ammers, crowbars, hatchets. Behind them
hurried women with basins and large cans. The original four, weary from
the weight of the robot despite frequent pauses on the trail, stepped
back.

"Where first, Blackie?" asked one of the men, waiting for the women to
untangle the rope and timbers.

"Try all the joints. After that, we'll crack him open down the middle
for the main supply tank."

He watched the metal give way under the blows. As the robot was
dismembered, the fluid that had lubricated the complex mechanism flowed
from its wounds and was poured by the women into a five-gallon can.

"Bring a cupful, Judy," Blackie told his woman, a wiry blond girl. "I
wanna see if it's as good as the last."

He lit a stick at the fire as they crossed the littered, once-ornate
lobby, and she followed him down a dim hall. He pulled aside the skins
that covered their doorway, then stumbled his way to the table. The
window was still uncovered against the night chill, but it looked out on
a courtyard shadowed by towering walls. To eyes adjusted to the sunny
street, the room was dark.

Judy poured the oil into the makeshift lamp, waited for the rag wick to
soak, and held it out to Blackie. He lit the wick from his stick.

"It burns real good, Blackie," the girl said, wrinkling her nose against
the first oily smoke. "Gee, you're smart to catch one the first day
out."

"Tell them other dames to watch how they use it!" he warned. "This
oughta last a month or more when we get him all emptied."

He blew out the dying flame on the stick and dropped the charred wood
thoughtfully to the floor.

"Naw, I ain't so smart," he admitted, "or I'd figure a way to make one
of them work the garden for us. Maybe someday--but _this_ kind won't do
nothin' but fix that goddam road, an' what good's that to anybody?"

His woman moved the burning lamp carefully to the center of the table.

"Anyway, it's gonna be better'n last winter," she said. "We'll have
lights now."

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Let There Be Light, by Horace Brown Fyfe

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