apons and showed people how to clean out the cosmoline and
fill their spare magazines.

Conn collected a few of his own party.

"Let's look these robots over," he said. "Find about half a dozen we
can load with blasting explosive and send ahead of us on
contragravity."

They found several--an electric-light servicer, a couple of
wall-and-window washers, a serving-robot that looked as if it had come
from a restaurant, and an all-purpose robo-janitor. In the passage
outside, they began loading the lorries with bricks of ionite and
packages of cataclysmite, packing all the scrap-iron and other junk
around the explosives that they could. As soon as they had weapons,
the prisoners came swarming out, making more noise than was necessary
and a good deal more than was safe. Sylvie Jacquemont, with a
submachine gun slung from one shoulder and a canvas bag of spare
magazines from the other, came over to see what he was doing.

"Well, look what you're doing to him!" she mock-reproached. "That's a
dirty trick to play on a little robot!"

He grinned at her. "You and my mother would get along. She always
treats robots like people."

"Well, they are, sort of. They aren't alive--at least, I don't think
they are--but they do what you tell them, and they learn tricks, and
they have personalities."

That was true. He didn't think robots were alive, either, though
biophysics professors tended to become glibly evasive when pinned down
to defining life. Robots could learn, if you used the term loosely
enough. And any robot with more than five hundred hours service picked
up a definite and often exasperating personality.

"I've been working with them, and tearing them down and fixing them,
ever since I was in pigtails," she added.

The half-dozen natural leaders among the prisoners--Jacquemont and his
daughter, the two _Harriet Barne_ officers, and a couple of
others--bent over the photoprinted plans Conn had, located their
position, and told him as much as they could about what lay ahead.
Sylvie Jacquemont could handle robots; she would ride in the front
seat of the jeep while he piloted. Vibart, the chief engineer, and
Yves Jacquemont would ride behind. Nichols would ride in the scow with
the fighting men. One lorry of his own party would follow the jeep;
the other would bring up the rear.

He snapped on the screen and punched the ship combination. Stefan
Jorisson appeared in it.

"Hi, Conn! You all right?" He raised his voic