overhauling? Do they
make you work in the mines with those poor non-rationaloids out there?"

"I'm fine, Elizabeth, really. When I'm not flying they give me clerical
work to do. It's not a bad life for a mech--if only it weren't for these
silly regulations that keep us apart."

"It won't always be like that, darling. I know it won't."

"Elizabeth," Frank said, reaching under his uniform, "I brought you
something from Hidalgo. I hope you like it. I kept it in my spare parts
slot so it wouldn't get crushed."

The female mech didn't say a word. She just kept looking at the queer
flower Frank gave her like it was the last one in the universe.

"They're very rare," said the servo-pilot. "I heard the mining engineer
say they're like Terran edelweiss. I found this one growing near the
mine. Elizabeth, I wish you could see these tiny worlds. They have thin
atmospheres and strange things grow there and the radio activity does
wonders for a mech's pile. Why, on some of them I've been to we could
walk around the equator in ten hours."

The girl still didn't answer. Her head was bent low over the flower like
she was crying, only there weren't any tears.

Well, that was enough for me. I guess it was for Min, too, because we
couldn't do it. Maybe we were thinking about our own courting days. Like
I say, out here you get a kind of perspective.

Anyway, Frank left for Earth, the girl got dismantled as usual and we
were right back where we started from.

Two weeks later the holiday rush to the Jovian Moons was on and our
hands were too full to worry about the robot problem. We had a good
season. The Io was filled up steady from June to the end of August and a
couple of times we had to give a ship the No Vacancy signal on the
radar.

Toward the end of the season, Frank Nineteen checked in again but Min
and I were too busy catering to a party of VIPs to do anything about it.
"We'll wait till he gets back from the asteroids," I said. "Suppose one
of these big wheels found out about him and Elizabeth. That Senator
Briggs for instance--he's a violent robot segregationist."

The way it worked out, we never got a chance to settle it our own way.
The Minor Planets Company saved us the trouble.

Two company inspectors, a Mr. Roberts and a Mr. Wynn, showed up while
Frank was still out on the rock belt and started asking questions. Wynn
came right to the point; he wanted to know if any of their servo-pilots
had been acting strangely.