your exhaust pipe if you stay so tense. Anyways, I'm
just the sergeant here. That's the Chief of Police over there."

Ned did an about face and slid over to the Chief with that same
greased-lightning motion. The Chief just looked at him like something
that sprang out from under the hood of a car, while Ned went through the
same report routine.

"I wonder if it does anything else beside salute and report," the Chief
said while he walked around the robot, looking it over like a dog with a
hydrant.

"The functions, operations and responsible courses of action open to the
Police Experimental Robots are outlined on pages 184 to 213 of the
manual." Ned's voice was muffled for a second while he half-dived back
into his case and came up with the volume mentioned. "A detailed
breakdown of these will also be found on pages 1035 to 1267 inclusive."

The Chief, who has trouble reading an entire comic page at one sitting,
turned the 6-inch-thick book over in his hands like it would maybe bite
him. When he had a rough idea of how much it weighed and a good feel of
the binding he threw it on my desk.

"Take care of this," he said to me as he headed towards his office. "And
the robot, too. Do something with it." The Chief's span of attention
never was great and it had been strained to the limit this time.

I flipped through the book, wondering. One thing I never have had much
to do with is robots, so I know just as much about them as any Joe in
the street. Probably less. The book was filled with pages of fine print,
fancy mathematics, wiring diagrams and charts in nine colors and that
kind of thing. It needed close attention. Which attention I was not
prepared to give at the time. The book slid shut and I eyed the newest
employee of the city of Nineport.

"There is a broom behind the door. Do you know how to use it?"

"Yes, sir."

"In that case you will sweep out this room, raising as small a cloud of
dust as possible at the same time."

He did a very neat job of it.

I watched 120,000 credits worth of machinery making a tidy pile of butts
and sand and wondered why it had been sent to Nineport. Probably because
there wasn't another police force in the solar system that was smaller
or more unimportant than ours. The engineers must have figured this
would be a good spot for a field test. Even if the thing blew up, nobody
would really mind. There would probably be someone along some day to get
a report on it. Well, they had p