"This is to announce that the Supreme Council has decreed the rich colony planets Venus, Mars, and Ganymede, are to be set aside exclusively for the use of robots. No humans will be permitted outside of Earth. In order to take advantage of the superior resources and living conditions of these colonies, all robots now on Earth are to be transferred to the colony of their choice.

"The Supreme Council has decided that Earth is no fit place for robots. Its wasted and still partly-devastated condition renders it unworthy of the robot race. All robots are to be conveyed to their new homes in the colonies as quickly as adequate transportation can be arranged.

"In no case can humans enter the colony areas. The colonies are exclusively for the use of robots. The human population will be permitted to remain on Earth.

"This is to announce that the Supreme Council had decreed that the rich colony planets of Venus -"

Crow moved away from the window, satisfied.

He returned to his desk and continued assembling papers and reports in neat piles, glancing at them briefly as he classified them and laid them aside.

"I hope you humans will get along all right," L-87t repeated. Crow continued checking the heaps of top-level reports, marking them with his writing stick. Working rapidly, with absorbed attention, deep in his work. He scarcely noticed the robot lingering at the door. "Can you give me some idea of the government you'll set up?"

Crow glanced up impatiently. "What?"

"Your form of government. How will your society be ruled, now that you've maneuvered us off Earth? What sort of government will take the place of our Supreme Council and Congress?"

Crow didn't answer. He had already returned to his work. There was a strange granite cast to his face, a peculiar hardness L-87t had never seen.

"Who'll run things?" L-87t asked. "Who'll be the Government now that we're gone? You said yourself humans show no ability to manage a complex modern society. Can you find a human capable of keeping the wheels turning? Is there a human being capable of leading mankind?"

Crow smiled thinly. And continued working.

Planet for Transients

The late afternoon sun shone down blinding and hot, a great shimmering orb in the sky. Trent halted a moment to get his breath. Inside his lead-lined helmet his face dripped with sweat, drop after drop of sticky moisture that steamed his viewplate and clogged his throat.

He slid his emergency pack over to the other side and hitched up his gun-belt. From his oxygen tank he pulled a couple of exhausted tubes and tossed them away in the brush. The tubes rolled and disappeared, lost in the endless heaps of red-green leaves and vines.

Trent checked his counter, found the reading low enough, slid back his helmet for a precious moment.

Fresh air rushed into his nose and mouth. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs. The air smelled good – thick and moist and rich with the odor of growing plants. He exhaled and took another breath.

To his right a towering column of orange shrubbery rose, wrapped around a sagging concrete pillar. Spread out over the rolling countryside was a vast expanse of grass and trees. In the distance a mass of growth looked like a wall, a jungle of creepers and insects and flowers and underbrush that would have to be blasted as he advanced slowly.

Two immense butterflies danced past him. Great fragile shapes, multicolored, racing erratically around him and then away. Life everywhere – bugs and plants and rustling small animals in the shrubbery, a buzzing jungle of life in every direction. Trent sighed and snapped his helmet back in place. Two breathfuls was all he dared.

He increased the flow of his oxygen tank and then raised his transmitter to his lips. He clicked it briefly on. "Trent. Checking with the Mine Monitor. Hear me?"

A moment of static and silence. Then, a faint, ghostly voice. "Come in, Trent. Where the hell are you?"

"Still going North. Ruins ahead. I may have to bypass. Looks thick."

"Ruins?"

"New York, probably. I'll check with the map."

The voice was eager. "Anything yet?"

"Nothing. Not so far, at least. I'll circle and report in about an hour." Trent examined his wristwatch. "It's half-past three. I'll raise you before evening."

The voice hesitated. "Good luck. I hope you find something. How's your oxygen holding out?"

"All right."

"Food?"

"Plenty left. I may find some edible plants."

"Don't take any chances!"

"I won't." Trent clicked off the transmitter and returned it to his belt. "I won't," he repeated. He gathered up his blast gun and hoisted his pack and started forward, his heavy lead-lined boots sinking deep into the lush foliage and compost underfoot.

It was just past four o'clock when he saw them. They stepped out of the jungle around him. Two of them, young males – tall and thin and horny blue-gray like ashes. One raised his hand in greeting. Six or seven fingers – extra joints. "Afternoon," he piped.

Trent stopped instantly. His heart thudded. "Good afternoon."

The two youths came slowly around him. One had an ax – a foliage ax. The other carried only his pants and the remains of a canvas shirt. They were nearly eight feet tall. No flesh – bones and hard angles and large, curious eyes, heavily lidded. There were internal changes, radically different metabolism and cell structure, ability to utilize hot salts, altered digestive system. They were both looking at Trent with interest – growing interest.

"Say," said one. "You're a human being."

"That's right," Trent said.

"My name's Jackson." The youth extended his thin blue horny hand and Trent shook it awkwardly. The hand was fragile under his lead-lined glove. Its owner added, "My friend here is Earl Potter."

Trent shook hands with Potter. "Greetings," Potter said. His rough lips twitched. "Can we have a look at your rig?"

"My rig?" Trent countered.

"Your gun and equipment. What's that on your belt? And that tank?"

"Transmitter – oxygen." Trent showed them the transmitter. "Battery operated. Hundred-mile range."

"You're from a camp?" Jackson asked quickly.

"Yes. Down in Pennsylvania."

"How many?"

Trent shrugged. "Couple of dozen."

The blue-skinned giants were fascinated. "How have you survived? Penn was hard hit, wasn't it? The pools must be deep around there."

"Mines," Trent explained. "Our ancestors moved down deep in the coal mines when the War began. So the records have it. We're fairly well set up. Grow our own food in tanks. A few machines, pumps and compressors and electrical generators. Some hand lathes. Looms."

He didn't mention that generators now had to be cranked by hand, that only about half of the tanks were still operative. After three hundred years metal and plastic weren't much good – in spite of endless patching and repairing. Everything was wearing out, breaking down.

"Say," Potter said. "This sure makes a fool of Dave Hunter."

"Dave Hunter?"

"Dave says there aren't any true humans left," Jackson explained. He poked at Trent's helmet curiously. "Why don't you come back with us? We've got a settlement near here – only an hour or so away on the tractor – our hunting tractor. Earl and I were out hunting flap-rabbits."

"Flap-rabbits?"

"Flying rabbits. Good meat but hard to bring down – weigh about thirty pounds."

"What do you use? Not the ax surely."

Potter and Jackson laughed. "Look at this here." Potter slid a long brass rod from his trousers. It fitted down inside his pants along his pipe-stem leg.

Trent examined the rod. It was tooled by hand. Soft brass, carefully bored and straightened. One end was shaped into a nozzle. He peered down it. A tiny metal pin was lodged in a cake of transparent metal. "How does it work?" he asked.