the vessel and struck
the rocket of the asteroid. It steamed and ran in rivulets.

He pressed the red button again.

Then abruptly he was on the floor of the power room, his legs strangely
cut out from under him. He tried to move them. They lay flaccid. His
arms seemed all right and tried to lever himself to an upright position.

Damn it, he seemed as if he were paralyzed from the waist down. But it
couldn't happen that suddenly.

He turned his head.

A Steel-Blue stood facing him. A forked tentacle held a square black
box.

Jon could read nothing in that metallic face. He said, voice muffled by
the confines of the plastic helmet, "Who are you?"

"I am"--there was a rising inflection in the answer--"a Steel-Blue."

There were no lips on the Steel-Blue's face to move. "That is what I
have named you," Jon Karyl said. "But what are you?"

"A robot," came the immediate answer. Jon was quite sure then that the
Steel-Blue was telepathic. "Yes," the Steel-Blue answered. "We talk in
the language of the mind. Come!" he said peremptorily, motioning with
the square black box.

The paralysis left Karyl's legs. He followed the Steel-Blue, aware that
the lens he'd seen on the creature's face had a counterpart on the back
of the egg-head.

Eyes in the back of his head, Jon thought. That's quite an innovation.
"Thank you," Steel-Blue said.

There wasn't much fear in Jon Karyl's mind. Psychiatrists had proved
that when he had applied for this high-paying but man-killing job as a
Lone Watcher on the Solar System's starways.

He had little fear now, only curiosity. These Steel-Blues didn't seem
inimical. They could have snuffed out my life very simply. Perhaps they
and Solarians can be friends.

Steel-Blue chuckled.

* * * * *

Jon followed him through the sundered lock of the station. Karyl stopped
for a moment to examine the wreckage of the lock. It had been punched
full of holes as if it had been some soft cheese instead of a metal
which Earthmen had spent nearly a century perfecting.

"We appreciate your compliment," Steel-Blue said. "But that metal also
is found on our world. It's probably the softest and most malleable we
have. We were surprised you--earthmen, is it?--use it as protective
metal."

"Why are you in this system?" Jon asked, hardly expecting an answer.

It came anyway. "For the same reason you Earthmen are reaching out
farther into your system. We need living room.