Sofi jerked off her helmet. She had a mass of fine wavy yellow hair cut like a halo about her oval face. Her features were delicately moulded, her eyes large and blue. She was only a few inches shorter than Henry Ohm, but more slenderly built.

"What the hell were you saying?" she demanded suspiciously.

"I wanted to know what you'd been doing to the robots this time?"

"Me?"

"What happened in the mine?"

"Rational robots!" Sofi Jokai planted hands on slender but ample hips. "I was an idiot to listen to you, Hen."

He repressed a chuckle. His glance flicked to the surface of the asteroid beyond the plastic walls of the igloo. R-7, he saw, had taken a stance at the lock like a cat at a mouse hole.

Although built along the general design of man, the robot was no grotesque copy. He was a complex functional piece of machinery as beautiful in his way as the cobwebby spans of a bridge, a streamlined jet plane, or a fine watch.

"But Sofi, they're still in the experimental stage. They—"

"Experimental's right," the girl interrupted passionately. "D'you realize what R-7 has done now?"

He grinned. "No. What?"

"He's taken the mining worm apart—that's what. I knew he would!"

"Knew he would? Did you warn him not to?"

"Yes. Of course I did. I had to leave him to check the reduction plant. I had a presentiment...."

"Woman's intuition, I suppose," Hen interrupted. "You'd sold yourself on the idea R-7 was going to take the worm apart."

"If you like," returned Sofi in a chilly voice. "When I came back, R-7 was gone and the worm was strewn all over the floor. I was furious. I found R-7 on the fourth level. I started to land into him, but—but—"

"But what?"

"He looked so queer."

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