ld I come right
away?

* * * * *

I picked up Ollie Johnson, who was now sort of a public relations man
for his tribe, and we arrived within an hour.

The hallway was full of uniforms and weapons, but quite empty of
volunteers to go in and capture the "berserk" robot.

Ollie and I went in right away, and found him standing at the open
window, staring down at the people with hoses washing off the stains for
which he was responsible.

Ollie just stood there, clenching and unclenching his hands and shaking
hysterically. I had to do the questioning.

I said sternly, "Soth, why did you harm those people?"

He turned to me as calmly as my own servant. His neat denim jacket, now
standard fatigue uniform for Soths, was unfastened. His muscular chest
was bare.

"They were tormenting me with that." He pointed to a small electric
generator from which ran thin cables ending in sharp test prods. "I told
Professor Kahnovsky it was not allowed, but he stated I was his
property. The three boys tried to hold me with those straps while the
professor touched me with the prods.

"My conditioning forbade me from harming them, but there was a clear
violation of the terms of the covenant. I was in the proscribed
condition of immobility when the generator was started. When the pain
grew unbearable, the prime command of my conditioning was invoked. I
must survive. I threw them all out the window."

The Soth went with us peacefully enough, and submitted to the lockup
without demur. For a few days, before the state thought up a suitable
indictment, the papers held a stunned silence. Virtually every editor
and publisher had a Soth in his own home.

Then the D.A., who also owned a Soth, decided to drop the potentially
sensational first degree murder charges that might be indicated, and
came out instead with a second degree indictment.

* * * * *

That cracked it. The press split down the middle on whether the charge
should be changed to third degree murder or thrown out of court entirely
as justifiable homicide by a non-responsible creature.

This was all very sympathetic to the Soth's cause, but it had a fatal
effect. In bringing out the details of the crime, it stirred a certain
lower element of our society to add fear and hate to a simmering envy of
the wealthier Soth-owners.

Mobs formed in the streets, marching and demonstrating. The phony rape
story was given fu