of flying robots, Conn and Anse rolled from under
the conveyer and legged it between the two production lines.
Immediately, three of the crablike all-purpose handling-robots saw
them, if that was the word for it, and came dashing for them, followed
by a thing that was mostly dump-lifter; it was banging its bin-lid up
and down angrily. About fifty yards ahead, Jerry Rivas stepped from
behind a machine and fired; one of the handling-robots flashed green
from underneath, went off contragravity, and came down with a crash.
Immediately, like wolves on a wounded companion, the other two pounced
upon it, dragging and pulling against each other. That was a hunk of
junk; their orders were to remove it.

The mobile trash-bin went zooming up to the ceiling, reversed within
twenty feet of it and came circling back to the ground, to go zooming
up again. It had gone crazy, literally. It had been getting too many
contradictory orders from its supervisor, and its circuits were
overloaded and its relays jammed. Rats in mazes and human-type people
in financial difficulties go psychotic in very much the same way.

The two surviving all-purpose robots were also headed for a padded
repair shop. They had come close enough to each other to activate
their anticollision safeties. Immediately, they flew apart. Then their
order to pick up that big piece of junk took over, and they started
forward again, to be bounced apart as soon as they were within five
feet of one another. If left alone, their power units would run down
in a year or so; until then, they would keep on trying.

Soulless intelligences, indeed! Then it occurred to him that for the
past however-long-it-had-been he hadn't heard from Mohammed Matsui. He
jiggled his radio.

"Ham, where are you? Are you still alive?"

"I'm back at the power plant," Matsui said exasperatedly. "There's a
big thing circling around here; every time I stick my head out, he
makes a dive at me. I didn't know robots would attack people."

"They don't. He just thinks you're some more trash he's been told to
gather up."

Matsui was indignant. Conn laughed.

"On the level, Ham. He has photoelectric vision, and a picture of what
that aisle is supposed to look like. When you get out in it, he knows
you don't belong there and tries to grab you."

"Hey, there's a lot of junk in here in a couple of baskets at the
converter. Say I chuck one out to him; what would he do?"

"Grab it and take it away, like he'