Part 4

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2615 turned abruptly and strode from the room.

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The humans are still asleep," Pwowp said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

The lens eyes fixed on Stella.

"No!" she shuddered. "No!"

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

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

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

His other hand gripped her arm.

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes," 2615 said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"When the fleet arrives--"

"But you said it was destroyed."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

2615 remained motionless for several minutes. Then:

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

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

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

"But Earth won't suspect--"

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

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

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

"He thinks he is." Pwowp smiled broadly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The robots are ready?" 2615 asked.