mned! You can't win now!" Alan yelled between blaster shots,
almost irrational from the pain that ripped jaggedly through his leg.
Then it happened. A few feet from the building's door his blaster quit.
A click. A faint hiss when he frantically jerked the trigger again and
again, and the spent cells released themselves from the device, falling
in the grass at his feet. He dropped the useless gun.

"No!" He threw himself on the ground as a new robot suddenly appeared
around the edge of the building a few feet away, aimed, and fired. Air
burned over Alan's back and ozone tingled in his nostrils.

Blinding itself for a few seconds with its own blaster static, the robot
paused momentarily, jiggling in place. In this instant, Alan jammed his
hands into an insect hill and hurled the pile of dirt and insects
directly at the robot's antenna. In a flash, hundreds of the winged
things erupted angrily from the hole in a swarming cloud, each part of
which was a speck of life transmitting mental energy to the robot's
pickup devices.

Confused by the sudden dispersion of mind impulses, the robot fired
erratically as Alan crouched and raced painfully for the door. It fired
again, closer, as he fumbled with the lock release. Jagged bits of
plastic and stone ripped past him, torn loose by the blast.

Frantically, Alan slammed open the door as the robot, sensing him
strongly now, aimed point blank. He saw nothing, his mind thought of
nothing but the red-clad safety switch mounted beside the computer. Time
stopped. There was nothing else in the world. He half-jumped, half-fell
towards it, slowly, in tenths of seconds that seemed measured out in
years.

The universe went black.

Later. Brilliance pressed upon his eyes. Then pain returned, a
multi-hurting thing that crawled through his body and dragged ragged
tentacles across his brain. He moaned.

A voice spoke hollowly in the distance. "He's waking. Call his wife."

Alan opened his eyes in a white room; a white light hung over his head.
Beside him, looking down with a rueful smile, stood a young man wearing
space medical insignia. "Yes," he acknowledged the question in Alan's
eyes, "you hit the switch. That was three days ago. When you're up again
we'd all like to thank you."

Suddenly a sobbing-laughing green-eyed girl was pressed tightly against
him. Neither of them spoke. They couldn't. There was too much to say.

THE END

Transcriber's Note:

This etext was