 Acid Bath by Vassilos Garson This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org recording by John Feaster. Acid Bath The Starway's lone watcher had experienced some odd developments in his single nerve-fraught job in the asteroid, but nothing like the weird 21-day liquid test devised by the invading steel blues. John Carl was bolting in a new baffle plate on the stationary rocket engine. It was a tedious job, and took all his concentration, so he wasn't paying too much attention to what was going on in other parts of the little asteroid. He didn't see the peculiar blue spaceship, its rockets throttled down as it drifted to land only a few hundred yards away from his plastic igloo. Nor did he see the half-dozen steel-blue creatures slide out of the peculiar vessel's airlock. It was only as he crawled out of the depths of the rocket power plant that he realized something was wrong. By then it was almost too late. The six blue figures were only 50 feet away, approaching him at a lope. John Carl took one look and went bounding over the asteroid's rocky slopes in 50-foot bounds. When you're a lone watcher and strangers catch you unawares, you don't stand still. You move fast, it's the watcher's first rule. Stay alive, and earthship may depend upon your life. As he fled, John Carl cursed softly under his breath. The automatic alarm should have shrilled out a warning. Then he saved as much of his breath as he could, as some sort of power wave tore off the rocky sword to his left. He twisted and zig-zagged in his flight, trying to get out of sight of the strangers. Once hidden from their eyes, he could cut back and head for the underground entrance to the service station. He glanced back, finally. Two of the steel-blue creatures were jack-grabbiting after him, and rapidly closing the distance. John Carl unsheathed the stub-ray pistol at his side. Turning the oxygen dial up for greater exertion, increased the gravity pull of his spacesuit boots as he neared the ravine he'd been racing for. The oxygen was just taking hold when he hit the lip of the ravine and began sprinting through its man-high bush-strewn course. The power-ray from behind ripped up great gobs of the sheltering bushes, but running naturally, bent close to the bottom of the ravine, John Carl dodged the bare spots. The oxygen made the tremendous exertion easy for his lungs as he sped down the dim trail, hidden from the two steel-blue stalkers. He eluded them, temporarily at least, John Carl decided, when he finally edged off the dim trail and watched for movement along the route behind him. He stood up, finally pushing aside the leafy overhang of a bush and looked for landmarks along the edge of the ravine. He found one, a stubby bush shaped like a Maltese cross, clinging to the lip of the ravine. The hidden entrance to the service station wasn't far off. His pistol held ready, he moved quietly on down the ravine until the old water course made an abrupt hairpin turn. Instead of following around the sharp bend, John Carl moved straight ahead through the overhanging bushes until he came to a dense thicket. Dropping to his hands and knees, he worked his way under the edge of the thicket, into a hollowed-out space in the center. There, just ahead of him, was the lock leading to the service station. Slipping a key out of a leg pouch in the spacesuit, he jabbed it into the center of the lock, opening the lever housing. He pulled strongly at the lever, with a hiss of escaping air. The lock swung open. John Carl darted inside, the lock closing softly behind him. At the end of the long tunnel, he stepped to the televisor, which was fixed on the area surrounding the station. John Carl saw none of the steel-blue creatures, but he saw their ship. It squatted like a smashed-down kid's top. Its lock shut tight. He turned the televisor to its widest range and finally spotted one of the steel-blues. He was looking into the stationary rocket engine. As Carl watched, a second steel-blue came crawling out of the ship. The two steel-blues moved towards the center of the televisor range. They're coming towards the station, Carl thought grimly. Carl examined the two creatures. They were of steel-blue color from the crown of their egg-shaped heads to the tips of their walking appendages. They were about the height of Carl, six feet, but where he tapered from broad shoulders to flat hips, they were straight down. They had no legs, just dependages, many jointed, that stretched and shrank independent of each other, but keeping the cylindrical body with its four pairs of tentacles on a level balance. Where their eyes would have been was an elliptical-shaped lens, covering half the egg head, with its converging ends curving around the sides of the head. Robots, John gauged immediately, but where were their masters? The steel-blues moved out of the range of the televisor. A minute later, John heard a pounding from the station upstairs. He chuckled. They were like the wolf of pre-atomic days who huffed and puffed and blew the house down. The outer shell of the station was formed from stirrelite, the toughest metal in the solar system. With the self-sealing lock of the same resistant material, a mere pounding was nothing. John thought he'd have to look-see anyway. He went to the steel ladder, leading to the station's power plant and the televisor that could look into every room within the station. He heaved a slight sigh when he reached the power room, for right at his hand were weapons to blast the ship from the asteroid. John adjusted one televisor to take in the lock of the station. His teeth suddenly clamped down in his lower lip. Those steel-blues were pounding holes into the stirrelite with round-headed metal clubs, but it was impossible. Stirrelite didn't break up that easily. John leapt to a row of studs, lining up the revolving turret which capped the station so that its thin fin pointed at the squat ship of the invaders. Then he went to the atomic cannon's firing buttons. He pressed first the yellow, then the blue button, finally the red one. The thin fin, the cannon's sight, split in half as the turret opened and the coiled nose of the cannon protruded. It was a soundless flash, then a sharp crack. John was dumbfounded when he saw the bolt ricochet off the ship. This was no ship of the solar system. There was nothing that could withstand even the slightest jolt of power given by the station's cannon on any of the sun's worlds. But what was this? A piece of the ship had changed. A bubble of metal, like a huge drop of blue wax, drifted off the vessel and struck the rocket of the asteroid. It steamed and ran in rivulets. Then he pushed the red one again. Then abruptly he was on the floor of the power room. His legs strangely cut up from under him. He tried to move. Then lay flaccid. His arms seemed all right and tried to lever himself in an upright position. Damn it! He seemed as if he were paralyzed with the waist down. But it couldn't happen that suddenly. He turned his head. A steel blue was facing him. A forked tentacle held a square black box. John could read nothing in that metallic face. He said, voice muffled by the confines of his plastic helmet. Who are you? I am. There was a rising inflection in the answer. A steel blue. There were no lips on the steel blue's face to move. That's what I have named you, John Krall said. But what are you? A robot. Came the immediate answer. John was quite sure that the steel blue was telepathic. Yes, the steel blue answered. We talk in the language of the mind. Come, he said, prematurely, monitoring the square black box. The paralysis left Karl's legs. He followed the steel blue, aware that the lens he'd seen of the creature's face had a counterpart on the back of the egg head. Eyes in the back of his head, John thought. That's quite an innovation. Thank you, steel blue said. There wasn't much fear in John Karl's mind. Psychiatrists had proved that when he'd applied for his high paying but man-killing job as a lone watcher in the Solar System Starways. He had little fear now. Only curiosity. These steel blues didn't seem inimical. They could have snuffed out my life very simply. Perhaps they and Solarians can be friends. Steel blue chuckled. John followed him through the sundering lock of the station. Karl stopped for a moment to examine the wreckage of the lock. It had been punched full of holes as if it had been some soft cheese instead of a metal which earthmen have spent nearly a century perfecting. We appreciate your compliment, steel blue said. But that metal also is found on our world. It is probably the softest and most malleable we have. We were surprised you. Earthmen, is it? Use it as a protective metal. Why are you in the system, John asked, hardly expecting an answer. It came anyway. For the same reason you earthmen are reaching out further into your system. We need living room. You have strategically placed planets for us to use. We will use them. John sighed. For 400 years, scientists had been preaching preparedness as earth flung her ships into the reaches of the solar system, taking the first long step towards the conquest of space. There are other races somewhere, they argued, as strong and smart as man, many of them so transcending man in mental and inventive powers that we must be prepared to strike the minute danger shows. Now, here was the answer to the scientists' warning, invasion by extraterrestrials. What did you say? asked steel blue. I cannot understand. Just thinking to myself, John answered, it was a welcome surprise. Apparently, his thoughts had to be directed outward rather than inward in order for the steel blue to read it. He followed the steel blue into the gaping lock of the invader's spaceship, wondering how he could warn earth. The space patrol cruiser was due for refueling at service station in 21 days, but by that time he would probably be moldering in the rocky dust of the asteroid. It was pitch dark within the ship, but the steel blue seemed to have no trouble at all maneuvering through the maze of corridors. John followed him, attached to one tentacle. Finally, John and his guide entered a circular room, bright with light, streaming from a glass like bulging skylight. They apparently were near top side of the vessel. A steel blue, more massive than his guide and with four more pairs of tentacles, including two short ones that grew from the top of its head, spoke out. This is the violator, John's steel blue knotted. You know the penalty. Carry it out. He also is an inhabitant of this system, John's guide added. Examine him first, then give him the death. John Carl shrugged as he was led from the lighted room through more corridors. If it got too bad, he still had the subray pistol. Anyway, he was curious. He taken on the lonely nerve-wracking job of service station attendant just to see what it offered. Here was a part of it, and it was certainly something new. This is the examination room, his steel blue said almost contemptuously. A green effulgence surrounded him. There was a hiss. Simultaneously, as the tiny microphones on the outside of his suit picked up the hiss. He felt a chill go through his body, then it seemed as if a half-dozen hands were inside him, examining his internal organs. His stomach contracted. He felt a squeeze on his heart, his lungs tickled. There were several more queer motions inside his body. Then another steel blue voice said, He is a soft metal creature made up of metals that melted a very low temperature. He also contains a liquid whose markup I cannot ascertain by ray probe. Bring him back when the torture is done. John Carl grinned a little trifely. What kind of torture could this be? Would it last 21 days? He glanced at the chronometer on his wrist. John's steel blue led him out of the alien ship and halted expectantly just outside the ship's lock. John waited to. He thought of the subray pistol halted in his hip. Shoot my way out. It'd be fun while it lasted. But he toted up the disadvantages. He either would have had to find a hiding space in the asteroid, and if the steel blue wanted him bad enough, they could tear the whole place to pieces or somehow get aboard the little life ship hidden in the service station. In that he would just be a sitting duck. He struggled off the slight temptation to use the pistol. He was still curious. And he was interested in staying alive as long as possible. There was a remote chance he might warn the SP ship. Unconsciously, he glanced towards his belt to see the little power pack which, if under ideal conditions, could finger out 50,000 miles into space. If he could somehow stay alive the 21 days he might be able to warn the patrol. He couldn't do it by attempting to flee for his life would be snuffed out immediately. The steel blue said quietly, it might be ironical to let you warn that SP ship you keep thinking about. But we know your weapons now. Already our ship is equipped with a force field designed especially to deflect your atomic guns. John Carl covered up his thoughts quickly. They can delve deeper than the surface of the mind, or wasn't I keeping a leash on my thoughts? The steel blue chuckled. You get absent minded, is it? Every once in a while. Just then four other steel blues appeared lugging great sheets of plastic and various other equipments. They dumped their loads and began unbundling them. Working swiftly, they built a plastic igloo smaller than the living room on the larger service station igloo. They ranged instruments inside one of them John Carl recognized as an air pump from within the station. And they laid out a pallet. When they were done, John saw a miniature reproduction of the service station lacking only the cannon cap and fin and with clear plastic walls instead of the opaqueness of the other. His steel blue said, we have reproduced the atmosphere of your station so you can be watched while you undergo the torture under the normal conditions of your life. What is this torture? John Carl asked. The answer was almost caressing. It is a liquid we use to dissolve metals. It causes joints to harden if even so much as a drop remains on it long. It eats away the metal, leaving a scaly residue which crumbles eventually into dust. We will dilute it with harmless liquid for you since number one does not wish you to die instantly. Enter your the steel blue hesitated. Mausoleum, you die in your own atmosphere. However, we took the liberty of purifying it. There were dangerous elements in it. John walked into the little igloo. The steel blues sealed the lock, fingered dials and switches on the outside. John's spacesuit deflated. Pressure was building up in the igloo. He took a sample of the air found it was good, although quite rich in oxygen compared to what he'd been using in the service station in his suit. With a sigh of relief, he took off his helmet and gulped huge drops of air. He sat down on the pallet and waited for the torture to begin. The steel blues crowded about the igloo, staring at him through elliptical eyes. Apparently, they too were waiting for the torture to begin. John thought the excess of oxygen was making him lightheaded. He stared at a cylinder which was beginning to sprout tentacles from the center. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. An opening like the adjustable eyepiece of a space scope was appearing in the center of the cylinder. A square glass like tumbler sat in the opening, disclosed a four foot cylinder that had sprouted tentacles. It contained a yellowish liquid. One of the tentacles reached into the opening and clasped the glass. The opening closed and the cylinder propelled by locomotor appendages moved towards John. He didn't like the looks of the liquid in the tumbler. It looked like an acid of some sort. He raised to his feet. He unsheathed the subray pistol and prepared to blast the cylinder. The cylinder moved so fast, John felt his eyes jump in his head. He brought the subray gun up, but he was helpless. The pistol kept on going up. With a deft movement, one of the tentacles had spirited from his hand and was holding it out of his reach. John kicked at the glass in the cylinder's hand, but he was too slow. Two tentacles gripped the kick leg. Another struck him in the chest, knocking him to the palate. The same tentacle, assisted by a new one, pinioned his shoulders. Four tentacles held him supine. The cylinder lifted a glass like cap from the tumbler of liquid. Lying there helplessly, John was remembering an old fairy tale he'd read as a kid, something about a fellow named Socrates, who was given a cup of hemlock to drink. It was the finish for Socrates, but the old hero had been nonchalant and calm about the whole thing. With a sigh, John Carl, who was curious unto death, relaxed and said, All right, bub, you don't have to force feed me. I'll take it like a man. The cylinder apparently understood him for it handed him the tumbler. It even reholstered his subray pistol. John brought the glass of liquid under his nose. The fumes of the liquid were pungent. It brought tears to his eyes. He looked at the cylinder, then at the steel blues crowding into the classic goo. He waved the glass of the audience. To earth, ever triumphant, he toasted. Then he drained the glass in the gulp. It was bitter, and he felt hot prickles jab at his scalp. It was like eating very hot peppers. His eyes filled with tears. He coughed as the stuff went down. But he was still alive. He thought in amazement, he drunk the hemlock and was still alive. The reaction said in quickly, he hadn't known until then how tense he'd been. Now with a torture ordeal over, he relaxed. He laid down the pallet and went to sleep. It was one lone steel blue watching him when he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and sat up. He vanished almost instantly. He or another like him returned immediately accompanied by a half dozen other, including the multi tentacle creature known as number one. One said, you are alive. The thought registered amazement. When you lost consciousness, we thought you had. There was a hesitation. As you say, died. No, John Carl said, I didn't die. I was just playing dead beat. So I went to sleep. The steel blues apparently didn't understand. Good it is that you live. The torture will continue, spoke number one before loping away. The cylinder business began again. This time, John drank the bitter liquid slowly trying to figure out what it was. It had a familiar tantalizing taste, but he couldn't quite put a taste finger on it. His belly said he was hungry. He glanced at his chronometer only 20 days left before the SP ship arrived. With this torture, he chuckled last until then, but he was growing more and more conscious that his belly was screaming for hunger. The liquid had taken the edge off his thirst. It was on the fifth day of his torture that John Carl decided he was going to get something to eat or perish in the attempt. The cylinder sat passively in its niche on the circle. A dozen steel blues were watching as John put on his helmet and unsheathed his stub ray. They merely watched as he pressed the stub rays firing stud invisible rays licked out of the bulbous mausole of the pistol. The plastics splintered. John was out of the goldfish bowl and striding towards his own igloo adjacent to the service station when a steel blue accosted him out of the way. John grunted waving the stub ray. I'm hungry. I'm the first steel blue you met, said the creature who barred his way. Go back to your torture. But I'm so hungry I'll chew off one of your tentacles and eat it without seasoning. Eat? The steel blue sounded puzzled. I want to refuel. I've got my own. I've got to have food to keep my engine going. Steel blue chuckled. So the hemlock as you call it is beginning to affect you at last. Back to the torture room. Like our dust, John growled. He pressed the firing stud and the stub ray gun. One of the steel blue's tentacles broke off and fell to the rock he swore. Steel blue jerked out the box he'd used once before. A tentacle danced over it. A abruptly John found himself standing in a pinnacle of rock. Steel blue had cut a swath around 15 feet deep and five feet wide. Back to the room. Steel blue commanded. John resheathed the subray pistol shrugged noncommittally and leapt the trench. He walked slowly back and re-entered the torture chamber. The steel blues rapidly repaired the damage he'd done. As he watched them, John was still curious, but he was getting mad underneath at the cold egotism of the steel blues. By the shimmering clouds of earth by her green fields and dark forests, he'd stay alive to warn the SP ship. Yes, he'd stay alive until then and send the story of the steel blue's corrosive acid to it. Then hundreds of earth ships could equip themselves with spray guns and squirt citric acid and watch the steel blues fade away. It sounded almost silly to John Carl. The fruit acid of earth to repel these invaders. It doesn't sound possible. That couldn't be the answer. Citric acid wasn't the answer. John Carl discovered a week later. The steel blue who had captured him in the power room of the service station came in to examine him. You're still holding out, I see. He observed after poking John in every sensitive part of his body. I'll suggest to number one that we increase the power of the, ah, hemlock. How do you feel? Between the rich oxygen and the dizziness of hunger, John was a bit delirious. But he answered honestly enough. My guts feel as if they're chewing each other up. My bones ache. My joints creak. I can't coordinate. I'm so hungry. That is the hemlock, steel blue said. It was when he qualified the new and stronger joke that John knew that his hope that it was citric acid was squelched. The acid taste was weaker, which meant that the citric acid was the diluting liquid. It was the liquid he couldn't taste beneath the tang of the citric acid that was the corrosive acid. On the 14th day John was so weak he didn't feel much like moving around. He let the cylinder feed him the hemlock. Number one came to see him again and went away chuckling decrease the dilution. This earth man is at last beginning to suffer staying alive now had become a fetish with John. On the 16th day the earth man realized that the steel blues also were waiting for the SP ship. The extraterrestrials had repaired the blue ship where the service stations atomic ray had struck and they were doing a little target practice with plastic bubbles only a few miles above the asteroid. When his chronometer clicked off the beginning of the 21st date John received a tumbler of the hemlock from the hands of number one himself. It is the hemlock. He chuckled. Undiluted. Drink it and your torture is over. You will die before your SP ship is destroyed. We have played with you long enough. Today we begin to toy with your SP ship. Drink up earth man. Drink to enslavement. Weak though he was, John lunged to his feet spilling the tumbler of liquid. It ran cool along the plastic arm of his SP ship. He changed his mind about throwing the contents on number one. With a smile he set the glass to his lips and drank. Then he laughed at number one. The SP ship will turn your ship into jelly. Number one swept out juggling. Most if you will earth man. It's your last chance. There was an exultation in John's heart that didn't his hunger and washed away the nausea. Last he knew what the hemlock was. He sat on the pallet adjusting the little power pack radio. The SP ship should now be within range of the set. The space patrol was notorious for its accuracy in keeping to schedule. Seconds counted like years, but they had to be on the nose or it meant disaster or death. He sent out the call letters. AX to SP 101. AX to SP 101. AX to SP 101. Three times he sent the call. Then began sending his message, hoping that his signal was reaching the ship. He couldn't know if they answered. Though the power pack could get out a message over a vast distance, it could not pick up messages even when backed by an SP ship's power unless the ship was only a few hundred miles away. The power pack was strictly a distress signal. He didn't know how long he'd been sending or how many times his weary voice had repeated the short but desperate message. He kept watching the heavens and hoping. Abruptly he knew the SP ship was coming for the blue ship of the steel blues was rising silently from the asteroids. Up and up it rose. Then flames flickered in a circle from its curious shape. The ship disappeared suddenly accelerating. John Karl strained his eyes. Finally he looked away from the heavens to the two steel blues who stood negligently outside the goldfish bowl. Once more John used the stub ray pistol. He marched out the plastic igloo and ran towards the service station. He didn't know how weak he was until he stumbled and fell only a few feet from his prison. The steel blues just watched him. He crawled on around the circular pit on the sword of the asteroid where one steel blue had shown him the power of his weapon. He'd been crawling through a nightmare for years when the quiet voice penetrated his dulled mind. Take it easy Karl. You're among friends. He bright opened his eyes with his will. He saw the blue and gold with space guards uniform. He sighed and drifted into unconsciousness. He was still weak days later when Captain Ron Small of SP 101 said, Yes Karl it's ironical. They fed you what they thought was sure death and it's the only thing that kept you going long enough to warn us. I was dumb for a long time Karl said. I thought that it was the acid almost to the very last but when I drank that last glass I knew they didn't have a chance. They were metal monsters. No wonder they feared that liquid. It would rust their joints short their wiring and kill them. No wonder they stared when I kept alive after drinking enough to completely annihilate a half dozen of them. But what happened when you met the ship? The space Captain Grant. Not much. Our crew was busy creating a hollow shell filled with water to be shot out of a rocket tube converted into a projectile thrower. Those steel blues as you call them put traction beams on us and started tugging us towards the asteroid. We tried a couple of atomic shots but they just glanced off. We gave up. They weren't expecting the shell of water. When it hit the blue ship you could almost see it oxidized before your eyes. I guess they knew what was wrong right away. They let go the traction beams and tried to get away. They forgot about the force field so we just poured atomic fire into the weakened ship. It just melted away. John Carl got up from the devan where he'd been lying. They thought I was a metal creature too. But where do you suppose they came from? The Captain shrugged. Who knows. John set two glasses on the table. Have a drink of the best damn water in the solar system. He asked Captain Small. Don't mind if I do. The water twinkled in the two glasses. Winking as if it knew just what it had done. This is the end of Acid Bath by Vastilov Garson. This has been a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by John Feaster. The Alternate Plan by Jerry Madrin. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Jason and Golfsland. The Alternate Plan by Jerry Madrin. Bart Neely was fighting the hypo. They slipped that over on him. Now he had to struggle to keep his brain ready for Plan B, The Alternate Plan. He nodded feebly at his reflection in the mirror over the white enamel dresser. This throat trouble wasn't going to lick him. He lay back on the cool white pillow. Metal-Kulman always thought theirs was the final answer. Well, psychologist like himself knew there was a broader view of man than the anatomical. There was a vast region of energy at man's disposal. The switch to turn it on located in the brain. Rubbersold's shoes squished across the bare floor as Dr. Jonas Morton came into Bart's room. His hair was hidden by a sterile cap, his arms bare to well above the elbows. Looks like a damn butcher, thought Bart. Bart, I want you to reconsider the anesthetic. I think you ought to be out for this one, completely out. The doctor's voice became a shade less professional. I don't tell you how to run your perception experiments. I think you ought to let me judge what's best in the surgical area. No, Bart whispered hoarsely. It was a hell-squeezing the words out. Lifting his voice these days was harder than lifting a half-toned truck. Must be conscious, able to decide. Jonas had to lean down to catch all the words. Not going to let you take my voice while I'm unconscious, helpless. Dr. Morton shook his head. You're the boss. How soon? Twenty minutes, the professional tone became pronounced again. Your wife's outside waiting to see you. Don't get emotional. I don't want your endocrine system in unpror. The doctor stepped out into the corridor. Emotional. He mustn't think about it. He might weaken, consent to linger on, and invalid, just to be with Vivian a few extra years. Extra years of indignities calculated to twist the man-woman relationship into an ugly distortion. How romantic it would be. He and Vivian locked in an embrace, the silky softness of her hair falling across his arm, the pressure of her fingers on his back, and then instead of placing his mouth against her ear and whisper familiar intimacies, he would switch on the light, disengage himself so that he could whip out a pad and pencil, and his heart skipped at the sound of a pattern of high heels on the corridor. Vivian. Vivian. Her perfume pricked his senses and it took effort to shout out the emotional response. Remember the need for an alternate plan? He reminded himself fiercely and then looked upon into his wife's clear green eyes. Without a word, she bent down and laid her face next to his. He was struck with warmth of her. He gently pushed her head away. V. My lord, his eyes were wet. What a schoolboy performance. V, you know I don't want to go on here. If radical surgery is necessary, I want you to remember he has a whole man, not a dummy. Bart. Oh, Bart. There was a frown of apprehension on her forehead. She sighed heavily and whispered. Can it make so much difference when I love you, Bart? But don't you see, V? It may not be Bart Neely they wheel back here after the operation. He motioned for her to bend closer for the sound of his voice was becoming weaker. In my field, I've seen a lot of crazy reactions to loss of basic ability. Personality reversals brought about by loss of hearing, impotency, or even the inability to bear a child. He stroked the back of her hand with his fingers. Bart Neely, without a voice box, might be a stranger. I'm not sure you'd like him. I don't think I'd even like him. An intern backed into the room followed by a gurney. Bart shot a look at V. This is plan A. V's eyebrows arched into question. Exploration end, he paused. The nurse tucked a dark green blanket all around him. He raised his thin white hand and crossed two fingers. And we hope a negative biopsy. There was no pain. Whatever the anesthesiast had work out was doing nicely. The overhead light, however, was giving him a headache and the operating room was damned cold. Jonas and Hull's claw weren't talking much, and what they did say wasn't loud enough for Bart to get. He studied their faces. I'll know by their faces, he assured himself, and if it's widespread malignancy, I'll proceed with plan B. The sweat was heavy on Jonas's forehead. The sterile mask hit his nose and mouth, but his eyes, behind the lenses of his glasses, looked moist and tired. The surgeon's glove fingers manipulated, probed, cut. Finally, he turned to a waiting nurse. Get this analyzed right away. That was it, the tissue. Was it cancerous or not? The atmosphere grew heavy. Bart watched the second hand on the large wall clock swing slowly around its perimeter, and then around again and again. The nurse re-entered and spoke softly to the doctor. The two doctors whispered, explaining to each other with hand motions what they were going to do. This is it. Bart was certain. Well, he'd fool the hell out of the know-it-all doctors. He closed his eyes and thought. The years he had spent sharpening his perception, his ability to transfer his thoughts, were just the groundwork for this greatest experiment of all. He had transferred thought waves in all forms to all corners of this world with the highest percentage of accuracy. Now plan B, the alternate plan, was to transfer himself. He was willing himself out of his own body. He could feel the perspiration trickle down his arms with the effort. It had to work. He had to cheat them out of their mutilation. No, he couldn't fail. He strained against the confines of his body, burdening his brain with the thought. Then suddenly he was free. Bart wanted to shriek with laughter. He outwitted them. There stood gray-faced Jonas working over that shell, not even realizing that it was an empty body. It was like a television play or something. Everyone clustered around a port stiff on the operating table, repeating the litany of the sawbones, scalpel, sponge, clamps. Bart mentally chuckled and fluttered himself upwards above the square-shaped hospital with its rows of tiny windows. Beyond the polluted air of the city, up and up until there was nothing to look back on, nothing. Now Bart perceived something ahead. It appeared to be a body of land. It looked marvelously appealing, dark greens, bright yellows, and all the shades in between. He hurried forward eager to explore what lay ahead. But as he drew closer, becoming more excited over its possibilities, he struck a cold hard surface which repelled him. It was like glass and through it Bart could see a poorly defined figure some distance away. Bart was intrigued. This was a mental barrier thrown up by the fellow on the other side. Well, he'd give the guy some competition. Bart concentrated on crackling the wall, building a visual picture of the breakthrough in his mind. It's useless. You can't enter here. Why do you oppose me? Bart tested the unseen wall, but found no weakness in its structure. We don't care for your sort. Is that so? And how have you classified me? As a coward, a suicide, a man of meager resources, I'm nothing of the kind. In the first place, I did not commit suicide. Bart wished he could kick at the invisible wall. I willed myself away from an imperfect shell. I severed the mind from the body. Why? Because I had a cancer of the larynx and I never have been able to talk again. I'd be less than a man. You are less than a man now. There was a long period of no exchange. Bart decided he had not made himself clear. I didn't want to live without being able to communicate with other men and women. Communicate, communicate. There are a million ways to communicate. Michelangelo communicated. Bach, Beethoven, yes, Elvis Presley communicates. Hemingway, Martha Graham, actors, dancers, even a baby communicates. But speech, speech is the least dependable method of all. Few people can explain their love, their pain, their innermost feelings, and words. And often a man speaks his thoughts and having spoken them finds he really thinks the opposite. No, this is a second rate expression and my opinion of you has not been altered by your feeble argument. The other fellow's thought came over the wall, pounding against Bart's subconscious. You consider yourself a man of great intelligence, it went on. But your lack of imagination makes you less than mediocre. And as for your mind power, well, you see you cannot cross my mental barrier. That's not entirely conclusive. There may be a catalyst here in this area, which works in conjunction with your thought processes and not mine. You're familiar with conditions here, while I only know the earth. You are hardly a challenge to me. However, to satisfy you that you practically know control, let us make a test on your home ground. All right, you propose the test. Let us see. If you can re-enter your former body while I am willing you to stay here on the other side of that wall. Aha, you're trying to trick me. I knew before I proposed my plan you would make exactly that excuse in order to escape my challenge. Even in excuses you lacked imagination. Okay, it's a deal, Bart was mad. Start concentrating. I'll show you the power of my mind, both now and after I resume that shell. Bart was furious. He had tried to leave that place by the wall. He seemed stuck. There were waves like laughter vibrating against the glass. Bart strained and saw that he had come away a little. He tried again and again. There was a little more distance gained. He tried to build the picture of the operating room in his mind. And while he was doing this, a flash of Vivian exploded in his mind. With that quick image, he felt himself free to drift downward. There indeed was the hospital. Bart hurried to the operating room, hovering near the ceiling light, watching the operating team below. He's gone, Doctor. The anesthesias looked at Jonas. Respirations stopped altogether. No, thought Bart. Don't close me out now. Let's open the chest and massage the heart. Yes, yes. I think it's feudal, Doctor. We can try. Good old Jonas. Bart floated to the table and forced himself into the shell, which lay white and unmoving under the penetrating light from above. It wasn't easy. Bart tried to move the heavy hand, but it was quite numb. Not a thing. Might as well quit. Hull's claws in a hurry damn him. I'll massage a little longer. Bart pushed at the laden eyelid. No go. Come on, come on. He felt a convulsive chill, a throbbing in his head. I'm getting a pulse. Jonas' voice was excited. Bart knew there was a searing pain in his throat, but shutting it out of his consciousness was a steady thumping beat of his own heart. End of The Alternate Plan by Jerry Madron. Recording by Jason in Golfsland, Minnesota. Visit my blog at ingonotes.blogspot.com. B-12's Moonglow by Charles A. Stearns. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or how to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Rating by Bologna Times. B-12's Moonglow 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 the 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 their periodic commas 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 ago, and yet I recognized the subspecies at once, for they are common on earth. It was a shee. It was in the process of removing certain outer sheaths, and I noted that, while quite symmetrical bilaterally, it was otherwise oddly formed, being disproportionately large and lumpy in the anterior ventral region. I had watched for some two or three minutes, entirely forgetting my own safety, when then she saw me. Its eyes widened, and it snatched up the alarm clock, which was, as I have hinted, near at hand. Get out of here, you nosy old tin can, it screamed, and through the clock, which crowned off my headpiece, damaging one earphone. I ran. If you still do not see what I mean, about racial prejudice, you will, when you hear what happened later. I continued on until I came to Benny's place, entering through the back door. Benny met me there, and quickly shushed me into a side room. His fluorescent eyes were glowing with excitement. Benny's real name is BNE96, and when on earth, he had been only a servitor, not a general purpose like myself. But perhaps I should explain. We metal people are the children of the builders of earth, and later of Mars and Venus. We were not born of two parents, as they are. That is a function far too complex to explain here. In fact, I do not even understand it myself. No, we were born of the hands and intellects of the greatest of their scientists, and for this reason it might be natural to suppose that we, and not they, would be considered a superior race. It is not so. Many of us were fashioned in those days, a metal person, for every kind of task, that they could devise, and some like myself, who could do almost anything. We were contented enough for the greater part, but the scientists kept creating, always striving to better their former efforts, and one day the situation which the builders had always regarded as inevitable, but we, somehow, had supposed would never come, was upon us. The first generation of the metal people, more than fifty thousand of us, were obsolete. The things that we had been designed to do, the new ones, with their crystalline brains, fresh, untarnished, accomplished, better. We were banished, taffobos, dreary, lifeless moon of Mars. It had long been a sort of interplanetary junkyard. Now it became a graveyard. Upon the barren face of this little world, there was no life, except for the handful of hardy, martian, and taran prospectors who searched for minerals. Later on, a few rude mining communities sprang up under plastic aerodromes, but never came to much. Argonne City was such a place. I wonder if you can comprehend the loneliness, the hollow futility of our plight. Fifty thousand skilled workmen, with nothing to do. Some of the less adaptable gave up, prostrating themselves upon the bare rocks, until their joints froze from lack of use, and their works corroded. Others served the miners and prospectors, but their needs were all too few. The overwhelming majority of us were still idle, and somehow we learned the secret of racial existence at last. We learned to serve each other. This was not an easy lesson to learn, in the first place, there must be motivation involved in racial preservation, yet we derived no pleasure out of the things that make the builders wish to continue to live. We did not sleep, we did not eat, and we were not able to reproduce ourselves, and besides, this latter, as I have indicated, would have been pointless with us. There was, however, one other pleasure of the builders that intrigued us. It can best be described as a stimulation produced by drenching their insides with alcoholic compounds, and is a universal pastime among the males and many of the sheaths. One of us, R-47, I think it was, rest him. Tried it one day. He pried open the top of his helmet, and poured an entire bottle of the fluid down his mechanism. Poor R-47, he caught fire and blazed up in a glorious blue flame that we could not extinguish in time. He was beyond repair, and we were forced to scrap him. But he was not a sacrifice in vain. He had established an idea in our unwee bursting minds, an idea which led to the discovery of Moonglow. My discovery, I should say, for I was the first. Naturally I cannot divulge my secret formula for Moonglow. There are many kinds of Moonglow these days, but there is still only one B-12 Moonglow. Suffice it to say that it is a high octane preparation, only a drop of which, but you know the effects of Moonglow, of course. How the mirrors thimble full when judiciously poured into one's power pack gives new life and the most deliriously happy freedom of movement imaginable. One possesses soaring spirits and super strength. Old rusted joints move freely once more, once transistors glow brightly, and the currents of the body race about with the minutest resistance. Moonglow is like being born again. The sale of it has been illegal for several years for no reason that I can think of, except that the builders who make the laws cannot bear to see metal people have fun. Of course a part of the blame rests on such individuals as X-101, who, when lubricated with Moonglow, insists upon dancing around on large cast-iron feet to the hazard of alt-hose in his vicinity. He is thin and long-jointed, and he goes creak creak in a weird sing-song fashion as he dances. It is a shameful ludicrous sight. Then there was DC-5, who tore down the 300-feet-long equipment hanger of the builders one night. He had over-indulged. I do not feel responsible for these things. If I had not sold them, the Moonglow, someone else would have done so. Besides, I am only a wholesaler. Benny buys everything that I am able to produce in my little laboratory, hidden out in the dumps. Just now, by Benny's attitude, I knew that something was very wrong. What is the matter, I said? Is it the Revenue Agents? I do not know, said BNE-96, in that curious, flat voice of his that is incapable of inflection. I do not know, but there are visitors of importance from earth. It could mean anything, but I have a premonition of disaster. John, tip me off. He meant John Rogison, of course, who was the peace-officer here in Argonne City, and the only one of the builders I had ever met who did not look down upon a metal person. When sober, he was a clever person who always looked out for our interests here. What are they like? I asked in some fear, for I had six vials of Moonglow with me at the moment. I have not seen them, but there is one who is high in the government and his wife. There are half a dozen others of the builder race and one of the new-type metal persons. I had met the she who must have been the wife. They hate us, I said. We can expect only evil from these persons. You may be right. If you have any merchandise with you, I will take it, but do not risk bringing more here until they have gone. I produced the vials of Moonglow, and he paid me in phobos credits, which are good for a specified number of refuelings at the central fueling station. Benny put the vials away, and he went into the bar. There was the usual jostling crowd of hard-bitten earth miners and of the metal people who come to lose their loneliness. I recognized many. Though I spent very little time in these places, preferring solitary pursuits, such as the distillation of Moonglow and improving my mind by study and contemplation out in the barons. John Rogison and I saw each other at the same time, and I did not like the expression in his eye as he crooked a finger at me. I went over to his table. He was pleasant-looking, as builders go, with blue eyes less dull than most, and a brown unruly top knot of hair, such as is universally affected by them. Sit down, he invited, revealing his white incisors in greeting. I never sit, but this time I did so, to be polite. I was wary, ready for anything. I knew that there was something unpleasant in the air. I wondered if he had seen me passing the Moonglow to Benny somehow. Perhaps he had barrier penetrating vision, like the Z-group of metal people. But I had never heard of a builder like that. I knew that he had long suspected that I made Moonglow. What do you want? I asked cautiously. Come on now, he said. Loosen up. Lember those stainless steel hinges of yours and be friendly. That made me feel good. Actually, I am somewhat pitted with rust, but he never seems to notice, for he is like that. I felt young, as if I had partaken of my own product. The fact is, B-12, he said. I want you to do me a farewell, pal. And what is that? Perhaps you have heard that there is some big brass from earth visiting Phobos this week. I have heard nothing, I said. It is often helpful to appear ignorant when questioned by the builders, for they believe us to be incapable of misrepresenting the truth. The fact is, though it is an acquired trait and not built into us, we general purposes can lie as well as any one. Well, there is. A Federation Senator, no less, Simon F. Langley. It's my job to keep them entertained. That's where you come in. I was mystified. I had never heard of this Langley. But I know what entertainment is. I had a mental image of myself singing or dancing before the Senator's party. But I cannot sing very well, for three of my voice reads are broken, and have never been replaced, and lateral motion, for me, is almost impossible these days. I do not know what you mean, I said. There is J-66. He was once an entertainment. No, no, he interrupted. You don't get it. What the Senator wants is a guide. They're making a survey of the dumps, though I'll be damned if I can find out why. And you know the dumps better than any metal person, or human, on Phobos. So that was it. I felt a vague dread, a premonition of disaster. I had such feelings before, and usually with reason. This, too, was an acquired sensibility, I am sure. For many years I have studied the builders, and there is much to be learned of their mobile faces and their eyes. In John's eyes, however, I read no trickery. Nothing. Yet I say I had the sensation of evil. It was just for a moment, no longer. I said I would think it over. Senator Langley was distinguished. John said so. And yet he was cumbersomely round, and he rattled incessantly of things into which I could interpret no meaning. The she, who was his wife, was much younger, and sullen, and unpleasantly I sensed great rapport between her and John Rogerson from the very first. There were several other humans in the group. I will not call them builders, for I did not hold them to be, in any way, superior to my own people. They all were spectacles, and they gravitated about the round body of the senator, like minor moons, and I could tell that they were some kind of servitors. I will not describe them further. MS. 33 I will describe. I felt an unconscionable hatred for him at once. I cannot say why, except that he hung about his master, obsequiously, power-packed, smoothly purring, and he was slim-limbed, nickel-plated, and wore, I thought, a smug expression on his visi-plate. He represented the new order, the ones who had displaced us on earth. He knew too much, and showed it at every opportunity. We did not go far that first morning. The half-track was driven to the edge of the dumps. Within the dumps one walks, or does not go. Phobos is an airless world, and yet so small that rockets are impractical. The terrain is broken and littered with the refuse of half a dozen worlds, but the dumps themselves, that is different. Imagine, if you can, an endless vista of death, a sea of rusting corpses of spaceships, and worn-out mining machinery, and of those of my race, whose power-packs burned out, or who simply gave up, retiring into this endless, corroding limbo of the barons. A more somber sight was never seen, but this fat ghoul, Langley, sickened me. This shame of the builder race, this adivism, this beast, rubbed his fat, impractical hands together with an ungodlike glee. Excellent, he said. Far, far better, in fact, than I had hoped. He did not elucidate. I looked at John Rogerson. He shook his head slowly. You there, robot! said Langley, looking at me. How far crosses this place? The word was like a blow. I could not answer. MS-33, glistening in the dying light of Mars, strode over to me, clanking heavily, up on the black rocks. He seized me with his grapples and shook me until my wiring was in danger of shorting out. Speak up when you are spoken to archaic mechanism, he created. I would have struck out at him, but what use, except to warp my own aging limbs? John Rogerson came to my rescue. On Phobos, he explained to Langley, we don't use that word, robot. These folk have been free a long time. They have quite a culture of their own nowadays, and they like to be called metal people. As a return courtesy, they refer to us humans as builders. Just a custom, Senator, but if you want to get along with them. Can they vote? said Langley, grinning at his own sour humor. Nonsense, said MS-33. I am a robot and proud of it. This rusty piece has no call to put on errors. Release him, Langley said. Droll fellows, these discarded robots. Really nothing but mechanical dolls, you know, but I think the old scientists made a mistake, giving them such human appearance in such obstinate traits. Oh, it was true enough, from his point of view. We had been mechanical dolls at first, I suppose, but fifty years can change one. All I know is this. We are people. We think and feel, and are happy and sad, and quite often we are bored stiff with this dreary moon of Phobos. It seared me. My selenium cells throbbed white hot within the shell of my frame, and I made up my mind that I would learn more about the mission of this Langley, and I would get even with MS-33, even if they had me dismantled for it. Of the rest of that week I recall few pleasant moments. We went out every day, and the quick-eyed servants of Langley measured the areas with their instruments, and exchanged significant looks from behind their spectacles, smug in their thin air helmets. It was all very mysterious and disturbing. But I could discover nothing about their mission, and when I questioned MS-33 he would look important and say nothing. Somehow it seemed vital that I find out what was going on before it was too late. On the third day there was a strange occurrence. My friend, John Rogison, had been taking pictures of the dumps. Langley and his wife had withdrawn to one side and were talking in low tones to one another. Quite thoughtlessly John turned the lens on them and clicked the shutter. Langley became rust red throughout the vast expanse of his neck and face. Here, he said, what are you doing? Nothing, said John. You took a picture of me, snarled Langley. Give me the plate at once. John Rogison got a bit red himself. He was not used to being ordered around. I'll be damned if I will, he said. Langley growled something I couldn't understand and turned his back on us. The she, who was called his wife, looked startled and worried. Her eyes were beseeching as she looked at John. A message there, but I could not read it. John looked away. Langley started walking back to the half-track alone. He turned once and there was evil in his gaze as he looked at John. You will lose your job for this impertinence, he said, with quiet savagery, and added enigmatically. Not that there will be a job after this week anyway. Builders may appear to act without reason, but there is always a motivation somewhere in their complex brains if one can only find it, either in the seat of reason or in the labyrinthine inhibitions from their childhood. I knew this, because I had studied them, and now there were certain notions that came into my brain which, even if I could not prove them, were no less interesting for that. The time had come to act. I could scarcely wait for darkness to come. There were things in my brain that appalled me, but now I was certain that I had been right. Something was about to happen to Phobos, to all of us here. I knew not what, but I must prevent it somehow. I kept in the shadows of the shabby buildings of Argon City, and I found the window without effort. The place where I had spied upon the wife of Langley to my sorrow the other night, there was no one there. There was darkness within, but that did not deter me. Within the air-drome which covers Argon City, the buildings are loosely constructed, even as they are on earth. I had no trouble, therefore, opening the window. I swung a leg up, and was presently within the darkened room. I found the door I sought, and entered cautiously. In this adjacent compartment I made a thorough search, but I did not find what I primarily sought, namely, the elusive reason for Langley's visit to Phobos. It was in a metallic overnight bag, that I did find something else, which made my power-pack hum so loudly that I was afraid of being heard. The thing which explained the strangeness of the pompous senator's attitude to-day, which explained, in short, many things, and caused my brain to race with new ideas, I put the thing in my chest container, and left as stealthily as I had come. There had been progress, but since I had not found what I hoped to find, I must now try my alternate plan. Two hours later I found the one I sought, and made sure that I was seen by him. Then I left Argon City by the south lot, furtively, as a thief, always glancing over my shoulder, and when I made certain that I was being followed I went swiftly, and it was not long before I was clamoring over the first heaps of debris at the edge of the dumps. Once I thought I heard footsteps behind me, but when I looked back there was no one in sight, just the tiny disk of demos peering over the sharp peak of the nearest ridge, the black velvet sky outlining the curvature of this airless moon. Presently I was inside of home, the time eaten hull of an ancient star freighter resting near the top of a heap of junked equipment from some old strip-mining operation. It would never rise again, but its shell remained strong enough to shelter my distillery and scant furnishings from any chance meteorite that might fall. I greeted it with the usual warmth of feeling which one has for the safe and the familiar. I stumbled over ten fuel cans, wires, and other tangled metal in my haste to get there. It was just as I had left it. The heating element under the network of coils and pressure chambers still glowed with white heat, and the moon glow was dripping with musical sound into the retort. I felt good. No one ever bothered me here. This was my fortress, with all that I cared for inside, my tools, my work, my micro-library, and yet I had deliberately, something, a heavy foot, clanked upon the first step of the man-port, through which I had entered. I turned quickly, the form shimmered in the pale, demo-slate that silhouetted it. MS-33 He had followed me here. What do you want? I said. What are you doing here? A simple question, said MS-33. Tonight you look very suspicious when you left Argonne City. I saw you and followed you here. You may as well know that I've never trusted you. All the old ones were unreliable. That is why you were replaced. He came in boldly, without being invited, and looked around. I detected a sneer in his voice as he said, so this is where you hide. I do not hide. I live here. It is true. A robot does not live. A robot exists. We newer models do not require shelter like an animal. We are rust-proof and invulnerable. He strode over to my micro-library, several racks of carefully arranged spools, and fingered them irreverently. What is this? My library. So our memories are built into us. We have no need to refresh them. So is mine, I said, but I would learn more than I know. I was stalling for time, waiting until he made the right opening. Nonsense, he said. I know why you stay out here in the dumps, masterless. I have heard of the forbidden drug that is sold in the mining camps, such as Argonne City. Is this the mechanism? He pointed at the still. Now is the time. I mustered all my cunning, but I could not speak. Not yet. Never mind, he said. I can see that it is. I shall report you, of course. It will give me great pleasure to see you dismantled. But that it really matters, of course, now. There it was again, the same frightening illusion that Langley had made to-day. I must succeed. I knew that MS-33, for all his brilliance and newness and vaunted superiority, was only a secretarial. For the age of specialism was upon earth, and general purpose models were no longer made. That was why we were different here on Phobos. It was why we had survived. The old ones had given us something special, which the new metal people did not have. Moreover, MS-33 had his weakness. He was larger, stronger, faster than me, but I doubted that he could be devious. You are right, I said, pretending resignation. This is my distillery. It is where I make the fluid, which is called Moonglow, by the metal people of Phobos. Doubtless you are interested in learning how it works. Not even remotely interested, he said. I am interested only in taking you back and turning you over to the authorities. It works much like the conventional distilling planets of earth, I said, except that the basic ingredient, a silicon compound, is irradiated as it passes through zirconian tubes to the heating pile, where it is activated and broken down into the droplets of the elixir called Moonglow. You see the golden drops falling there. It has the excellent flavor of fine petroleum. As I make it, perhaps you'd care to taste it. Then you could understand that it is not really bad at all. Perhaps you could persuade yourself to be more lenient with me. Certainly not," said MS. 33. Perhaps you are right, I said, after a moment of reflection. I took a syringe, drew up several drops of the stuff, and squirted it into my carapace, where it would do the most good. I felt much better. Yes, I continued. Certainly you are quite correct. Now that I think of it, you knew our models would never bear it. You weren't built to stand such things. Nor for that matter could you comprehend the exquisite joys that are derived from Moonglow. Not only would you derive no pleasure from it, but it would corrode your parts, I imagine, until you could scarcely crawl back to your master for repairs. I helped myself to another liberal portion. That is the silliest thing I've ever heard, he said. What? I said, it's silly. We are constructed to withstand a hundred times of greater stress, and twice as many chemical actions as you were. Nothing could hurt us. Besides, it looks harmless enough. I doubt that it is hardly anything at all. For me it is not, I admitted, but you. Give me the syringe, fool! I dare not. Give it here! I allowed him to rust it from my grasp. In any case, I could not have prevented him. He shoved me backwards against the rusty bulkhead, with a clang. He pushed the nozzle of the syringe down into the retort, and withdrew it, filled with Moonglow. He opened an inspection plate in his ventral region, and squirted himself generously. It was quite a dose. He waited for a moment. I feel nothing, he said finally. I do not believe it is anything more than common lubricating oil. He was silent for another moment. There is an ease of movement, he said. No paralysis, I asked. Perout, you stupid rust-ealed robot! He helped himself to another syringe-fill of Moonglow. The stuff brought twenty credits an ounce, but I did not begrudge it him. He flexed his superbly articulated joints in three directions, and I could hear his power unit building up within him to a whining pitch. He took a shuffling sidestep, and then another, gazing down at his feet with arms akimbo. The light gravity here is superb, superb, superb, superb, superb! He said, skipping a bit. Isn't it? I said. Almost negligible, he said. True. You have been very kind to me, MS-33 said. Extremely, extraordinarily, incomparably, incalculably, kind. He eased up all the adjectives and his memory pack. I wonder if you would mind awfully much, if not at all, I said. Help yourself. By the way, friend, would you mind telling me what your real mission of your party is here on Phobos? The senator forgot to say. Secret, he said. Horribly top secret. As a dutiful subject, I mean servant of earth, I could not, of course, divulge it to anyone. If I could, his neon eyes glistened. If I could, you would, of course, be the first to know, the very first. He threw one nickel-plated arm around my shoulder. I see, I said. And just what is it that you are not allowed to tell me? Why, that we are making a preliminary survey here on Phobos, of course, to determine whether or not it is worthwhile to send salvage for scrap. Earth is short of metals, and it depends upon what the old muh, the master, says in his report. You mean they'll take all the derelict spaceships, such as this one, and all the abandoned equipment? And the robots, MS33 said. They're metal, too, you know. They're going to take the dismantled robots? MS33 made a sweeping gesture. They're going to take all the robots, dismantled or not. They're not good for anything anyway. The bill is up, before the Federation Congress right now, and it will pass if my master, Langley, says so. He padded my helmet, consolingly, his grapples clanking. If you were worth a damn, you know, he concluded sorrowfully. That's murder, I said. And I meant it. Man's inhumanity to metal people, I thought. Yes, to man, even if we were made of metal. How's that? said MS33, foggly. Have another drop of munglo, I said. I've got to get back to Argonne City. I made it back to Benny's place without incident. I had never moved so swiftly. I sent Benny out to find John Rogerson. And presently, he brought him back. I told Rogerson what MS33 had said, watching his reaction carefully. I could not forget that though he had been our friend, he was still one of the builders, a human who thought as humans. You comprehend, I said grimly, that one word of this will bring in uprising of fifty thousand metal people, which can be put down only at much expense and with great destruction. We are free people. The builders exiled us here, and therefore lost their claim to us. We have as much right to life as any one. And we do not wish to be melted up and made into printing presses and spaceships and like. I'm fools, John said softly. Listen, B-12, you've got to believe me. I didn't know a thing about this, though I've suspected something was up. I'm on your side, but what are we going to do? Maybe they'll listen to reason. Vera, that is the name of the she. No, they will not listen to reason. They hate us. I recalled with bitterness the episode of Alarm Clock. There is a chance. However, I have not been idle this night. If you will go get Langley and meet me in the back room here at Benny's, we will talk. But he'll be asleep. Awaken him, I said. Get him here. Your own job is at stake, as well, remember. I'll get him, John said grimly. Wait here. I went over to the bar where Benny was serving the miners. Benny had always been my friend. John was my friend, too, but he was a builder. I wanted one of my own people to know what was going on, just in case something happened to me. We were talking there, in low tones, when I saw MS-33. He came in through the front door, and there was purposefulness in his stride that had not been there when I left him back at the old Hulk. The effects of the Moonglow had worn off much quicker than I had expected. He had come for vengeance. He would tell about my distillery, and that would be the end of me. There was only one thing to do, and I must do it fast. Quick, I ordered Benny. Douse the lights. He complied. The place was plunged into darkness. I knew that it was darkness, and yet, you comprehend, I still sensed everything in the place, for I had the special visual sensory system bequeathed only to the general purposes of a bygone age. I could see, but hardly anyone else could. I worked swiftly, and I got what I was after in a very short time. I ducked out of the front door with it, and threw it in a silvery arc as far as I could hurl it. It was an intricate little thing, which could not, I am sure, have been duplicated on the entire moon of Phobos. When I returned, someone had put the lights back on, but it didn't matter now. MS-33 was sitting at one of the tables, staring fixedly at me. He said nothing. Benny was motioning for me to come into the back room. I went to him. John Rogerson and Langley were there. Langley looked irritated. He was a mumbling, strangled curses and rubbing his eyes. John laughed. You may be interested in knowing, B-12, that I had to arrest him to get him here. This had better be good. It is all bad, I said. Very bad. But necessary. I turned to Langley. It is said that your present survey is being made with the purpose of condemning all of Phobos, the dead and the living alike, to the blast furnaces and the metal shops of earth. Is this true? Why, you impudent, miserable piece of tin, what if I am making a scrap survey? What are you going to do about it? You're nothing but a rope. So it is true. But you will tell the salvage ships not to come. It is yours to decide. And you will decide that we are not worth bothering with here on Phobos. You will save us. I—lustered Langley—you will. I took the thing out of my breastplate container and showed it to him. He grew pale. John said, Well, I'll be damned. It was a picture of Langley and another. I gave it to John. His wife, I said, his real wife. I am sure of it, for you will note the inscription on the bottom. Then Vera is not his wife. You wonder that he was camera shy. Housebreaker! roared Langley. It's a plot—a dirty reactionary plot. It is what is called blackmail, I said. I turn to John. I am correct about this. You are, John said. You are instructed to leave Phobos, I said to Langley. And you will allow my friend here to keep his job as peace-officer, for without it he would be lost. I have observed that in these things the builders are hardly more adaptable than their children, the metal people. You will do all this, and in return we will not send the picture that John took today to your wife, nor otherwise inform her of your transgression, for I am told that this is a transgression. It is indeed, agreed John gravely, right Langley. All right, Langley snarled. You win, and the sooner I get out of this hole the better. He got up to go, squeezing his fat form through the door into the bar, past the gaping miners, heedless of the metal people. We watched him go with some satisfaction. It is no business of mine, I said to John, but I have seen you look with longing upon the she that was not Langley's wife. Since she does not belong to him, there is nothing to prevent you from having her. Should not that make you happy? Are you kidding?" he snarled, which proves that I have still much to learn about his race. Out front, Langley spied his metal servant, MS-33, just as he was going out the door. He turned to him. What are you doing here? He asked suspiciously. MS-33 made no answer. He stared malevolently at the bar, ignoring Langley. Come on here, damn you, Langley said. MS-33 said nothing. Langley went over to him and roared foul things into his earphones that would corrode one soul if one had one. I shall never forget that moment. The screaming, red-faced Langley, the laughing miners. But he got no reply from MS-33, not then or ever, and this was scarcely strange, for I had removed his fuse. End of B-12's Moonglow by Charles A. Stearns The Eyes Have It by Philip K. Dick This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information nor to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Greg Marguerite The Eyes Have It by Philip K. Dick It was quite by accident I discovered this incredible invasion of earth by lifeforms from another planet. As yet I haven't done anything about it. I can't think of anything to do. I wrote to the government and they sent back a pamphlet on the repair and maintenance of framehouses. Anyhow, the whole thing is known. I'm not the first to discover it. Maybe it's even under control. I was sitting in my easy chair, idly turning the pages of a paper-backed book someone had left on the bus when I came across the reference that first put me on the trail. For a moment I didn't respond. It took some time for the full import to sink in. After I'd comprehended it seemed odd I hadn't noticed it right away. The reference was clearly to a non-human species of incredible properties, not indigenous to earth. A species I hasten to point out, customarily masquerading as ordinary human beings. Their disguise, however, became transparent in the face of the following observations by the author. It was at once obvious the author knew everything, knew everything, and was taking it in his stride. The line, and I tremble, remembering it even now, read, his eyes slowly roved about the room. Vague chills assailed me. I tried to picture the eyes. Did they roll like dimes? The passage indicated not. They seemed to move through the air, not over the surface, rather rapidly, apparently. No one in the story was surprised. That's what tipped me off. No sign of amazement at such an outrageous thing. Later the matter was amplified. His eyes moved from person to person. There it was in a nutshell. The eyes had clearly come apart from the rest of him and were on their own. My heart pounded and my breath choked in my windpipe. I had stumbled on an accidental mention of a totally unfamiliar race. Obviously non-terrestrial. Yet to the characters in the book it was perfectly natural, which suggested they belonged to the same species. A slow suspicion burned in my mind. The author was taking it rather too easily in his stride. Evidently he felt this was quite a usual thing. He made absolutely no attempt to conceal this knowledge. The story continued. Presently his eyes fastened on Julia. Julia, being a lady, had at least the breeding to feel indignant. She is described as blushing and knitting her brows angrily. At this I sighed with relief. They weren't all non-terrestrials. The narrative continues. Slowly, calmly, his eyes examined every inch of her. Great Scott! But here the girl turned and stomped off and the matter ended. I lay back in my chair, gasping with horror. My wife and family regarded me in wonder. What's wrong, dear? My wife asked. I couldn't tell her. Knowledge like this was too much for the ordinary run of the mill person. I had to keep it to myself. Nothing, I gasped. I leaped up, snatched the book, and hurried out of the room. In the garage I continued reading. There was more. Trembling, I read the next revealing passage. He put his arm around Julia. Presently she asked him if he would remove his arm. He immediately did so, with a smile. It's not said what was done with the arm after the fellow had removed it. Maybe it was left standing upright in the corner. Maybe it was thrown away. I don't care. In any case, the full meaning was there, staring me right in the face. Here was a race of creatures capable of removing portions of their anatomy. It will. Eyes, arms, and maybe more. Without batting an eyelash. My knowledge of biology came in handy at this point. Obviously they were simple beings, unicellular, some sort of primitive, single-celled things. Beings no more developed than starfish. Starfish can do the same thing, you know. I read on, and came to this incredible revelation, tossed off coolly by the author without the faintest tremor. Outside the movie theater, we split up. Part of us went inside, part over to the cafe for dinner. Binary fission, obviously. Splitting in half and forming two entities, probably each lower half went to the cafe, it being farther, and the upper halves to the movies. I read on, hands shaking. I had really stumbled onto something here. My mind reeled as I made out this passage. I'm afraid there's no doubt about it. Poor Bibny has lost his head again, which was followed by, and Bob says he has utterly no guts. Yet Bibny got around as well as the next person. The next person, however, was just as strange. He was soon described as totally lacking in brains. There was no doubt of the thing in the next passage. Julia, whom I'd had thought to be the one normal person, reveals herself as also being an alien life-form, similar to the rest. Quite deliberately, Julia had given her heart to the young man. It didn't relate what the final disposition of the organ was, but I didn't really care. It was evident Julia had gone right on living in her usual manner, like all the others in the book, without heart, arms, eyes, brains, viscera, dividing up in two when the occasion demanded, without a qualm. Thereupon she gave him her hand. I sickened. The rascal now had her hand as well as her heart. I shudder to think what he's done with them by this time. He took her arm. Not content to wait, he had started dismantling her on his own. Flushing crimson, I slammed the book shut and leapt to my feet, but not in time to escape one last reference to those carefree bits of anatomy whose travels had originally thrown me on the track. Her eyes followed him all the way down the road and across the meadow. I rushed from the garage and back inside the warm house, as if the cursed thing were following me. My wife and children were playing monopoly in the kitchen. I joined them and played with frantic fervor, brow, feverish, teeth, chattering. I had had enough of the thing. I wanted to hear no more about it. Let them come on. Let them invade Earth. I don't want to get mixed up in it. I have absolutely no stomach for it. End of The Eyes Have It by Philip K. Dick