ou posted a help wanted notice, I--"

The man cut him off with a wave of his hand. "All right let me see your
ID tag ... quickly, there are others waiting."

Jon thumbed the tag out of his waist slot and handed it across the desk.
The interviewer read the code number, then began running his finger down
a long list of similar figures. He stopped suddenly and looked sideways
at Jon from under his lowered lids.

"You have made a mistake, we have no opening for you."

Jon began to explain to the man that the notice had requested his
specialty, but he was waved to silence. As the interviewer handed back
the tag he slipped a card out from under the desk blotter and held it in
front of Jon's eyes. He held it there for only an instant, knowing that
the written message was recorded instantly by the robot's photographic
vision and eidetic memory. The card dropped into the ash tray and flared
into embers at the touch of the man's pencil-heater.

Jon stuffed the ID tag back into the slot and read over the message on
the card as he walked down the stairs to the street. There were six
lines of typewritten copy with no signature.

_To Venex Robot: You are urgently needed on a top secret company
project. There are suspected informers in the main office, so you
are being hired in this unusual manner. Go at once to 787 Washington
Street and ask for Mr. Coleman._

Jon felt an immense sensation of relief. For a moment there, he was sure
the job had been a false lead. He saw nothing unusual in the method of
hiring. The big corporations were immensely jealous of their research
discoveries and went to great lengths to keep them secret--at the same
time resorting to any means to ferret out their business rivals'
secrets. There might still be a chance to get this job.

* * * * *

The burly bulk of a lifter was moving back and forth in the gloom of the
ancient warehouse stacking crates in ceiling-high rows. Jon called to
him, the robot swung up his forklift and rolled over on noiseless tires.
When Jon questioned him he indicated a stairwell against the rear wall.

"Mr. Coleman's office is down in back, the door is marked." The lifter
put his fingertips against Jon's ear pick-ups and lowered his voice to
the merest shadow of a whisper. It would have been inaudible to human
ears, but Jon could hear him easily, the sounds being carried through
the metal of the other's body.

"He's the meane