When they finished their search of the living room, the man suggested,
"Let's search different rooms. You take a bedroom. I'll take the dining
room. No telling where the safe is. They put it in a different place in
every house."
The house waited, its electronic brain whirling.
It made a decision.
Silently, the house erected an invisible energy screen around the
dining room. The screens were designed to block collective sounds
of the entire house from any room and provide it with a comforting
serenity.
Now, the house thought, the sound-screens will be most useful!
The house watched as the man in the wrinkled brown tunic examined a
table.
Silently, panels in the walls opened.
A dozen machines a foot in diameter converged at a position behind the
man's back.
The machines moved simultaneously, silently. They attached themselves
to the intruder's body. They dusted and scrubbed him thoroughly, as if
he were a piece of furniture or a floor.
The man screamed and fired wildly with the gun. The small machines
crumpled one by one.
Click ... click ... click.
"Your weapon is empty," the house observed.
The man threw the gun at a window. It bounced off the hard plastic and
clattered on the floor.
"You try something like that again," he threatened, "and I'll kill you!
So help me, I'll kill you if I have to take you apart piece by piece!"
He shook a trembling fist at the quiet walls and twisted his face into
a hideous snarl.
The house noticed with satisfaction that the man's face and hands were
covered with crimson streaks. The cleaning machines had served their
purpose.
The house deactivated the dining room scanners and activated scanners
in the bedrooms.
It found the woman in its owners' bedroom. It studied her as she
searched a mattress. She was calm: because of its precaution, the
sounds of the dining room fracas hadn't reached her ears. The house
decided to leave the sound-blocks on. It was best to attack them
individually.
* * * * *
A closet door slid into a wall. A slender machine, five feet tall and
with sixteen long metal tentacles rolled across the room on soft rubber
wheels.
It looked like a mechanical monster from another world, but it was
merely a very efficient machine to undress the house's masters--a
mechavalet.
The mechavalet paused behind the woman's back. Sixteen rubber-tipped
metal tentacles reached out.
The machine normally undressed a person with smoothness and gentleness.
This time the house made it operate as roughly as possible.
The sixteen tentacles moved swiftly and the machine tore the woman's
dress to shreds before she could even scream. By the time she turned
around, it had removed her slip and brassiere.
[Illustration: Her dress was torn to shreds.]
The woman screamed even more shrilly as the weird machine tugged at her
panties. Frantically, she grabbed the slender tentacles and twisted
them until rewarded by the crunch of delicate mechanisms not meant for
such rough treatment.
The machine served its purpose until its last metal arm was broken.
The house watched as the woman cried for a few minutes and then, clad
only in high-heel shoes and wristwatch, continued her search of the
bedroom.
She is different, the house thought. She does not scream threats at me
like the man does. Still, I do not like her because she wants to steal
from my masters and does not care what happens to me.
The house switched its attention to the man.
He had concluded his search of the dining room and was now searching a
guest room. He found the gun the house's master had hidden there.
The man waved the gun at the motionless walls. "See what I found,
house! You try any more funny stuff and I'll kill you!"
"You do not frighten me," the house replied via one of its many hidden
microphones. To verify the statement, it turned on the heating units
full blast.
A few minutes later, the man stopped his search of a closet when he
noticed that sweat was rolling off his body as if he were standing at
the gates of hell itself.
He left the closet and shouted at an open door, "Stop it! Do you hear,
stop it!" He shook his head from side to side, violently, as if to
impress the house with the necessity of obeying.
"You can't stop me with the gun," the house informed him. "There are
one hundred and two air-conditioning vents in the house. If you took
time to find and destroy all of them, you could never leave here before
my masters return."
The man's jaw sagged, and with an equal sag of his shoulders he
returned to his search of the closet.
The house deducted, They are burglars, only burglars. They want to
escape before my masters return because they would have to kill them
and they are not murderers.
The man grunted with satisfaction when he stopped sweating. And
grunted with anger when, a few minutes later, the room became so cold
he was shivering and his breath was like smoke.
The house established automatic circuits to give the room a continuous
fluctuation of temperature from extreme heat to extreme coldness every
two minutes and turned its attention to the woman.
* * * * *
Still attired only in shoes and wristwatch, the woman was now searching
the bathroom.
Quite by accident, she touched a certain spot of the medicine cabinet
and stared with fascination as the cabinet swung completely around to
display its back which was--the safe. It was unlocked.
She grabbed the large metal box inside, opened it, and glanced at the
few glittering jewels and small bundle of bills.
"It's here!" she cried. She whirled and took a step toward the door.
That was as far as she got for several minutes.
The bathroom was equipped with automatic dispensers of temporary and
permanent depilatories. The house's male master used the temporary
depilatory to shave with every morning and the house was well
acquainted with their use.
It selected the _permanent_ depilatory, and nozzles set in the tile
walls squirted large gobs of it on the woman's head. Slender rubber
tentacles reached out and massaged the depilatory into the hair.
Faucets swung and sprayed jets of warm water.
In a few seconds, the woman was completely hairless. She stared with
horror at the blond hair in the pool of water at her feet. "Was it
permanent?" she wondered aloud.
"Yes," the house replied.
She screamed and picked up a small weighing machine. With
uncontrollable anger, she smashed the machine against the medicine
cabinet.
With an equal but emotionless anger, the house squirted soap into her
eyes and sprayed her naked body with alternate jets of hot and cold
water.
The house won the battle.
The woman groped blindly for the jewel box and staggered from the
bathroom. The house turned its attention to the man again.
He had searched the kitchen without incident, but as he walked toward
the door a nearby food-dispenser opened. Prunes, waffles, bacon, eggs
and toast left the machine with abnormal speed and struck him.
He turned just in time to receive cherry pie, spaghetti and meat balls,
butter, vegetable soup, and ice cream in his face.
He shouted something unprintable at the house, wiped the mess from his
face and took another step toward the door.
Half of a watermelon hurtled from the food-dispenser and squashed
against his skull. He stumbled, fell and slid.
He heard the woman cry, "I found it!" He pulled himself to his feet. He
ran into the hall and froze when he saw the naked, hairless apparition
that stumbled from the bathroom.
* * * * *