"Even when the robot is half cra- Well, he's drunk. You know he is."
"It's the chances you take."
"Cut it. What are you going to do?"
"I'm going out there now and see what Rule 1 will do. If it won't break the balance, then what the devil - it's either now or three-four days from now."
"Hold on, Greg. There are human rules of behavior, too. You don't go out there just like that. Figure out a lottery, and give me my chance."
"All right. First to get the cube of fourteen goes." And almost immediately, "Twenty-seven forty-four!"
Donovan felt his robot stagger at a sudden push by Powell's mount and then Powell was off into the sunlight. Donovan opened his mouth to shout, and then clicked it shut. Of course, the damn fool had worked out the cube of fourteen in advance, and on purpose. Just like him.
The sun was hotter than ever and Powell felt a maddening itch in the small of his back. Imagination, probably, or perhaps hard radiation beginning to tell even through the insosuit.
Speedy was watching him, without a word of Gilbert and Sullivan gibberish as greeting. Thank God for that! But he daren't get too close.
He was three hundred yards away when Speedy began backing, a step at a time, cautiously - and Powell stopped. He jumped from his robot's shoulders and landed on the crystalline ground with a light thump and a flying of jagged fragments.
He proceeded on foot, the ground gritty and slippery to his steps, the low gravity causing him difficulty. The soles of his feet tickled with warmth. He cast one glance over his shoulder at the blackness of the cliff's shadow and realized that he had come too far to return - either by himself or by the help of his antique robot. It was Speedy or nothing now, and the knowledge of that constricted his chest.
Far enough! He stopped.
"Speedy," he called. "Speedy!"
The sleek, modern robot ahead of him hesitated and halted his backward steps, then resumed them.
Powell tried to put a note of pleading into his voice, and found it didn't take much acting. "Speedy, I've got to get back to the shadow or the sun'll get me. It's life or death, Speedy. I need you."
Speedy took one step forward and stopped. He spoke, but at the sound Powell groaned, for it was, "When you're lying awake with a dismal headache and repose is tabooed-" It trailed off there, and Powell took time out for some reason to murmur, "Iolanthe."
It was roasting hot! He caught a movement out of the corner of his eye, and whirled dizzily; then stared in utter astonishment, for the monstrous robot on which he had ridden was moving - moving toward him, and without a rider.
He was talking: "Pardon, Master. I must not move without a Master upon me, but you are in danger."
Of course, Rule 1 potential above everything. But he didn't want that clumsy antique; he wanted Speedy. He walked away and motioned frantically: "I order you to stay away. I order you to stop!"
It was quite useless. You could not beat Rule 1 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."
Powell and Donovan 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.