"But why?" protested Sofi.

Hen shook his head. "It's beyond me. They should adjust readily to whatever line of work they're applied to. They shouldn't evince ambition. Ambition, by its nature, should be impossible to a machine. But that's not the only organic trait they've been developing. It's what Robots Incorporated was afraid might happen."

He snapped his fingers suddenly.

"The freighter! If we can sneak aboard the freighter, we can get to Ceres and bring back an atom gun. If they're developing emotions we may be able to overawe them. If not...." He hesitated, his mind drawing back from framing the thought. The truth was that the robots were like children, precocious children. He set his mouth grimly.

"If they don't respond to fear, we can destroy them."

Sofi looked across the darkened interval into the lighted lab where the robots were busy dissecting their fellow and shivered.

"Industrious little monsters!"

Hen said, "Get your oxygen suit."

"Now? You mean we're going to make a dash for the space ship now?"

"Of course now! We've got to clear out of here before they carry out their threat to terminate us!"

There was no light outside the igloo. House and lab and mine stood out like three jeweled domes, reflecting their rays onto the ragged surface, glinting unexpectedly from upthrust peaks in the distance. Hen and Sofi crouched against the outside of the housing unit, staring across the patchwork of black shadow and light at the lab.

"Don't talk," he cautioned Sofi over the radiophones built into their helmets. "The robots' auditory apparatus is sensitive to radio waves. They may tune in on us."

"What the hell did you try to do? Make them invincible?"

He said, "We tried to build them with controls, but—don't you see?—those were weaknesses, flaws! The machine remained dead. The first law of life is self preservation. We had to make the machine self-regulating, independent, to produce awareness. Now shut up! Don't ask me any more questions."

He led off into the darkness away from the lab, away from the mine and space ship It was too 

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