d I knew their symptoms. They
were getting bored.

Maybe they had learned to think from me, but their minds were
nevertheless different. For they were built to be efficient, to work,
to perform. They were the minds of men without foibles, without human
laziness. Now that the excitement of organizing was over, now that
there was nothing active to do, the androids were growing restless. If
only the Army didn't come and get them stirred up again, I might be
able to deal with them.

At quarter to five in the morning my telephone rang. This time it
didn't wake me up; I was half waiting for it.

"Hello," I said. "Who is it?"

"This is Jerry."

There was a pause. Then he went on, rather hesitantly, "Rob O said you
were getting along all right."

"Oh, yes," I told him. "Just fine."

The pause was longer this time. Finally the android asked, "How are
you coming along on the contract?"

I laughed, rather bitterly. "How do you think, Jerry? You certainly
picked a bad time for your strike, you know. The government needs that
uranium. Oh, well, some other plant will have to take over. The Army
can wait a few weeks."

This time Jerry's voice definitely lacked self-assurance. "Maybe we
were a little hasty," he said. "But it was the only way to make you
people understand."

"I know," I told him.

"And you always have some rush project on," he added.

"Just about always."

"Mr. Morrison," he said, and now he was pleading with me. "Why don't
you come over to the city? I'm sure we could work something out."

This was what I'd been waiting for. "I will, Jerry," I said. "I want
to get this straightened out just as much as you do. After all, you
don't have to eat. I do. And I won't be eating much longer if we don't
get production going."

Jerry thought that over for a minute. "I'll be where we met before,"
he said.

I said that was all right with me and hung up. Then once again I
climbed the stairs to the roof and wheeled the Copter out for the trip
to the city.

It was a beautiful night, just paling into a false dawn in the east.
There in the Copter I was very much alone, and very much worried. So
much depended on this meeting. Much more, I realized now, than the Don
Morrison Fissionables Inc., much more even than the government's
uranium supply. No, the whole future of robot relations was at stake,
maybe the whole future of humanity. It was hard to be gloomy on such a
clear, clean night, but I managed it well enoug