As Karyl watched, a second Steel-Blue came crawling out of the ship.

The two Steel-Blues moved toward the center of the televisor range. They're coming toward the station, Karyl thought grimly.

Karyl examined the two creatures. They were of the steel-blue color from the crown of their egg-shaped heads to the tips of their walking appendages.

They were about the height of Karyl—six feet. But where he tapered from broad shoulders to flat hips, they were straight up and down. They had no legs, just appendages, many-jointed that stretched and shrank independent of the other, but keeping the cylindrical body with its four pairs of tentacles on a level balance.

Where their eyes would have been was an elliptical-shaped lens, covering half the egg-head, with its converging ends curving around the sides of the head.

Robots! Jon gauged immediately. But where were their masters?

The Steel-Blues moved out of the range of the televisor. A minute later Jon heard a pounding from the station upstairs.

He chuckled. They were like the wolf of pre-atomic days who huffed and puffed to blow the house down.

The outer shell of the station was formed from stelrylite, the toughest metal in the solar system. With the self-sealing lock of the same resistant material, a mere pounding was nothing.

Jon thought he'd have a look-see anyway. He went up the steel ladder leading to the station's power plant and the televisor that could look into every room within the station.

He heaved a slight sigh when he reached the power room, for right at his hand were weapons to blast the ship from the asteroid.

Jon adjusted one televisor to take in the lock to the station. His teeth suddenly clamped down on his lower lip.

Those Steel-Blues were pounding holes into the stelrylite with round-headed metal clubs. But it was impossible. Stelrylite didn't break up that easily.

Jon leaped to a row of studs, lining up the revolving turret which capped the station so that its thin fin pointed at the squat ship of the invaders.

Then he went to the atomic cannon's firing buttons.

He pressed first the yellow, then the 

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