building a conscious machine without any adequate control."

"But you sound as if you thought it might turn on man," protested the girl with a shudder. "Why should it?"

"For the same reason we built it," he said with a touch of irony. "Freedom. So long as it doesn't learn to reproduce itself, though, it's not a danger. That is, not to the race."

"But a machine! Surely you can forecast how a machine will act!"

"Can we?" His voice was savage. "How would a conscious machine react to its environment? What would its thoughts be? I tell you, once it integrates itself, we have no means of predicting its reactions!"

Once in his own quarters, Henry Ohm began dragging on his oxygen suit. He could still see the girl through the glass partitions of the igloo. She had dropped into a chair, lit a cigarette.

"About as private," he thought wryly, "as a gold fish bowl."

The igloos, he knew, were manufactured for housing on the airless asteroids of the belt. They were built of a clear thermal plastic and incorporated heating, atmosphere and water units. Henry Ohm felt rather strongly though that the partitions could have been clouded.

Sofi's holdings had not been designed to accommodate visitors. In fact, Henry Ohm had spent the past week in a state of mild embarrassment.

He settled his helmet over his head, bolted it in place. He glanced toward the living room, but Sofi wasn't there. Then he saw her in her own quarters. She was skinning out of her coveralls, preparing to shower.

"Damn all glass houses," he muttered and bolted for the air lock.

Hen emerged on the surface, swept the tight horizon with his eyes. It was empty of life. R-7 had lost patience, evidently, and wandered off.

To the left was the laboratory and machine shop, a gleaming plastic igloo resembling the living quarters. Robots Incorporated had provided it for him to observe, diagnose, repair his mechanical charges. Beyond the laboratory a somewhat larger igloo housed the mine shaft, reduction plant and tipple. A dilapidated tramp freighter sprawled beside the tipple like a foundered whale.

Hen frowned. Operations had come to a halt. He could catch no glimpse of movement through the plastic 

 Prev. P 6/20 next