life on
this world and about this Hall of Records, instead of having the
fragmentary, confusing, and sometimes false information I now have ...
oh, we're here?"

* * * * *

Laro had stopped and was opening a door. He stood aside. Hilton went in,
touched with one finger a crystalline cube set conveniently into a wall,
gave a mental command, and the lights went on.

Laro opened a cabinet and took out a disk about the size of a dime,
pendant from a neck-chain. While Hilton had not known what to expect, he
certainly had not expected anything as simple as that. Nevertheless, he
kept his face straight and his thoughts unmoved as Laro hung the tiny
thing around his neck and adjusted the chain to a loose fit.

"Thanks, Laro." Hilton removed it and put it into his pocket. "It won't
work from there, will it?"

"No, Master. To function, it must be within eighteen inches of the
brain. The second thing, Master?"

"A radiation-proof suit. Then you will please take me to the creche."

The android almost missed a step, but said nothing.

The radiation-proof suit--how glad Hilton was that he had not called it
"armor"!--was as much of a surprise as the thought-screen generator had
been. It was a coverall, made of something that looked like thin
plastic, weighing less than one pound. It had one sealed box, about the
size and weight of a cigarette case. No wires or apparatus could be
seen. Air entered through two filters, one at each heel, flowed
upward--for no reason at all that Hilton could see--and out through a
filter above the top of his head. The suit neither flopped nor clung,
but stood out, comfortably out of the way, all by itself.

Hilton, just barely, accepted the suit, too, without showing surprise.

The creche, it turned out, while not in the city of Omlu itself, was not
too far out to reach easily by car.

En route, Laro said--stiffly? Tentatively? Hilton could not fit an
adverb to the tone--"Master, have you then decided to destroy me? That
is of course your right."

"Not this time, at least." Laro drew an entirely human breath of relief
and Hilton went on: "I don't want to destroy you at all, and won't,
unless I have to. But, some way or other, my silicon-fluoride friend,
you are either going to learn how to cooperate or you won't last much
longer."

"But, Master, that is exactly ..."

"Oh, _hell_! Do we _have_ to go over that again?" At the blaze of
frustrated fury in Hilton