"Oh, thank you," she said, doing her best to make it sound sincere. "I'll just stay right behind you, if you don't mind."

"That's probably best," he said, and he turned to peer down the corridor again. Lola tensed; somewhere not far away, Ernie should be waiting, ready to play his part in their little charade. The captain edged forward, quietly; he was being careful. Would Ernie be able to bring it off?

The captain stopped and peered down a side corridor leading to an emergency exit. He nodded, took a step forward, and then...

Lola let out a piercing shriek. "Over there!" she cried, and as the captain turned to look, Ernie struck.

They'd chosen their weapon to incapacitate their victim as quickly as possible without undue risk of injury, particularly to themselves. The Zenobian stun ray wasn't in the civilian arsenal yet, but the goo gun was a good second best. Firing a huge gob of incredibly sticky material, it enveloped its victim in a viscous mass of goo and trapped him as surely as a fly on flypaper. Police departments throughout the settled worlds used it for riot control. It wasn't foolproof; inexperienced users sometimes got themselves stuck in the goo when they tried to secure their victim or got a sound thrashing from an incompletely immobilized victim.

But Ernie had practiced. As soon as the goo had enveloped Phule, he flipped a lever on the gun and fired a burst of a clear liquid, setting the goo so that someone attempting to grasp the victim could do so without getting caught.

"Hey, what are you doing?" said the captain-but too late. A moment later, Lola whipped out a gag and threw it over the captain's mouth, while Ernie darted down the hall a few paces and grabbed a laundry cart just outside the gym. They tipped their victim into it, threw a layer of dirty towels over him, and quickly wheeled him into a service elevator and away.

Chapter 5

Journal #514

Even the most punctual worker is sometimes late. Some are more punctual than others; but even they can sometimes be thrown off schedule by the vagaries of weather, transportation, and sheer chance. Bosses and coworkers will fidget, sigh, look out the window, and (depending on factors too various to enumerate) go about their business without the tardy person or await his arrival with some mixture of anxiety and annoyance. If the worker does not appear by some reasonable time, attempts will be made to get in touch, with greater or lesser degree of urgency.

But when a robot is late, that is in itself an occasion for urgency. When the robot is a custom-built facsimile of one's employer, bought at an exorbitant price and put on duty for reasons of utmost security, panic is likely to ensue. It is to the credit of the staff of the Fat Chance Casino that the panic was kept to a minimum on this occasion.

"Disappeared?" Gunther Rafael Jr.'s jaw couldn't have dropped farther if there'd been a 100G gravity field underneath it. "Why, that's impossible."

"I keep hearing about things being impossible, usually right after they happen," said Doc, who had become the Fat Chance Casino's security chief after the departure of Phule's Company. His black Space Legion staff sergeant's uniform was a perfect fit. Only someone with an insider's familiarity with the Legion's insignia and badges would have been able to tell that it was a complete fraud, as were the "Legion" guards Doc commanded. "If it's impossible for the android to disappear, maybe you can tell me what it's done instead of disappearing?"

"OK, Doc, you've made your point," said Rex, who headed up the Casino's entertainment division. "If you're done with the sarcasm, maybe I can interest you in our current problem, which is that the Andromatic Phule has disappeared. The most likely explanation is, the thing's been abducted-or maybe that should be stolen. "

"Who could've done it?" wailed Rafael. "How? Why?" He began to pace nervously around the table.

"Those are all good questions," said Doc. "A better one is, what are we going to do about it?"

"You're the damned security chief," said Rafael, pointing an accusing finger. "Why don't you know what to do about it?"

Doc bristled. "You know the answer to that as well as I do, Gunther: I'm about as much a security chief as you are a casino manager. I'm just an actor who got put in charge of the guard detail because everybody figured the bad boys would be so scared of us they wouldn't start trouble. Now, with our mechanical boss missing, they're bound to figure out we've been bluffing all along."

"And when they do, they'll swoop down on us like wolves," said Rafael, wringing his hands.

"Wolves don't swoop," barked Tully Bascomb. He headed up the gambling operations, and his years of casino experience had been invaluable to Phule when he agreed to run the Fat Chance. "Pull yourselves together, both of you. We've got to come up with an answer to the missing captain before the bad boys do figure out how vulnerable we are. And that means everything's got to look as if nothing's changed. Doc, is there anybody on board you'd trust to play the role of Phule until we can get the bot back?"

"Maybe," said Doc, rubbing his chin. "I've got a couple of kids who're about the right physical type and who are quick studies. With a little makeup..."

"Makeup's no problem," said Rex. "With what we've got here, I could make Dee Dee look like the captain. What I'm worried about is whether your kids can carry off the stunt when they have to talk to customers-and whether they can be trusted keep the secret."

"Well, there's no reason they have to know the whole story," said Doc. "Outside the board of directors, nobody knows that Phule's been replaced by an android. The actor replacing the android doesn't need to know, either. We just tell him the captain's been called off-station on urgent business."

"Or maybe he's sick," said Tully. "That'll do for the short run, sure."

"And as far as the lines, I bet they can do better than the android," said Doc. "They can have a much wider range of permitted responses without getting in over their heads. And they can handle a lot more random situations than the android could."

"I don't know about that," said Raphael. "I was once in a group the android came up to, and somebody started a discussion of the gravball playoffs. I swear, that droid could talk about the sports and weather better than I could! I doubt anybody could have figured out they weren't interacting with a real person."

"Only danger would be if somebody in the group knew the real Phule and spotted the android-or the actor-talking about something Phule didn't know or care about," said Doc. "But with the right direction, even that wouldn't be a problem. Just order the actor to break off the conversation before there's any chance of getting in over his head. We can handle it, believe me."

"OK," said Tully decisively. "We let Doc pick a couple of doubles, coach them to play Phule, and turn them loose as soon as they're ready. We're trusting you on this one, Doc."

"I won't let you down," said Doc. "But this only solves half the problem, y'know."

"Do I ever," said Tully. "Somebody out there's got the android, and it's not going to be very long before they figure out what they've got and what it means. And then we're going to be a target again."

"I hope not. People could get hurt," said Rex. "We need to notify the captain as soon as possible. I'm not anxious to put my actors in the way of that kind of danger. Besides, he's the majority stockholder. We can't deal with a situation of this importance without his input."

"Second the motion, and call the question," said Doc. "I don't think we can afford to delay even a moment."