“I once told you that was sinister.”

  “Don’t interrupt. How is a robot different when humans are not present? The answer is obvious. There is a larger requirement of personal initiative. In that case, look for the body parts that are affected by the new requirement.”

  “Golly.” Donovan sat up straight, then subsided. “No, no. Not enough. It’s too broad. It doesn’t cut the possibilities much.”

  “Can’t help that In any case, there’s no danger of not making quota. We’ll take shifts watching those robots through the visor. Any time any thing goes wrong, we get to the scene of action immediately. That’ll put them right.”

  “But the robots will fail spec anyway, Greg. United States Robots can’t market DV models with a report like that.”

  “Obviously. We’ve got to locate the error in make-up and correct it—and we’ve got ten days to do it in.” Powell scratched his head. “The trouble is…well, you’d better look at the blueprints yourself.”

  The blueprints covered the floor like a carpet and Donovan crawled over the face of them following Powell’s erratic pencil.

  Powell said, “Here’s where you come in, Mike. You’re the body specialist, and I want you to check me. I’ve been trying to cut out all circuits not involved in the personal initiative hookup. Right here, for instance, is the trunk artery invoking mechanical operations. I cut out all routine side-routes as emergency divisions—” He looked up, “What do you think?”

  Donovan had a very bad taste in his mouth, “The job’s not that simple, Greg. Personal initiative isn’t an electric circuit you can separate from the rest and study. When a robot is on his own, the intensity of body activity increases immediately on almost all fronts. There isn’t a circuit entirely unaffected. What must be done is to locate the particular condition—a very specific condition—that throws him off, and then start eliminating circuits.”

  Powell got up and dusted himself, “Hmph. All right. Take away the blueprints and burn them.”

  Donovan said, “You see when activity intensifies, anything can happen, given one single faulty part. Insulation breaks down, a condenser spills over, a connection sparks, a coil overheats. And if you work blind, with the whole robot to choose from, you’ll never find the bad spot. If you take Dave apart and test every point of his body mechanism one by one, putting him together each time, and trying him out—”

  ” All right. All right. I can see through a porthole, too.”

  They faced each other hopelessly, and then Powell said cautiously, “Suppose we interview one of the subsidiaries.”

  Neither Powell nor Donovan had ever had previous occasion to talk to a “finger.” It could talk; it wasn’t quite the perfect analogy to a human finger. In fact, it had a fairly developed brain, but that brain was tuned primarily to the reception of orders via positronic field, and its reaction to independent stimuli was rather fumbling.

  Nor was Powell certain as to its name. Its serial number was DV5-2, but that wasn’t very useful.

  He compromised. “Look, pal,” he said, “I’m going to ask you to do some hard thinking and then you can go back to your boss.” The “finger” nodded its head stiffly, but did not exert its limited brainpower on speech.

  “Now on four occasions recently,” Powell said, “your boss deviated from brain-scheme. Do you remember those occasions “Yes, sir.”

  Donovan growled angrily, “He remembers. I tell you there’s something very sinister—”

  “Oh, go bash your skull. Of course the ‘finger’ remembers. There’s nothing wrong with him/9 Powell turned back to the robot, “What were you doing each time…; I mean the whole group.” The “finger” had a curious air of reciting by rote, as if he answered questions by the mechanical pressure of his brain pan, but without any enthusiasm whatever.

  He said, “The first time we were at work on a difficult outcropping in Tunnel 17, Level B. The second time we were buttressing the roof against a possible cave-in. The third time we were preparing accurate blasts in order to tunnel further without breaking into a subterranean fissure. The fourth time was just after a minor cave-in.”

  “What happened at these times?”

  “It is difficult to describe. An order would be issued, but before we could receive and interpret it, a new order came to march in queer formation.”

  Powell snapped out, “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Donovan broke in tensely, “What was the first order…the one that was superseded by the marching directions?”

  “I don’t know. I sensed that an order was sent, but there was never time to receive it.”

  “Could you tell us anything about it? Was it the same order each time?”

  The “finger” shook his head unhappily, “I don’t know.”

  Powell leaned back, “All right, get hack to your boss.”

  The “finger” left, with visible relief.

  Donovan said, “Well, we accomplished a lot that time. That was real sharp dialogue all the way through. Listen, Dave and that imbecile ’finger’ are both holding out on us. There’s too much they don’t know and don’t remember. We’ve got to stop trusting them, Greg.”

  Powell brushed his mustache the wrong way, “So help me, Mike, another fool word out of you, and I’ll take away your rattle and teething ring.”

  “All right. You’re the genius of the team. I’m just a poor sucker. Where do we stand?”

  “Right behind the eight ball. I tried to work it backwards through the ’finger’, and couldn’t. So we’ve got to work it forwards.”

  “A great mind,” marveled Donovan. “How simple that makes it. Now translate that into English, master.”

  “Translating it into baby talk would suit you better. I mean that we’ve got to find out what order it is that Dave gives just before everything goes black. It would be the key to the business.”

  “And how do you expect to do that? We can’t get close to him, because nothing will go wrong as long as we’re there. We can’t catch the orders by radio because they are transmitted via this positronic field. That eliminates the close-range and the long-range method, leaving us a neat, cozy zero.”

  “By direct observation, yes. There’s still deduction.”

  “Huh?”

  “We’re going on shifts, Mike.” Powell smiled grimly. “And we’re not taking our eyes off the visi-plate. We’re going to watch every action of those steel headaches. When they go off into their act, we’re going to see what happened immediately before and we’re going to deduce the order.”

  Donovan opened his mouth and left it that way for a full minute. Then he said in strangled tones, “I resign. I quit.”

  “You have ten days to think up something better,” said Powell wearily.

  Which, for eight days, Donovan tried mightily to do. For eight days, on alternate four-hour shifts, he watched with aching and bleary eyes those glinty metallic forms move against the vague background. And for eight days, in the four-hour in-betweens, he cursed United States Robots, the DV models, and the day he was bom.

  And then on the eighth day, when Powell entered with an aching head and sleepy eyes for his shift, Donovan stood up and with very careful and deliberate aim launched a heavy book end for the exact center of the visiplate. There was a very appropriate splintering noise.

  Powell gasped, “What did you do that for?”

  “Because,” said Donovan, almost calmly, “Pm not watching it any more. We’ve got two days left and we haven’t found out a thing. DV-5 is a lousy loss. He’s ^topped five times since I’ve been watching and three times on your shift, and I can’t make out what orders he gave, and you couldn’t make it out. And I don’t believe you could ever make it out because I know I couldn’t ever.

  “Jumping Space, how can you watch six robots at the same time. One makes with the hands, and one with the feet and one like a windmill and another is jumping up and down like a maniac. And the other two…devil knows what they’re doing. And then they all stop. So! So!!”

  “Greg, we’re not doing it right. We got to get up close. We’ve got to watch what they’re doing from where we can see the details.”

  Powell broke a bitter silence, “Yeah, and wait for something to go wrong with only two days to go… “Is it any better watching from here?”

  “It’s more comfortable>”

  “Ah—But there’s something you can do there that you can’t do here.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You can make them stop—at whatever time you choose—and while you’re prepared and watching to see what goes wrong.”

  Powell startled into alertness, “Howzzat?”

  “Well, figure it out yourself. You’re the brains you say. Ask yourself some questions. When does DV-5 go out of whack? When did that ’finger’ say he did? When a cave-in threatened, or actually occurred, when delicately-measured explosives were being laid down, when a difficult seam was hit.”

  “In other words, during emergencies,” Powell was excited.

  “Right! When did you expect it to happen! It’s the personal initiative factor that’s giving us the trouble. And it’s just during emergencies in the absence of a human being that personal initiative is most strained. Now what is the logical deduction? How can we create our own stoppage when and where we want it?” He paused triumphantly—he was beginning to enjoy his role—and answered his own question to forestall the obvious answer on Powell’s tongue. “By creating our own emergency!’

  Powell said, “Mike—you’re right.”

  “Thanks, pal. I knew I’d do it some day.”

  “All right, and skip the sarcasm. Well save it for Earth, and preserve it in jars for future long, cold winters. Meanwhile, what emergency can we create?”

  “We could flood the mines, if this weren’t an airless asteroid.”

  “A witticism, no doubt,” said Powell. “Really, Mike, you’ll incapacitate me with laughter. What about a mild cave-in.”

  Donovan pursed his lips and said. “O. K. by me.”

  “Good. Let’s get started.”

  Powell felt uncommonly like a conspirator as he wound his way over the craggy landscape. His sub-gravity walk teetered across the broken ground, kicking rocks to right and left under his weight in noiseless puffs of gray dust. Mentally, though, it was the cautious crawl of the plotter.

  He said, “Do you know where they are?”

  “I think so, Greg.”

  “All right,” Powell said gloomily, “but if any ’finger* gets within twenty feet of us, we’ll be sensed whether we’re in the line of sight or not. I hope you know that.”

  “When I need an elementary course in robotics. I’ll file an application with you formally, and in triplicate. Down through here.” They were in the tunnels now; even the starlight was gone. The two hugged the walls, flashes flickering out the way in intermittent bursts. Powell felt for the security of his detonator.

  “Do you know this tunnel, Mike?”

  “Not so good. It’s a new one. I think I can make it out from what I saw in the visiplate, though—”

  Interminable minutes passed, and then Mike said:

  “Feel that!”

  There was a slight vibration thrumming the wall against the fingers of Powell’s metal-incased hand. There was no sound, naturally.

  “Blasting! We’re pretty close.”

  “Keep your eyes open,” said Powell.

  Donovan nodded impatiently.

  It was upon them and gone before they could seize themselves—just a bronze glint across the field of vision. They clung together in silence.

  Powell whispered, “Think it sensed us?”

  “Hope not. But w*e’d better flank them. Take the first side tunnel to the right.”

  “Suppose we miss them altogether?”

  “Well what do you want to do, go back?” Donovan grunted fiercely. “They’re within a quarter of a mile. I was watching them through the visiplate, wasn’t I? And we’ve got two days—”

  “Oh, shut up. You’re wasting your oxygen. Is this a side passage here?” The flash flicked. “It is. Let’s go.”

  The vibration was considerably more marked and the ground below shuddered uneasily.

  “This is good,” said Donovan, “if it doesn’t give out on us, though.” He flung his light ahead anxiously.

  They could touch the roof of the tunnel with a half-upstretched hand, and the bracings had been newly placed.

  Donovan hesitated, “Dead end.

  Let’s go back.”

  “No. Hold on” Powell squeezed clumsily past. “Is that light ahead?”

  “Light? I don’t see any. Where would there be light down here?”

  “Robot light.” He was scrambling up a gentle incline on hands and knees. His voice was hoarse and anxious in Donovan’s ears. “Hey, Mike, come up here.”

  There was light. Donovan crawled up and over Powell’s outstretched legs. “An opening?”

  “Yes. They must be working into this tunnel from the other side now—I think.”

  Donovan felt the ragged edges of the opening that looked out into what the cautious flashlight showed to be a larger and obviously main-stem tunnel. The hole was too small for a man to go through, almost too small for two men to look through simultaneously.

  “There’s nothing there,” said Donovan.

  “Well, not now. But there must have been a second ago or we wouldn’t have seen light. Watch out!”

  The walls rolled about them and they felt the impact. A fine dust showered down. Powell lifted a cautious head and looked again. “All right, Mike. They’re there.”

  The glittering robots clustered fifty feet down the main stem. Metal arms labored mightily at the rubbish heap brought down by the last blast.

  Donovan urged eagerly, “Don’t waste time. It won’t be long before they get through, and the next blast may get us “For Pete’s sake, don’t rush me.” Powell unlimbered the detonator, and his eyes searched anxiously across the dusky background where the only light was robot light and it was impossible to tell a projecting boulder from a shadow.

  “There’s a spot in the roof, see it, almost over them. The last blast didn’t quite get it. If you can get it at the base, half the roof will cave in.”

  Powell followed the dim finger, “Check! Now fasten your eye on the robots and pray they don’t move too far from that part of the tunnel. They’re my light sources. Are all seven there?”

  Donovan counted, “All seven.”

  “Well, then, watch them. Watch every motion!”

  His detonator was lifted and remained poised while Donovan watched and cursed and blinked the sweat out of his eye.

  It flashed!

  There was a jar, a series of hard vibrations, and then a jarring thump that threw Powell heavily against Donovan.

  Donovan yowled, “Greg, you threw me off. I didn’t see a thing.”

  Powell stared about wildly, “Where are they?”

  Donovan fell into a stupid silence. There was no sign of the robots. * It was as dark as the depths of the River Styx.

  “Think we buried them?” quavered Donovan.

  “Let’s get down there. Don’t ask me what I think.” Powell crawled backwards at tumbling speed.

  “Mike!”

  Donovan paused in the act of following, “What’s wrong now?”

  “Hold on!” Powell’s breathing was rough and irregular in Donovan’s ears. “Mike! Do you hear me, Mike?”

  “I’m right here. What is it?”

  “We’re blocked in. It wasn’t the ceiling coming down fifty feet away that knocked us over. It was our own ceiling. The shock’s tumbled it!”

  “What!” Donovan scrambled up against a hard barrier. “Turn on the flash.”

  Powell did so. At no point, was there room for a rabbit to squeeze through.

  Donovan said softly, “Well, what do you know?”

  They wasted a few moments and some muscular power in an effort to move the blocking barrier. Powell varied this by wrenching at the edges of the original hole. Then he sat down.

  “You know, Mike,” he said, “we’ve really messed this up. We’re no nearer finding out what’s wrong with Dave. It was a good idea but it blew up in our face.”

  Donovan’s glance was bitter with an intensity totally wasted on the darkness, “I hate to disturb you, old man, but quite apart from what we know or don’t know of Dave, we’re slightly trapped. If we don’t get loose, fella, we’re going to die.

  D—I—E—, die. How much oxygen have we anyway? Not more than six hours.”

  “I’ve thought of that.” Powell’s fingers went up to his long-suffering mustache and clanged uselessly against the transparent visor. “Of course, we could get Dave to dig us out easily in that time, except that our precious emergency must have thrown him off, and his radio circuit is out.”

  “And isn’t that nice.”

  Donovan edged up to the opening and managed to get his metal-incased head out. It was an extremely tight fit.

  “Hey, Greg!”

  “What?”

  “Suppose we get Dave within twenty feet. He’ll snap to normal. That’ll save us.”

  “Sure, but where is he?”

  “Down the corridor—way down. For Pete’s sake, stop pulling before you drag my head out of its socket. I’ll give you your chance to look.”

  Powell maneuvered his head outride, “We did it all right Look at those saps. That must be a ballet they’re doing.”

  “Never mind the side remarks. Are they getting any closer?”

  “Can’t tell yet. They’re too far away. Give me a chance. Pass me my flash, will you? I’ll try to attract their attention that way.” He gave up after two minutes, “Not a chance! They must be blind. Uh-oh, they’re starting towards us. What do you know?” Donovan said, “Hey, let me see!”

  There was a silent scuffle. Powell said, “All right!” and Donovan got his head out.

  They were approaching. Dave was high-stepping the way in front and the six “fingers” were a weaving chorus-line behind him.