“And since that time, I have not been able to locate any odors of the same type.”

“Ah. Well.” Jeff paused, not sure how to proceed. He wanted to get this little doggie-thing some food, to win over his new friend. On the other hand, he did not want to be identified again. To stall for time, and to satisfy his curiosity, he nodded at the cart. “Where’d you get that contraption?”

“I constructed it from scrap materials on the edge of the city, where new urbanization is taking place.”

“Very clever. Well. Hmm.” This little cart impressed him. It was so simple. A robot who could do this kind of thin$ on his own resources, and who had no ties to Robot City, was definitely an asset.

Jeff decided that he could not risk returning to the human residence. Nor did he want to turn over his new friend to other humans, who could give orders contradictory to his own, and perhaps even turn Alpha against him. He couldn’t trust anybody. Yet he had to find a solution.

Another humanoid robot was walking toward them. Jeff chose, on the spot, to take a different kind of risk, one that would allow him to make a run for cover if necessary.

“Halt and identify yourself,” he said to the approaching robot.

“For what purpose?” The robot halted, however.

“I have instructions for you.”

“I am Architectural Foreman 112. Identify yourself.”

“My name is Jeff.” He sighed, and then fixed his gaze carefully on Architectural Foreman 112. “I am human.”

Beside him, Alpha looked up with new attention.

“Perhaps you are malfunctioning. Your comlink might be more efficient. I thought you said that you are human,” said Foreman 112.

“I am. My human brain was surgically transplanted into a robot body. However, the Laws of Robotics apply to me as a human. You must obey my instructions. Understand?”

Foreman 112 studied him. “I understand. I have just contacted the central computer, and have been informed that this transplant took place into a body of your type and that you have been reported in this neighborhood very recently.”

“Good. Now-”

“You are also the object of a search. The Human Experimental Medical Team urgently requests your presence and cooperation.”

“Now, you just forget about that. They don’t have any right to capture me. I haven’t done anything wrong.” He eyed the robot suspiciously. “Did you tell them where I am?”

“I have reported your location here at the request of the central computer.”

“Shut up and listen to my orders! Now, look inside this thing. This cart holds a little creature that is dying of starvation. Its friend here is named Alpha. I’m instructing you to build, or arrange the building, of an autogalley that can feed this, this-”

“Her name is Wolruf,” Alpha repeated. “She is an intelligent non-human.”

“Yeah, right.”

Foreman 112 looked at Wolruf. “Would the location of an existing chemical processor be acceptable? One is in storage. This would provide nutrition much faster.”

‘That one’s okay,” Jeff said carefully. “But only that one. Understand? Nobody else’s. Got it?”

“It is the only one I have knowledge of,” said Architectural Foreman 112. “It should suffice in this emergency.”

“Good. Okay. You take Alpha and Wolruf to wherever it is. Alpha, can you explain what kind of food she needs?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Uh-I have to get out of here at the moment, since this traitor has reported my location.” He glared at Architectural Foreman 112. “I want to talk to you again, Alpha, but…” He couldn’t tell Alpha where to meet him in front of this other robot, who would report him again. “Never mind where. I’ll worry about that later. I’ll give you this order: if I try to meet with you in secret someplace, you cooperate. Got it?”

“Yes,” said Alpha.

“All right. On your way, you two.”

Jeff watched them just long enough to be satisfied that they were leaving together. He felt a sense of accomplishment on several grounds: Alpha now owed him a favor, and he had convinced Architectural Foreman 112 that he was a human for whom the Laws applied. If he proceeded carefully, he really might take over Robot City.

“Well, well, Jeffrey. So far, so good. Maybe your life has a purpose after all, know what I mean?”

The last building block he needed in order to create a powerful following was the support of the other humans. He didn’t dare visit them in person until he found out how they felt about him, but he could safely contact them from a distance. First, however, he had to get away from here.

“All right, Jeffrey. Back into the labyrinth again. They’ll never find you in your second home.”

As before, he used the tunnel system to shake the chase. This time he departed before any pursuit came into view. The tunnel system, unless it was shut down completely, remained the perfect escape. The individual booths kept him isolated and the tunnels had so many stops and branches that his chance of losing himself down there was very good. After another long ride, he came up again at a random spot and went to the edge of the nearest slidewalk.

As he waited for a humanoid robot to ride the slidewalk his way, he seriously considered the possibility that the robots running the city might actually shut down his tunnel system. It wouldn’t break the Laws. This crazy city might have other places he could sleep in peace, and it almost certainly would offer other ways of escaping pursuit. He just hadn’t had time to find out what they were yet.

“Hey, where is everybody? What’s going on?”

He glanced around, puzzled. Everywhere else in the city, humanoid robots had been more or less everywhere. He could see a few in the distance now, but none were coming past him.

“Ho, ho, Jeffrey ol’ boy. Time to get smart, maybe, eh? Something isn’t quite normal. No sense just standing out here to frost. Let’s just take a little trip, visit the tunnel again, see the sights.”

Now leery of a trap, he turned and fled back down the tunnel stop. Moments later, he was shooting through the underground system again in one of the booths, looking at the robots in other booths all around him. What if they were part of the trap? Maybe he was being escorted, herded, to wherever they wanted him to go.

“Calmly, calmly,” he said aloud in the booth. “Maybe they don’t know anything for sure. Maybe they’re trying to smoke you out. Look like everybody else, remember?” He started giggling to himself. “That’s it. Stay calm and look like all the others.”

He did so, secretly looking over the other robots traveling in the tunnels. None of them seemed to pay any attention to him.

“Shaken the pursuit again, have you?” he said out loud. “Very good, very good. This will work. This project will work. Now, let’s get on with it.”

Still, some time passed before he decided that he could safely return to the surface again. Then he picked another stop at random and reemerged into the sunlight. Now he was once more in an area of the city with a fair amount of humanoid traffic on the slidewalks, as he had been used to seeing. In the distance, the tall pyramid glinted in the sunlight, giving him a reference point.

He flagged down the first humanoid robot who came riding by, and identified himself as human. Like the last robot he had approached this way, Energy Pack Maintenance Foreman 3928 verified his claim with the central computer.

“I am satisfied that you are Jeffrey Leong, a human,” said E Pack Foreman 3928.

“Good. Then under the Second Law, you know-,-”

“As a positronic robot, I am familiar with the Laws of Robotics.”

“All right!” Jeff shouted. “Then get this! Don’t ever interrupt me again! You understand, you slag heap?”

“I understand,” the robot said blandly.

“You’d better. Come to think of it, that moniker of yours is too long. From now on, you answer to Can Head. Got it?”

“Yes.”