," he explained to Langley,
"we don't use that word 'robot.' These folk have been free a long
time. They've quite a culture of their own nowadays, and they like to
be called 'metal people.' As a return courtesy, they refer to us
humans as 'builders.' Just a custom, Senator, but if you want to get
along with them--"
"Can they vote?" said Langley, grinning at his own sour humor.
"Nonsense," said MS-33. "I am a robot, and proud of it. This rusty
piece has no call to put on airs."
"Release him," Langley said. "Droll fellows, these discarded robots.
Really nothing but mechanical dolls, you know, but I think the old
scientists made a mistake, giving them such human appearance, and such
obstinate traits."
Oh, it was true enough, from his point of view. We had been mechanical
dolls at first, I suppose, but fifty years can change one. All I know
is this: we are people; we think and feel, and are happy and sad, and
quite often we are bored stiff with this dreary moon of Phobos.
It seared me. My selenium cells throbbed white hot within the shell of
my frame, and I made up my mind that I would learn more about the
mission of this Langley, and I would get even with MS-33 even if they
had me dismantled for it.
Of the rest of that week I recall few pleasant moments. We went out
every day, and the quick-eyed servants of Langley measured the areas
with their instruments, and exchanged significant looks from behind
their spectacles, smug in their thin air helmets. It was all very
mysterious. And disturbing.
But I could discover nothing about their mission. And when I
questioned MS-33, he would look important and say nothing. Somehow it
seemed vital that I find out what was going on before it was too late.
On the third day there was a strange occurrence. My friend, Jon
Rogeson had been taking pictures of the Dumps. Langley and his wife
had withdrawn to one side and were talking in low tomes to one
another. Quite thoughtlessly Jon turned the lens on them and clicked
the shutter.
Langley became rust-red throughout the vast expanse of his neck and
face. "Here!" he said, "what are you doing?"
"Nothing," said Jon.
"You took a picture of me," snarled Langley. "Give me the plate at
once."
Jon Rogeson got a bit red himself. He was not used to being ordered
around. "I'll be damned if I will," he said.
Langley growled something I couldn't understand, and turned his back
on us. The she who was called his wife looked startled and worried.
Her eyes were beseeching as she looked at Jon. A message there, but I
could not read it. Jon looked away.
Langley started walking back to the half-track alone. He turned once
and there was evil in his gaze as he looked at Jon. "You will lose
your job for this impertinence," he said with quiet savagery, and
added, enigmatically, "not that there will be a job after this week
anyway."
Builders may appear to act without reason, but there is always a
motivation somewhere in their complex brains, if one can only find it,
either in the seat of reason, or in the labyrinthine inhibitions from
their childhood. I knew this, because I had studied them, and now
there were certain notions that came into my brain which, even if I
could not prove them, were no less interesting for that.
* * * * *
The time had come to act. I could scarcely wait for darkness to come.
There were things in my brain that appalled me, but I was now certain
that I had been right. Something was about to happen to Phobos, to all
of us here--I knew not what, but I must prevent it somehow.
I kept in the shadows of the shabby buildings of Argon City, and I
found the window without effort. The place where I had spied upon the
wife of Langley to my sorrow the other night. There was no one there;
there was darkness within, but that did not deter me.
Within the airdrome which covers Argon City the buildings are loosely
constructed, even as they are on Earth. I had no trouble, therefore,
opening the window. I swung a leg up and was presently within the
darkened room. I found the door I sought and entered cautiously. In
this adjacent compartment I made a thorough search but I did not find
what I primarily sought--namely the elusive reason for Langley's visit
to Phobos. It was in a metallic overnight bag that I did find
something else which made my power pack hum so loudly that I was
afraid of being heard. The thing which explained the strangeness of
the pompous Senator's attitude today--which explained, in short, many
things, and caused my brain to race with new ideas.
I put the thing in my chest container, and left as stealthily as I had
come. There had been progress, but since I had not found what I hoped
to find, I must now try my alternate plan.
Two hours later I found the one I sought, and made sure that I was
seen by him. Then I left Argon City by the South lock, furtively, as a
thief, always glancing over my shoulder, and when I made certain that
I was being followed, I went swiftly, and it was not long before I was
clambering over the first heaps of debris at the edge of the Dumps.
Once I thought I heard footsteps behind me, but when I looked back
there was no one in sight. Just the tiny disk of Deimos peering over
the sharp peak of the nearest ridge, the black velvet sky outlining
the curvature of this airless moon.
Presently I was in sight of home, the time-eaten hull of an ancient
star freighter resting near the top of a heap of junked equipment from
some old strip mining operation. It would never rise again, but its
shell remained strong enough to shelter my distillery and scant
furnishings from any chance meteorite that might fall.
I greeted it with the usual warmth of feeling which one has for the
safe and the familiar. I stumbled over tin fuel cans, wires and other
tangled metal in my haste to get there.
It was just as I had left it. The heating element under the network of
coils and pressure chambers still glowed with white heat, and the Moon
Glow was dripping with musical sound into the retort.
I felt good. No one ever bothered me here. This was my fortress, with
all that I cared for inside. My tools, my work, my micro-library. And
yet I had deliberately--
Something--a heavy foot--clanked upon the first step of the manport
through which I had entered.
I turned quickly. The form shimmered in the pale Deimoslight that
silhouetted it.