And then AL-76 had squatted down next to him and said, "Say, why did all the rest of them run?"
Payne knew quite well why they all ran, but the gurgle that issued from his diaphragm didn't show it. He tried to inch away from the robot.
AL-76 continued in an aggrieved tone, "One of them even took a shot at me. An inch lower and he would have scratched my shoulder plate."
"M-must have b-been a nut," stammered Payne.
"That's possible." The robot's voice grew more confidential. "Listen, what's wrong with everything?"
Payne looked hurriedly about. It had struck him that the robot spoke in a remarkably mild tone for one so heavily and brutally metallic in appearance. It also struck him that he had heard somewhere that robots were mentally incapable of harming human beings. He relaxed a bit.
"There's nothing wrong with anything."
"Isn't there?" AL-76 eyed him accusingly. "You're all wrong. Where's your space suit?"
"I haven't got any."
"Then why aren't you dead?"
That stopped Payne, "Well-I don't know."
"See!" said the robot triumphantly, "there's something wrong with everything. Where's Mount Copernicus? Where's Lunar station 17? And where's my Disinto? I want to get to work, I do." He seemed perturbed, and his voice shook as he continued. "I've been going about for hours trying to get someone to tell me where my Disinto is, but they all run away. By now I'm probably 'way behind schedule and the Sectional Executive will be as sore as blazes. This is a fine situation."
Slowly Payne unscrambled the stew in which his brain found itself and said, "Listen, what do they call you?"
"My serial number is AL-76."
All right, Al is good enough for me. Now, Al, if you're looking for Lunar Station 17, that's on the moon, see?"
AL-76 nodded his head ponderously. "Sure. But I've been looking for it-"
"But it's on the moon. This isn't the moon."
It was the robot's turn to become confused. He watched Payne for a speculative moment and then said slowly, "What do you mean this isn't the moon? Of course it's the moon. Because if it isn't the moon, what is it, huh? Answer me that."
Payne made a funny sound in his throat and breathed hard. He pointed a finger at the robot and shook it. "Look," he said-and then the brilliant idea of the century struck him, and he finished with a strangled "Wow!"
AL-76 eyed him censoriously. "That isn't an answer. I think I have a right to a civil answer if I ask a civil question."
Payne wasn't listening. He was still marveling at himself. Why, it was as plain as day. This robot was one built for the moon that had somehow gotten loose on Earth. Naturally it would be all mixed up, because its positronic brain had been geared exclusively for a lunar environment, making its earthly surroundings entirely meaningless.
And now if he could only keep the robot here-until he could get in touch with the men at the factory in Petersboro. Why, robots were worth money. The cheapest cost $50,000, he had once heard, and some of them ran into millions. Think of the reward!
Man, oh, man, think of the reward! And every cent for himself. Not as much as a quarter of a snifter of a plugged nickel for Mirandy. Jumpin' tootin' blazes, no!
He rose to his feet at last. "Al," he said, "you and I are buddies! Pals! I love you like a brother." He thrust out a hand. "Shake!"
The robot swallowed up the offered hand in a metal paw and squeezed it gently. He didn't quite understand. "Does that mean you'll tell me how to get to Lunar Station 17?"
Payne was a trifle disconcerted..'N-no, not exactly. As a matter of fact, I like you so much, I want you to stay here with me awhile."
"Oh no, I can't do that. I've got to get to work." He shook his head. "How would you like to be falling behind your quota hour by hour and minute by minute? I want to work. I've got to work."
Payne thought sourly that there was no accounting for tastes, and said, "All right, then, I'll explain something to you-because I can see from the looks of you that you're an intelligent person. I've had orders from your Sectional Executive, and he wants me to keep you here for a while. Till he sends for you, in fact."
"What for?" asked AL-76 suspiciously.
"I can't say. It's secret government stuff." Payne prayed, inwardly and fervently, that the robot would swallow this. Some robots were clever, he knew, but this looked like one of the early models.
While Payne prayed, AL-76 considered. The robot's brain, adjusted to the handling of a Disinto on the moon, was not at its best when engaged in abstract thought, but just the same, ever since he had gotten lost, AL-76 had found his thought processes becoming stranger. The alien surroundings did something to him.
His next remark was almost shrewd. He said slyly, "What's my Sectional Executive's name?"
Payne gulped and thought rapidly. " Al," he said in a pained fashion, "you hurt me with this suspicion. I can't tell you his name. The trees have ears."
AL-76 inspected the tree next to him stolidly and said, "They have not."
"I know. What I mean is that spies are all around."
"Spies?"
"Yes. You know, bad people who want to destroy Lunar Station 17."
"What for?"
"Because they're bad. And they want to destroy you, and that's why you've got to stay here for a while, so they can't find you."
"But-but I've got to have a Disinto. I mustn't fall behind my quota."
"You will have. You will have," Payne promised earnestly, and just as earnestly damned the robot's one-track mind. "They're going to send one out tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow." That would leave plenty of time to get the men from the factory out here and collect beautiful green heaps of hundred-dollar bills.