"h.e.l.lo," Jessie said. "What"s up?"

"You heard about my golden robot?"

"Sure. Build as many as you want, as long as you keep on paying my alimony. What"s this I hear about your hitting the skids?"

"Ffoulkes is behind that," Ballard said grimly. "If you want your alimony to continue, do me a favor. I want to register my robot in your name. Sign it over to you for a dollar. That way, I won"t lose the robot even if there"s a foreclosure."

"Is it that bad?"

"It"s plenty bad. But as long as I"ve got the robot, I"m safe. It"s worth several fortunes. I want you to sellthe robot back to me for a dollar, of course, but we"ll keep that doc.u.ment quiet."

"You mean you don"t trust me, Bruce?"

"Not with a diamond-studded robot," Ballard said.

"Then I want two dollars. I"ve got to make a profit on the transaction. O.K. I"ll attend to it. Send me the papers and I"ll sign "em."

Ballard broke the beam. That was done, anyhow. The robot was unequivocally his, and not even Ffoulkes could take it away from him.

Even if he went broke before the month was up and the new diamonds ready, the robot would put him on his feet again in no time. However, it was first necessary to catch Argus- There were many telecalls that day. People wanted collateral. Brokers wanted margin covered. Ballard frantically juggled his holdings, liquidating, attempting flotations, trying to get loans. He received a visit from two bulky men who made a business of supplying credit, at exorbitant rates.

They had heard of the robot. But they demanded to see it.

Ballard was gratified by their expressions. "What do you need credit for, Bruce? You"ve got plenty tied up in that thing."

"Sure. But I don"t want to dismantle it. So you"ll help me out till after the first-"

"Why the first?"

"I"m getting a new shipment of diamonds then."

"Uh-huh," said the taller of the two men. "That robot runs away, doesn"t he?"

"That"s why he"s burglar-proof."

The two brokers exchanged glances. "Mind if we make a closer examination?" They went forward, and Argus fled.

Ballard said hastily, "Stopping him is rather a complicated process. And it takes time to start him again.

Those stones are perfect."

"How do we know? Turn off the juice, or whatever makes the thing tick. You don"t object to our making a closer examination, do you?"

"Of course not," Ballard said. "But it takes time-"

"I smell a rat," one of the brokers remarked. "You can have all the credit you want, but I insist on testing those diamonds. Call me when you"re ready."

They both went out. Ballard cursed silently. The telescreen in the corner flickered. Ballard didn"t bother to answer; he knew very well what the purport of the message would be. Collateral- Ffoulkes was closing in for the kill.

Ballard"s lips tightened. He glared at the robot, spun on his heel, and summoned his secretary. He issued swift orders.The secretary, a dapper, youngish man with yellow hair and a perpetually worried expression, went into action. He, in turn, issued orders. People began to come to the castle-workmen and technicians.

Ballard consulted with the technicians. None of them could suggest a certain method for immobilizing the robot. Yet they were far too optimistic. It didn"t seem difficult to them to catch a machine.

"Flame throwers?"

Ballard considered. "There"s an alloy casing under the gold plate."

"Suppose we can corner it long enough to burn through to the brain? That should do the trick."

"Well, try it. I can afford to lose a few diamonds if I can get my hands on the rest of "em."

Ballard watched as six men, armed with flame throwers, maneuvered Argus into a corner. He warned them finally, "You"re close enough. Don"t go any nearer, or he"ll break through you."

"Yes, sir. Ready? One... two-"

The nozzles blasted fire in unison. It took an appreciable time for the flame to reach the robot"s head-some fractional part of a second, perhaps. By that time, Argus had ducked, and, safely under the flames, was running out of his corner. Crouching, he burst through the line of men, his alarm siren screeching. He fled into the next room and relapsed into contented immobility.

"Try it again," Ballard said glumly, but he knew it wouldn"t work. It didn"t. The robot"s reactions were instantaneous. The men could not correct their aim with sufficient speed to hit Argus. A good deal of valuable furniture was destroyed, however.

The secretary touched Ballard"s sleeve. "It"s nearly two."

"Eh? Oh-that"s right. Call the men off, Johnson. Is the trapdoor ready?"

"Yes, sir."

The robot suddenly turned and headed for a door. It was time for his first tour of the castle that day.

Since his route was prearranged and never swerved an iota from its course, it had been easy to set a trap. Ballard hadn"t really expected the flame throwers to work, anyhow.

He followed, with Johnson, as Argus moved slowly through the ornate rooms of the castle. "His weight will spring the trapdoor, and he"ll drop into the room below. Can he get out of that room?"

"No, sir. The walls are reinforced metal. He"ll stay put."

"Fair enough."

"But... uh... won"t he keep dodging around that room?"

"He may," Ballard said grimly, "till I pour quick-setting concrete in on him. That"ll immobilize the so-and-so. It"ll be easy after that to drill through the concrete and get the diamonds."

Johnson smiled weakly. He was a little afraid of the huge, glittering robot.

"How wide is the trap?" Ballard asked abruptly.

"Ten feet.""So. Well, call the men with the flame throwers. Tell "em to close in behind us. If Argus doesn"t fall into the trap, we want to be able to drive him in."

Johnson hesitated. "Wouldn"t he simply smash his way through the men?"

"We"ll see. Put the men on both sides of the trap, so we"ll have Argus cornered. Hop to it!"

The secretary raced away. Ballard followed the robot through room after room. Eventually Johnson and three of the flame-throwing crew appeared. The others had circled around to flank the robot.

They turned into the pa.s.sage. It was narrow, but long. Halfway along it was the trapdoor, concealed by a rich Bokhara rug. In the distance Ballard could see three men waiting, flame throwers ready, watching as the robot approached them. Within minutes now the trap would be sprung.

"Turn it on, boys," Ballard said, on a sudden impulse. The crew of three walking in front of him obeyed.

Fire jutted out from the nozzles they held.

The robot increased its pace. It had eyes in the back of its head, Ballard remembered. Well, eyes wouldn"t help Argus now. The rug- A golden foot came down. The robot began to shift its weight forward, and suddenly froze as instantaneous reactions warned it of the difference in pressure between the solid floor and the trap. There was no time for the door to drop down, before Argus had instantly readjusted, withdrew his foot, and stood motionless on the verge of the rug. The flame throwers gushed out toward the robot"s back.

Ballard yelled a command.

The three men beyond the trapdoor began to run forward, fire spouting from their hoses. The robot bent its legs, shifted balance, and jumped. It wasn"t at all bad for a standing broad jump. Since Argus could control his movements with the nicest accuracy, and since his metal body had strength in excess of his weight, the golden figure sprang across the ten-foot gap with inches to spare. Flame lashed out at him.

Argus moved fast-very fast. His legs were a blinding blur of speed. Ignoring the fire that played on his body, he ran toward the three men and through them. Then he slowed down to a normal walk and continued mildly on his way. The alarm siren was screaming Ballard realized, just as it died.

For Argus, the danger was over. Here and there on his metal body the gold had melted into irregular blobs. That was all.

Johnson gulped. "He must have seen the trap."

"He felt it," Ballard said, his voice low with fury. "h.e.l.l! If we could just immobilize Argus long enough to pour concrete on him-"

That was tried an hour later. A metal-sheathed ceiling collapsed on the robot, a ceiling of mesh metal through which concrete could be poured. Ballard simply had liquid concrete run into the room above till the platform collapsed under the weight. The robot was below- Was below. The difference in air pressure warned Argus, and he knew what to do about it. He lunged through the door and escaped, leaving a frightful mess behind him.

Ballard cursed. "We can"t shoot concrete at the devil. If he"s sensitized to differences in air pressure-h.e.l.l! I don"t know. There must be some way. Johnson! Get me Plastic Products, quick!"

A short while later Ballard was closeted with a representative of Plastic Products."I don"t quite understand. A quick-drying cement-"

"To be squirted out of hoses, and to harden as soon as it hits the robot. That"s what I said."

"If it dries that quickly, it"ll dry as soon as air hits it. I think we"ve got almost what you want. A very strong liquid cementoid; it"ll harden half a minute after being exposed to air."

"That should work. Yeah. How soon-"

"Tomorrow morning."

The next morning, Argus was herded into one of the huge halls downstairs. A ring of thirty men surrounded the robot, each armed with a tank, filled with the quick-drying cementoid. Ballard and Johnson watched from the side lines.

"The robot"s pretty strong, sir," Johnson hazarded.

"So"s the cementoid. Quant.i.ty will do it. The men will keep spraying the stuff on till Argus is in a coc.o.o.n.

Without leverage he can"t break out. Like a mammoth in a tar pit."

Johnson made a clicking noise with his lips. "That"s an idea. If this shouldn"t work, perhaps I-"

"Save it," Ballard said. He looked around at the doors. Before each one was stationed a group of men, also armed with cementoid tanks.

In the center of the room stood Argus, blankly impa.s.sive, waiting. Ballard said, "O.K.," and from thirty positions around the robot streams of cementoid converged on his golden body.

The warning siren screamed deafeningly. Argus began to turn around.

That was all. He kept turning around. But-fast!

He was a machine, and could develop tremendous power. He spun on his longitudinal axis, a blazing, shining, glittering blur of light, far too fast for the eye to follow. He was like a tiny world spinning through s.p.a.ce-but a world has gravitation. Argus" gravitational pull was negligible. There was, however, centrifugal force.

It was like throwing an egg into an electric fan. The streams of cementoid hit Argus, and bounced, repelled by the centrifuge. Ballard got a gob of the stuff in his middle. It had hardened enough to be painful.

Argus kept on spinning. He didn"t try to run, this time. His alarm kept screeching deafeningly. The men, plastered with cementoid, continued to squirt the stuff at Argus for a while.

But the cementoid stuck to them when it was flung back. It hardened on them. Within seconds the scene resembled a Mack Sennett pie-throwing comedy.

Ballard roared commands. His voice went unheard in the uproar. But the men did not continue their hopeless task for long. They, not Argus, were becoming immobilized.

Presently the warning siren stopped. Argus slowed down in his mad spinning. He was no longer the target of cementoid streams.

He went quietly out of the room, and n.o.body tried to stop him.One man almost strangled before the hardened cementoid could be dislodged from his mouth and nostrils. Aside from that, there were no casualties, save to Ballard"s temper.

It was Johnson who suggested the next experiment. Quicksand would immobilize anything. It was difficult to introduce quicksand into the castle, but a subst.i.tute was provided-a gooey, tarry rness poured into an improvised tank twenty-five feet wide. All that remained was to lure Argus into the quicksand.

"Traps won"t work," Ballard said glumly. "Maybe stringing a wire to trip him-"

"I think he"d react instantly to that, too, sir," Johnson vetoed. "If I may make a suggestion, it should not be difficult to drive Argus into the pit, once he"s maneuvered into a pa.s.sage leading to it."

"How? Flame throwers again? He automatically reacts away from the most serious danger. When he came to the pit, he"d turn around and go the other way. Break right through the men."

"His strength is limited, isn"t it?" Johnson asked. "He couldn"t pa.s.s a tank."

Ballard didn"t see the point immediately. "A midget tractor? Not too small, though-some of the castle"s pa.s.sages are plenty wide. If we got a tank just broad enough to fill the hall-a pistol that would drive Argus into the quicksand-"

Measurements were made, and a powerful tractor brought into the castle. It fitted the pa.s.sage, leaving no room to spare-at least, not enough to accommodate the robot. Once Argus was driven into that particular pa.s.sage, he could go only one way.

The tractor, at Johnson"s suggestion, was camouflaged, so the robot"s flight-conditioned brain would not recognize and consider it as a serious factor. But the machine was ready to roll into the pa.s.sage instantly.

The trick would probably have succeeded, had it not been for one difficulty. The consistency of the artificial quicksand had been calculated carefully. It had to be soft enough to drag the robot down, and stiff enough so that Argus would be helpless. The robot could walk safely under water; that had been proved days ago, in an abortive early experiment.

So the mix had surface tension, though not enough to bear Argus" great weight.

The robot was maneuvered into the pa.s.sage without trouble, and the tractor swung after it, blocking Argus" escape. It rumbled slowly on, driving the robot before it. Argus seemed untroubled. When he reached the edge of the artificial quicksand, he bent and tested the consistency with one golden hand.

After that, he lay flat on his face, legs bent like a frog"s, feet braced against one wall of the pa.s.sage, head pointed out over the quicksand. He thrust strongly.

Had Argus walked into the goo feet first, he would have sunk. But his weight was spread over a far larger surface area now. Not enough to sustain him indefinitely, but long enough for his purposes. He simply didn"t have time to sink. Argus skimmed over the quicksand like a skiff or a sandboat. His powerful initial thrust gave him sufficient impetus. No human could have done it, and, while Argus weighed more than a human, he had also had more strength.

So he shot out, angling across the tank, buoyed by surface tension and carried on by his impetus. The quicksand got hold at last and bogged him down, but by that time Argus" powerful hands reached their destination, the edge of the tank. Another door was in the wall at that point, and Ballard and Johnson were standing on the threshold, watching.

They dodged before Argus trampled them in his automatic fight-reaction away from the quicksand tank.The robot dripped goo over a dozen valuable rugs before he dried. But after that he was no longer so dazzling a spectacle. However, his abilities were unimpaired.

Ballard tried the quicksand trick again, with a larger tank and smooth walls, on which the robot could get no grip. Yet Argus seemed to learn through experience. Before entering a pa.s.sage now, he would make certain that there were no tractors within reach. Ballard concealed a tractor in an adjoining room where Argus could not see it, and the robot was induced to go into the fatal pa.s.sage; but he ran out again the moment the tractor clanked into movement. Argus had an excellent sense of hearing.