go."

Stanton started walking, keeping his feet near the rail, in case Barhop
wanted to call again. As he walked, he could feel the slight motion of the
skin-tight, woven elastic suit that he wore rubbing against his skin.

And he could hear the scratching patter of the rats.

Mostly, they stayed away from him, but he could see them hiding in corners
and scurrying along the sides of the tunnel. Around him, six rat-like
remote-control robots moved with him, shifting their pattern constantly as
they patrolled his moving figure.

Far ahead, he knew, other rat robots were stationed, watching and waiting,
ready to deactivate the Nipe's detection devices at just the right moment.
Behind him, another horde moved forward to turn the devices on again.

It had taken a long time to learn how to shut off those detectors without
giving the alarm to the Nipe's instruments.

There were nearly a hundred men in on the operation, operating the robot
rats or watching the hidden cameras that spied upon the Nipe. Nearly a
hundred. And all of them were safe.

They were outside the tunnel. They were with Stanton only in proxy. They
could not die here in this stinking hole, but Stanton could.

There was no help for it. Stanton had to go in person. A full-sized robot
proxy would be stronger, although not faster unless Stanton controlled it,
than the Nipe. But the Nipe would be able to tell that it was a robot, and
he would simply destroy it with one of his weapons. A remote-controlled
robot would never get close enough to the Nipe to do any good.

"We do not know," Dr. Yoritomo had said, "whether he would recognize it as
a robot or not, but his instruments would show the metal easily enough,
and his eyes might be able to see that it was not covered with human skin.
The rats are covered with real rat hides; they are small, and he is used
to seeing them around. But a human-sized robot? Ah, no. Never."

So Stanton had to go in in person, walking southward, along the miles of
blackness that led to the nest of the Nipe.

Overhead was Government City.

He had walked those streets only the night before, and he knew that only a
short distance above him was an entirely different world.

Somewhere up there, his brother was waiting after having run the gamut of
televised interviews, dinner at one of the best restaurants, and a party
afterward. A celebrity. "The greatest detective in the Solar System,"
they'd called him. Fine stuff, that. Stan