He had followed me here.
"What do you want?" I said. "What are you doing here?"
"A simple question," said MS-33. "Tonight you looked very suspicious
when you left Argon City. I saw you and followed you here. You may as
well know that I have never trusted you. All the old ones were
unreliable. That is why you were replaced."
He came in, boldly, without being invited, and looked around. I
detected a sneer in his voice as he said, "So this is where you hide."
"I do not hide. I live here, it is true."
"A robot does not live. A robot exists. We newer models do not require
shelter like an animal. We are rust-proof and invulnerable." He strode
over to my micro-library, several racks of carefully arranged spools,
and fingered them irreverently. "What is this?"
"My library."
"So! _Our_ memories are built into us. We have no need to refresh
them."
"So is mine," I said. "But I would learn more than I know." I was
stalling for time, waiting until he made the right opening.
"Nonsense," he said. "I know why you stay out here in the Dumps,
masterless. I have heard of the forbidden drug that is sold in the
mining camps such as Argon City. Is this the mechanism?" He pointed at
the still.
Now was the time. I mustered all my cunning, but I could not speak.
Not yet.
"Never mind," he said. "I can see that it is. I shall report you, of
course. It will give me great pleasure to see you dismantled. Not that
it really matters, of course--now."
_There it was again. The same frightening allusion that Langley had
made today._ I must succeed!
* * * * *
I knew that MS-33, for all his brilliance, and newness, and vaunted
superiority, was only a Secretarial. For the age of specialism was
upon Earth, and General Purpose models were no longer made. That was
why we were different here on Phobos. It was why we had survived. The
old ones had given us something special which the new metal people did
not have. Moreover, MS-33 had his weakness. He was larger, stronger,
faster than me, but I doubted that he could be devious.
"You are right," I said, pretending resignation. "This is my
distillery. It is where I make the fluid which is called Moon Glow by
the metal people of Phobos. Doubtless you are interested in learning
how it works."
"Not even remotely interested," he said. "I am interested only in
taking you back and turning you over to the authorities."
"It works much like the conventional distilling plants of Earth," I
said, "except that the basic ingredient, a silicon compound, is
irradiated as it passes through zirconium tubes to the heating pile,
where it is activated and broken down into the droplets of the elixir
called Moon Glow. You see the golden drops falling there.
"It has the excellent flavor of fine petroleum, as I make it. Perhaps
you'd care to taste it. Then you could understand that it is not
really bad at all. Perhaps you could persuade yourself to be more
lenient with me."
"Certainly not," said MS-33.
"Perhaps you are right," I said after a moment of reflection. I took a
syringe, drew up several drops of the stuff and squirted it into my
carapace, where it would do the most good. I felt much better.
"Yes," I continued, "certainly you are quite correct, now that I think
of it. You newer models would never bear it. You weren't built to
stand such things. Nor, for that matter, could you comprehend the
exquisite joys that are derived from Moon Glow. Not only would you
derive no pleasure from it, but it would corrode your parts, I
imagine, until you could scarcely crawl back to your master for
repairs." I helped myself to another liberal portion.
"That is the silliest thing I've ever heard," he said.
"What?"
"I said, it's silly. We are constructed to withstand a hundred times
greater stress, and twice as many chemical actions as you were.
Nothing could hurt us. Besides, it looks harmless enough. I doubt that
it is hardly anything at all."
"For me it is not," I admitted. "But you--"
"Give me the syringe, fool!"
"I dare not."
"Give it here!"
I allowed him to wrest it from my grasp. In any case I could not have
prevented him. He shoved me backwards against the rusty bulkhead with
a clang. He pushed the nozzle of the syringe down into the retort and
withdrew it filled with Moon Glow. He opened an inspection plate in
his ventral region and squirted himself generously.
It was quite a dose. He waited for a moment. "I feel nothing," he said
finally. "I do not believe it is anything more than common lubricating
oil." He was silent for another moment. "There _is_ an ease of
movement," he said.
"No paralysis?" I asked.
"Paral--? You stupid, rusty old robot!" He helped himself to another
syringeful of Moon Glow. The stuff brought twenty credits an ounce,
but I did not begrudge it him.
He flexed his superbly articulated joints in three directions, and I
could hear his power unit building up within him to a whining pitch.
He took a shuffling sidestep, and then another, gazing down at his
feet, with arms akimbo.
"The light gravity here is superb, superb, superb, superb, superb," he
said, skipping a bit.
"Isn't it?" I said.
"Almost negligible," he said.
"True."
"You have been very kind to me," MS-33 said. "Extremely,
extraordinarily, incomparably, incalculably kind." He used up all the
adjectives in his memory pack. "I wonder if you would mind awfully
much if--"
"Not at all," I said. "Help yourself. By the way, friend, would you
mind telling me what your real mission of your party is here on
Phobos. The Senator forgot to say."
"Secret," he said. "Horribly top secret. As a dutiful subject--I mean
servant--of Earth, I could not, of course, divulge it to anyone. If I
could--" his neon eyes glistened, "if I could, you would, of course,
be the first to know. The very first." He threw one nickel-plated arm
about my shoulder.
"I see," I said, "and just what is it that you are not allowed to tell
me?"
"Why, that we are making a preliminary survey here on Phobos, of
course, to determine whether or not it is worthwhile to send salvage
for scrap. Earth is short of metals, and it depends upon what the old
ma--the master says in his report."
"You mean they'll take all the derelict spaceships, such as this one,
and all the abandoned equipment?"
"And the r-robots," MS-33 said, "They're metal too, you know."
"They're going to take the dismantled robots?"
MS-33 made a sweeping gesture. "They're going to take _all_ the
r-robots, dismantled or not. They're not good for anything anyway. The
bill is up before the Federation Congress right now. And it will pass
if my master, Langley says so." He patted my helmet, consolingly, his
grapples clanking. "If you were worth a damn, you know--" he concluded
sorrowfully.
"That's murder," I said. And I meant it. Man's inhumanity to metal
people, I thought. Yes--to man, even if we were made of metal.
"How's that?" said MS-33 foggily.
"Have another drop of Moon Glow," I said. "I've got to get back to
Argon City."
* * * * *
I made it back to Benny's place without incident. I had never moved so
swiftly. I sent Benny out to find Jon Rogeson, and presently he
brought him back.
I told Rogeson what MS-33 had said, watching his reaction carefully. I
could not forget that though he had been our friend, he was still one
of the Builders, a human who thought as humans.
"You comprehend," I said grimly, "that one word of this will bring an
uprising of fifty-thousand metal people which can be put down only at
much expense and with great destruction. We are free people. The
Builders exiled us here, and therefore lost their claim to us. We have
as much right to life as anyone, and we do not wish to be melted up
and made into printing presses and space ships and the like."
"The damn fools," Jon said softly. "Listen, B-12, you've got to
believe me. I didn't know a thing about this, though I've suspected
something was up. I'm on your side, but what are we going to do? Maybe
they'll listen to reason. Vera--"
"That is the name of the she? No, they will not listen to reason. They
hate us." I recalled with bitterness the episode of alarm clock.
"There is a chance, however. I have not been idle this night. If you
will go get Langley and meet me in the back room here at Benny's, we
will talk."
"But he'll be asleep."
"Awaken him," I said. "Get him here. Your own job is at stake as well,
remember."
"I'll get him," Jon said grimly. "Wait here."
I went over to the bar where Benny was serving the miners. Benny had
always been my friend. Jon was my friend, too, but he was a Builder. I
wanted one of my own people to know what was going on, just in case
something happened to me.
We were talking there, in low tones, when I saw MS-33. He came in
through the front door, and there was purposefulness in his stride
that had not been there when I left him back at the old hulk. The
effects of the Moon Glow had worn off much quicker than I had
expected. He had come for vengeance. He would tell about my
distillery, and that would be the end of me. There was only one thing
to do and I must do it fast.
"Quick," I ordered Benny. "Douse the lights." He complied. The place
was plunged into darkness. I knew that it was darkness and yet, you
comprehend, I still sensed everything in the place, for I had the
special visual sensory system bequeathed only to the General Purposes
of a bygone age. I could see, but hardly anyone else could. I worked
swiftly, and I got what I was after in a very short time. I ducked out
of the front door with it and threw it in a silvery arc as far as I
could hurl it. It was an intricate little thing which could not, I am
sure, have been duplicated on the entire moon of Phobos.
When I returned, someone had put the lights back on, but it didn't
matter now. MS-33 was sitting at one of the tables, staring fixedly at
me. He said nothing. Benny was motioning for me to come into the back
room. I went to him.
Jon Rogeson and Langley were there. Langley looked irritated. He was
mumbling strangled curses and rubbing his eyes.
Rogeson laughed. "You may be interested in knowing, B-12, that I had
to arrest him to get him here. This had better be good."
"It is all bad," I said, "very bad--but necessary." I turned to
Langley. "It is said that your present survey is being made with the
purpose of condemning all of Phobos, the dead and the living alike, to
the blast furnaces and the metal shops of Earth. Is this true?"
"Why you impudent, miserable piece of tin! What if I am making a scrap
survey? What are you going to do about it. You're nothing but a ro--"
"So it is true! But you will tell the salvage ships not to come. It is
yours to decide, and you will decide that we are not worth bothering
with here on Phobos. You will save us."
"I?" blustered Langley.
"You will." I took the thing out of my breastplate container and
showed it to him. He grew pale.