sight of the needle gun held by the roboe, pointed directly at him. The hithertofore pleasant features of the roboe, common to all of them, were now set in harsh lines.

A needle gun, held by the roboe, pointed directly at Don. The hithertofore pleasing features of the roboe, common to all of them, were now set in harsh lines.

Astonished, Don blurted, "But you ... then ... you must be a rebel roboe." He took another step forward, "Put that down and do as I told you, or leave!"

The reflexes originally built into the mechanical but living creature caused the gun to waver slightly, then steady as living and thinking reflexes overcame the mechanical ones. There was pain in the roboe's eyes as he warned, "I'll be forced to kill you, sir. Reinforcements will arrive soon to complete the creation of the new roboes, then we'll depart. But no harm must come to the protoplasm for the present."

Don looked from the roboe to Shiela, who stood to one side, trembling. "Get out of my way," he ordered roughly, turning to the master control panel. Out of the corner of an eye he saw the needle gun come to the level of the roboe's eyes and he instinctively stiffened himself for the shock of the needle that would result in the paralysis of his heart muscles and a quick death. There might be time to reach the control panel and damage it sufficiently to kill the protoplasm.

There was a loud explosion and he fell almost to his knees before recovering. The roboe, he saw to his astonishment, had a big hole blown in his chest and the colorless life-fluid gushed out, before the roboe sank to his knees. The needle gun had fallen out of reach.

"I thought I'd better check in here," came a bellow from the door. Don looked around and saw General Adams standing just inside, an ugly but efficient blaster held in an oversized hand. It leveled at the rapidly dying roboe. "Surprised you, didn't it?"

The roboe said nothing, large eyes pleading with Don like those of a deer that has been mortally wounded and wonders why such a thing should have happened to it. Before the horrified Don could do anything, the blaster shook the lab again and blasted the roboe into an inanimate heap of flesh.

"Oh!" wailed Shiela, sinking weakly to her knees.

"Why you ..." began Don moving towards the general, rage blazing from his eyes.

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