"What's the matter, papa? You got a little yellow in you, too?"

He was dignified. "Not at all. Here I'll leave my gun with you, Miss Lami."

"We'll be seeing you," said Stevens, over his shoulder. "Don't worry." And they were gone.

To the dancer their absence was endless. She would have given anything for the velvet kick of a good drink of gin—"but I suppose it would burn out my bearings," she mused ruefully. Heavens, she must spend the rest of her days as a robot. In the fading light she ruefully contemplated the legs that had delighted the audiences of two continents, now become ingenious mechanical devices beyond the power of delighting anyone but their owner.

More clearly than the rest, she realized that very little was left of the old relation between the sexes. What would happen when the forceful Stevens made the discovery also? Probably he would make a thinking robot of her to serve his ambition. Well, she had chosen to go with them—they seemed to offer more amusement than the stuffy prigs of the colony....

What was that?

She listened intently. A subdued rattling, slightly metallic in character. It might be a rat—no, too mechanical. The men—probably it was them, or one of them, returning. She glanced out of the window. Not there. The sound again—not from outdoors, but behind her—within the room? She gripped the gun Vanderschoof had given her. Rattle, rattle. She wished furiously for a light.

The birds? No—birds sleep at night. Rattle, rattle. Persistently. She stood up, trying to pierce the gathering dimness. No, the birds would make more noise. They moved surely, with hoarse screams, as though they thought themselves the lords of the world. This sound was small, like the chatter of a mechanical rat. What new horror in this strange world might it not conceal? On slenderest tiptoes she backed cautiously across the rug toward the outer door. Better the chance of the birds than this unknown terror of the darkness.

Holding the gun before her firmly, she stepped back, back, feeling with one hand for the door. Her hand met its smooth surface, then clicked as the metallic joints came in contact with the doorknob. She paused, breathless. Rattle, rattle, went the small sound, undiscouraged.

With a sudden jerk she flung the door open and tumbled down the steps, half-falling, and as she fell, as though in answer to the metallic 

 Prev. P 25/160 next