d free," the big servo
continued. "Four or five of us would be sightseeing in San Francisco,
keeping strictly within the robot zones painted on the sidewalks, when
people would yell 'Junko' or 'Grease-bag' or other names at us.
Eventually it got better when we learned to go around alone. The humans
didn't seem to mind an occasional mech on the streets, but they hated
seeing us in groups. At any rate, I'd attended a highly interesting
lecture on Photosynthesis in Plastic Products one night at the City
Center when I discovered I had time for a walk before I started back for
the rocketport."

Attracted by the lights along Van Ness Avenue, Frank said he walked
north for a while along the city's automobile row. He'd gone about three
blocks when he stopped in front of a dealer's window. It wasn't the
shiny new Atomovair sports jetabout that caught Frank's eye, it was the
charming demonstration robot in the sales room who was pointing out the
car's new features.

"I felt an immediate overload of power in my DX circuit," the
servo-pilot confessed. "I had to cut in my emergency condensers before
the gain flattened out to normal. Miss Seven experienced the same thing.
She stopped what she was doing and we stared at each other. Both of us
were aware of the deep attraction of our mutual magnetic domains.
Although physicists commonly express the phenomenon in such units as
Gilberts, Maxwells and Oersteds, we robots know it to be our counterpart
of human love."

At this the two inspectors snorted with laughter.

"I might never have made it back to the base that night," said Frank,
ignoring them, "if a policeman hadn't come along and rapped me on the
shoulder with his nightstick. I pretended to go, but I doubled around
the corner and signaled I'd be back."

Frank spent all of his free time on Van Ness Avenue after that.

"It got so Elizabeth knew my schedules and expected me between flights.
Once in a while if there was no one around we could whisper a few words
to each other through the glass." Frank paused, then said, "As you know,
gentlemen, we robots don't demand much out of activation. I think we
could have been happy indefinitely with this simple relationship, except
that something happened to spoil it. I'd pulled in from Vesta late one
afternoon, got my pass as usual from the Robot Supervisor and gone over
to Van Ness Avenue when I saw immediately that something was the matter
with Elizabeth. Luckily it was getting dark