Love Among The Robots

By EMMETT McDOWELL

Henry Ohm, staid scientist, found he couldn't keep his mind on his work—with that girl around. Such was the development of her—ah—personality that even the robots began getting ideas!

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1946. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Henry Ohm leaped to his feet, stared across the intervening ground at igloo number 2, plainly visible through the clear plastic walls. Its door had just been flung violently open. Then Sofi Jokai scooted out and fled madly across the jagged surface of the asteroid.

Hard on the girl's heels pounded R-7. The robot, Hen saw with a gulp, was waving a large wrench in one metal fist.

"Oh-oh!" Hen muttered and plunged down the incline for the airlock.

He shot a second glance through the transparent curved walls, slowed down. The robot would never catch Sofi. Even burdened by her oxygen suit, the girl was leaving R-7 far in the rear.

At the airlock, Henry Ohm paused, regarding the chase with sober, deep-set black eyes. He was a tall, thin young man, nearing thirty. His face was narrow; prominent cheek bones and a thin, straight nose gave his features an angular pleasant mould. He made no move to don the emergency oxygen helmet beside the lock, but waited with a vague expression of annoyance.

Sofi reached the airlock, burst inside, sealed and locked the outer door behind her. The air had scarcely filled the chamber before she flung open the inner door, confronted Henry Ohm, and exploded into a flood of angry words. Not a sound escaped her plastic helmet which she had forgotten to remove.

He let her rattle away silently inside her helmet, nodding at intervals, rubbing his chin until she paused for breath.

"That's what you get for trying to run a mine all alone on this god-forsaken asteroid," he informed her, "even if you are a yellow-haired hell cat."

Sofi looked at him blankly.

Ohm rapped with his knuckles on her helmet. "If you'd take that thing off, you could hear me. But you're the excitable type. Probably have an overactive thyroid."

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