d, then
turned aside.

The tallest of the braves--a lean number the color of an old
penny--tossed his bow aside and deliberately stepped squarely in my
path. There was an insolent arrogance in every line of his body--a
body that topped my six feet a full three inches.

I said, "Hi-yo, Silver," and put my hip into his naked belly and
grabbed his arm and threw him over my shoulder. He hit face first two
yards away and plowed up a furrow of grass, flopped around a little,
then lay still.

Nobody else moved, except me. I started for the spaceship again, not
hurrying and not crawling, head still up, spine still stiff, eyes
straight ahead. Feet slithered in the grass behind me and the sound
made the skin between my shoulder blades twitch like an aching tooth.
Every instinct that had anything to do with self-preservation was
fighting to make me turn around.

That was when the robots moved. They seemed to come alive at the same
instant, metal clanged on metal as they strode stiffly down the ramp
to meet me. Violence hung over them as it hangs over a Patton tank.

Every step toward them was like pulling my foot out of quicksand. Only
twelve kinds of a cretin would have gone on when faced with anything
like this. I went on. I couldn't do anything else. Once you show an
Indian a molecule of cowardice, you're twelve lines on the obituary
page.

The space between us was down to a narrow ribbon of grass by this
time. Four--three more steps and I would _have_ to stop. Nobody could
push aside a couple of tons of animated steel. Metal arms were lifting
slowly, preparing to close on me. Inside me a silent voice screamed a
prayer for Wetzel to pull that trigger and pump a bullet into one of
those round, staring, faceted eyes....

The robots seemed to go dead. They hung there motionless, arms lifted,
each with a massive foot caught in midstride.

What had stopped them at the last possible second I had no way of
telling. All I did know was a sudden release of tension that left me
with just enough strength to keep my feet moving.

I went on.

* * * * *

The edge of the ramp was getting uncomfortably close. I was here to
see the head man, but I would prefer to see him out in the open. The
thought of walking into that black hole left me as cold as a barefoot
Eskimo.

The ramp. It was a good six feet wide, made of what seemed to be some
form of an aluminum alloy, and was waiting to be walked on. I