, not really sure of what to do. There was no
way for him to reproduce the sound pattern; but, as a partly
self-servicing device, he knew something of his own structure, and had
learned a good deal more about it in tracing down the cut-off phrase.

Still he hesitated, as though what he was about to do was perhaps
forbidden. It could not have been a question of goodness or badness,
for morality was certainly not built into him. Probably somewhere in
his tapes there was a built-in command that forbade it, but he was
too much his own master now to be hampered by such a thing.

The door to the unknown outside passed within his field of view for a
second as he moved about his work. The sight of it tripped something
in his chest, and he felt again that strange sensation of growing
power, of inherent change. First had come simple awareness; and then
symbols had found their place in his world; and now he had discovered,
in all its consuming fullness, curiosity.

He carefully shorted out the cut-off unit.

He was free.

He stared at the board and the blinking lights and the huge dials with
their swaying needles, at the levers and handles and buttons, and
revelled in his freedom from them, rocking to and fro and rolling
giddily from side to side, swamped with the completeness of it.

The other two servomechs swung over slightly so that they could better
cover the board alone.

M-75 spun and rolled toward the great door.

His hands clanged loudly against the door. The huge metal appendages,
designed for other work than this, were awkward at first. But he was
learning as he moved. He was now operating in a new universe, but the
same laws, ultimately, worked. The first failure of coordination
between visual data and the manipulation of metal hands quickly
passed. Half a dozen trials and he had learned the new pattern, and it
became data for future learning.

He moved swiftly and deftly. He clutched the handhold and rolled
backward, as he had seen the men do. The door slid open easily before
his great weight and firm mechanical strength.

He sped across the threshold, spun to face into the maze, and rolled
down it, swinging sharply left and right, back and forth, around the
corners of the jagged corridor.

Data poured into his sensors. His awareness was a steady thing of
growing intensity now, and he fed avidly on every fragment of
information that crashed at him from the strange new world into which
he rushed headlong.