11. Bigman Against All

Bigman cried out piercingly, "Not one step nearer. Any closer and I'll have to shoot. You'll kill me."

He nerved himself for the possible shot. If nothing else could be done, it would have to be that

But the robots stopped. Not one moved. Bigman's eyes moved slowly to right and left. One robot was on the ground, headless, a useless lump of metal. One was standing, arms half reaching out toward him. One was a hundred feet away, caught in mid-stride.

Slowly Bigman turned. A robot was coming out of a building. It was caught on the threshold. Still others were farther off. It was as though a freezing blight had struck them all, struck them with instant paralysis.

He was not really surprised. It was the First Law. All else had to take second place: orders, their own existence, everything. They could not move if motion meant harm to a human being.

Bigman said, "Every robot but that one"-he pointed to the one facing him, the nearest, the companion of the one he had destroyed-"leave now. Back to your immediately previous task and forget me and what has just happened. Failure to obey at once will mean my death."

So all but one had to leave. This was dealing with them harshly, and Bigman, grim-faced, wondered if the potential being set up to drive the positrons might not be intense enough to harm the platinum-indium sponge that made up the delicate robotic brains.

He had the Earthman's distrust of robots and he rather hoped that was so.

All the robots but one were gone now. The muzzle of the needle gun was still against Bigman's temple.

He said to the remaining robot, "Take me back to your master." (He wanted to use a harsher term but what would a robot understand of the insult implied. With difficulty he forced it down.)

"Now," he said, "and quickly. Do not allow any master or robot to interfere with us on our way. I have this needle gun and shall use it on any master near us, or on myself if I have to."

The robot said hoarsely (the first signs of posi-tronic malfunction, Lucky had once told Bigman, showed up in the timbre of the voice), "I will follow orders. The master may be certain that I shall do nothing that will harm him or another master."

It turned and led the way into the diagravitic car. Bigman followed. He was half prepared for trickery on the way back, but there was none. A robot was a machine following inescapable rules of action. He had to remember that. Only human beings could lie and cheat.

When they stopped at Devoure's office, Bigman said, "I'll wait in the car. I won't leave. You go in and tell the master Devoure that the master Bigman is free and waiting for him." Bipman struggled with temptation and this time succumbed. He was too close to Devoure to resist successfully. He said, "Tell him he can take me on with needle gun or fists, I don't care which. Tell him that if he's too saffron-spined to do either, I'll come in and kick him from here to Mars."

Sten Devoure stared at the robot in disbelief, his dark face scowling and his angry eyes peering out from under hunched eyebrows.

"Do you mean he's out there free? And armed?"

He looked at the two Servicemen, who stared back with blank astonishment. (Lucky muttered "Great Galaxy!" under his breath. The irrepressible Bigman would rum everything-and lose his life as well.)

Serviceman Zayon rose heavily to his feet. "Well, Devoure, you don't expect the robot to be lying, do you?" He stepped across to the wall phone and punched the emergency combination. "If we have an Earthman on base, armed and determined, we had better take action."

"But how does he come to be armed?" Devoure had still not wiped away the traces of confusion, but now he made for the door. Lucky followed him, and the Sirian whirled at once. "Get back, Starr."

He turned to the robot. "Stay with this Earthman. He is not to leave this building under any circumstances."

And now he seemed to have come to a decision. He rushed from the room pulling out a heavy blaster as he did so. Zayon and Yonge hesitated, cast a quick look at Lucky, then at the robot, made their own decision, and followed Devoure.

The area before Devoure's offices was wide and bathed in the artificial light that reproduced Sirius's faintly bluish tinge. Bigman stood alone in the center, and at a hundred yards' distance were five robots. Others were approaching from another direction.

"Come and get that," roared Devoure, gesturing to the nearer robots and pointing to Bigman.

"They won't come any closer," roared back Bigman. "If they make a move toward me I shall burn your heart out of your chest, and they know I'll do it. At least they can't take the chance I won't." He stood there easily, mockingly.

Devoure flushed and lifted his blaster.

Bigman said, "Now don't hurt yourself with that blaster. You're holding it a little close to your body."

His right elbow was resting in the palm of his left hand. His right fist squeezed gently as he spoke, and from the muzzle of the needle gun just protruding from between second and third fingers, a jet of deuterium pulsed out under the guidance of a momentarily established magnetic field. It took skill of the highest order to adjust the squeeze and thumb position correctly, but Bigman had that. No man in the system had more.

The muzzle tip of Devoure's blaster was a tiny white spark, and Devoure yelled his surprise and dropped it.

Bigman said, "I don't know who you other two cobbers are, but if either of you makes a move that looks like a blaster is at the end of it, you'll never finish that move."

All froze. Yonge finally said carefully, "How do you come to be armed?"

"A robot," said Bigman, "is no smarter than the cobber who runs him. The robots who searched me on the ship and out here were instructed by someone who didn't know a Martian uses his boots for more than something to put his legs into."

"And how did you break away from the robots?"

Bigman said coolly, "I had to destroy one."

"You destroyed a robot?" A kind of electric horror stunned the three Sirians.

Bigman felt increasing tension. He did not concern himself with the robots standing about, but at any moment another human Sirian might appear and shoot him in the back from a safe distance.

The spot between his shoulders prickled as he waited for the shot. Well, it would be a flash. He would never feel it. And after that they would have lost their hold on Lucky and, dead or not, Bigman would be the winner.

Only, he wanted a chance at Devoure first, at that soft Sirian cobber who had sat across the table from him and said things no man in the universe could say and be left standing.

Bigman said, "I could shoot you all. Shall we make an arrangement?"

"You won't shoot us," said Serviceman Yonge quietly. "A shooting would simply mean that an Earthman has opened hostilities on a Sirian planet. It could mean war."

"Besides," roared Devoure, "if you make any attack it will release the robots. They'll defend three humans rather than one. Throw down that needle gun and put yourself back in custody."

"All right, send the robots away, and I'll surrender to you."

"The robots will handle you," said Devoure. He made as though to turn nonchalantly toward the other Sirians. "My skin crawls at having to talk to this deformed humanoid."

Bigman's needle gun flashed at once, the small fire ball exploding a foot before Devoure's eyes. "Say something like that again and I'll blind you for good. If the robots make a move, all three of you get it before they reach us. It may mean war, but you three won't be here to see if it does. Order the robots away and I'll surrender to Devoure, if he can take me. I'll toss my needle gun to one of you other two and surrender."