It was quite useless. You could not beat Rule I potential. The robot said stupidly, “You are in danger, Master.”

Powell looked about him desperately. He couldn’t see clearly. His brain was in a heated whirl; his breath scorched when he breathed, and the ground all about him was a shimmering haze.

He called a last time, desperately: “Speedy! I’m dying, damn you! Where are you? Speedy, I need you.”

He was still stumbling backward in a blind effort to get away from the giant robot he didn’t want, when he felt steel fingers on his arms, and a worried, apologetic voice of metallic timbre in his ears.

“Holy smokes, boss, what are you doing here? And what am I doing—I’m so confused—”

“Never mind,” murmured Powell, weakly. “Get me to the shadow of the cliff—and hurry!” There was one last feeling of being lifted into the air and a sensation of rapid motion and burning heat, and he passed out.

He woke with Donovan bending over him and smiling anxiously. “How are you, Greg?”

“Fine!” came the response. “Where’s Speedy?”

“Right here. I sent him out to one of the other selenium pools—with orders to get that selenium at all cost this time. He got it back in forty-two minutes and three seconds. I timed him. He still hasn’t finished apologizing for the runaround he gave us. He’s scared to come near you for fear of what you’ll say.”

“Drag him over,” ordered Powell. “It wasn’t his fault.” He held out a hand and gripped Speedy’s metal paw. “It’s O.K., Speedy.” Then, to Donovan, “You know, Mike, I was just thinking—”

“Yes!”

“Well,”—he rubbed his face—the air was so delightfully cool, “you know that when we get things set up here and Speedy put through his Field Tests, they’re going to send us to the Space Stations next—”

“No!”

“Yes! At least that’s what old lady Calvin told me just before we left, and I didn’t say anything about it, because I was going to fight the whole idea.”

“Fight it?” cried Donovan. “But—”

“I know. It’s all right with me now. Two hundred seventy-three degrees Centigrade below zero. Won’t it be a pleasure?”

“Space Station,” said Donovan, “here I come.”

3. REASON

HALF A YEAR later, the boys had changed their minds. The flame of a giant sun had given way to the soft blackness of space but external variations mean little in the business of checking the workings of experimental robots. Whatever the background, one is face to face with an inscrutable positronic brain, which the slide-rule geniuses say should work thus-and-so.

Except that they don’t. Powell and Donovan found that out after they had been on the Station less than two weeks.

Gregory Powell spaced his words for emphasis, “One week ago, Donovan and I put you together.” His brows furrowed doubtfully and he pulled the end of his brown mustache.

It was quiet in the officer’s room on Solar Station #5—except for the soft purring of the mighty Beam Director somewhere far below.