toward the door.

That was as far as she got for several minutes.

The bathroom was equipped with automatic dispensers of temporary and permanent depilatories. The house's male master used the temporary depilatory to shave with every morning and the house was well acquainted with their use.

It selected the permanent depilatory, and nozzles set in the tile walls squirted large gobs of it on the woman's head. Slender rubber tentacles reached out and massaged the depilatory into the hair. Faucets swung and sprayed jets of warm water.

In a few seconds, the woman was completely hairless. She stared with horror at the blond hair in the pool of water at her feet. "Was it permanent?" she wondered aloud.

"Yes," the house replied.

She screamed and picked up a small weighing machine. With uncontrollable anger, she smashed the machine against the medicine cabinet.

With an equal but emotionless anger, the house squirted soap into her eyes and sprayed her naked body with alternate jets of hot and cold water.

The house won the battle.

The woman groped blindly for the jewel box and staggered from the bathroom. The house turned its attention to the man again.

He had searched the kitchen without incident, but as he walked toward the door a nearby food-dispenser opened. Prunes, waffles, bacon, eggs and toast left the machine with abnormal speed and struck him.

He turned just in time to receive cherry pie, spaghetti and meat balls, butter, vegetable soup, and ice cream in his face.

He shouted something unprintable at the house, wiped the mess from his face and took another step toward the door.

Half of a watermelon hurtled from the food-dispenser and squashed against his skull. He stumbled, fell and slid.

He heard the woman cry, "I found it!" He pulled himself to his feet. He ran into the hall and froze when he saw the naked, hairless apparition that stumbled from the bathroom.

For a moment, he forgot the money and gasped, "What happened?"

"Depilatory," she explained. "The house did it." She wiped soap from blood-shot eyes with the back of a hand. "When we get out, give me your gun. I 

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