The Project Gutenberg EBook of B-12's Moon Glow, by Charles A. Stearns

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Title: B-12's Moon Glow

Author: Charles A. Stearns

Release Date: February 23, 2010 [EBook #31364]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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This etext was produced from _Planet Stories_ January 1954.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

B-12's MOON GLOW

By CHARLES A. STEARNS

_Among the metal-persons of Phobos, robot B-12 held a special
niche. He might not have been stronger, larger, faster than
some ... but he could be devious ... and more important, he
was that junkyard planetoid's only moonshiner._

I am B-12, a metal person. If you read _Day_ and the other progressive
journals you will know that in some quarters of the galaxy there is
considerable prejudice directed against us. It is ever so with
minority races, and I do not complain. I merely make this statement so
that you will understand about the alarm clock.

An alarm clock is a simple mechanism used by the Builders to shock
themselves into consciousness after the periodic comas to which they
are subject. It is obsolescent, but still used in such out of the way
places as Phobos.

My own contact with one of these devices came about in the following
manner:

I had come into Argon City under cover of darkness, which is the only
sensible thing to do, in my profession, and I was stealing through the
back alleyways as silently as my rusty joints would allow.

I was less than three blocks from Benny's Place, and still undetected,
when I passed the window. It was a large, cheerful oblong of light, so
quite naturally I stopped to investigate, being slightly phototropic,
by virtue of the selenium grids in my rectifier cells. I went over and
looked in, unobtrusively resting my grapples on the outer ledge.

There was a Builder inside such as I had not seen since I came to
Phobos half a century ag