were too busy organizing the city to cause trouble to the human
inhabitants; at least there hadn't been any violence yet. Anyway, I
wanted to think the situation over before matching wits with them
again, and I wanted to be a good distance away from their telepathic
hookups while I thought. Slowly I walked back to the Copter.

[Illustration]

Something whooshed past my head. Instinctively I ducked, reaching for
a gun I didn't have; then I heard Jack calling down at me.

"The Chief wants to know what's the matter."

I looked up. The police Copter was going into another turn, ready to
swoop past me again. Chief Dalton wasn't taking any chances. Even now
he wasn't landing.

"I'll tell him at the factory," I bellowed back, and climbed into my
own air car.

They buzzed along behind me all the way back to the plant. In the rear
view mirror I could see the Chief's face getting redder and redder as
he'd thought up more reasons for bawling me out. Well, I probably
deserved it. If I'd only been a little more careful of what I was
hooking into those electronic brains....

We landed back at the factory, deserted now except for a couple of men
on standby duty in the office. The Chief and Jack came charging across
the yard and from a doorway behind me one of the foremen edged out to
hear the fun.

"Well," snapped the Chief. "What did they say? Are they coming back?
What's going on, anyway?"

I told them everything. I covered the strike and the telepathic brain;
I even gave them the patriotic spiel about equality. After all, it was
better that they got it from me than from some android. But when I'd
finished they just stood and stared at me--accusingly.

Jack was the first to speak. "We've got to get them back, Don," he
said. "Cybernetics will fix them up in no time."

"Sure," I agreed. "If we can catch them."

The Chief snorted. "That's easy," he said. "Just tell them you'll give
them what they want if they come here, and as soon as they're out of
the city, net them. You've got strong derricks and trucks...."

I laughed a bit hollowly. I'd had that idea too.

"Of course they wouldn't suspect," I said. "We'd just walk up to them,
carefully thinking about something else."

"Robots aren't suspicious," Jack said. "They're made to obey orders."

I refrained from mentioning that ours didn't seem to know that, and
that running around Carron City fomenting a rebellion was hardly the
trait of an obedient, trusting servan