is keyed
to a receiver in that bomb on your leg. One touch of my thumb, up you go
in a cloud of smoke and come down in a shower of nuts and bolts." He
signalled to Druce who opened a closet door. "And in case you want to be
heroic, just think of him."

Coleman jerked his thumb at the sodden shape on the floor; a filthily
attired man of indistinguishable age whose only interesting feature was
the black bomb strapped tightly across his chest. He peered unseeingly
from red-rimmed eyes and raised the almost empty whiskey bottle to his
mouth. Coleman kicked the door shut.

"He's just some Bowery bum we dragged in, Venex, but that doesn't make
any difference to you, does it? He's human--and a robot can't kill
_anybody_! That rummy has a bomb on him tuned to the same frequency as
yours, if you don't play ball with us he gets a two-foot hole blown in
his chest."

Coleman was right, Jon didn't dare make any false moves. All of his
early mental training as well as Circuit 92 sealed inside his brain case
would prevent him from harming a human being. He felt trapped, caught by
these people for some unknown purpose.

Coleman had pushed back a tarpaulin to disclose a ragged hole in the
concrete floor, the opening extended into the earth below. He waved Jon
over.

"The tunnel is in good shape for about thirty feet, then you'll find a
fall. Clean all the rock and dirt out until you break through into the
storm sewer, then come back. And you better be alone. If you tip the
cops both you and the old stew go out together--now move."

The shaft had been dug recently and shored with packing crates from the
warehouse overhead. It ended abruptly in a wall of fresh sand and stone.
Jon began shoveling it into the little wheelbarrow they had given him.

He had emptied four barrow loads and was filling the fifth when he
uncovered the hand, a robot's hand made of green metal. He turned his
headlight power up and examined the hand closely, there could be no
doubt about it. These gaskets on the joints, the rivet pattern at the
base of the thumb meant only one thing, it was the dismembered hand of a
Venex robot.

Quickly, yet gently, he shoveled away the rubble behind the hand and
unearthed the rest of the robot. The torso was crushed and the power
circuits shorted, battery acid was dripping from an ugly rent in the
side. With infinite care Jon snapped the few remaining wires that joined
the neck to the body and laid the green head on the b