“We are a bit like jackals, aren’t we?” Phil remarked dreamily.

Carstairs twisted his jacket. “Who were they?”

Phil didn’t react, but he did jerk around suddenly when he heard Moe Brimstine say metallically, “Whatcha want, Mack?”

Llewellyn had pulled out the stub of gray robot arm sticking from the wall.

“Quit that,” Carstairs ordered curtly, letting go of Phil.

“Take it easy, Carstie old boy,” Llewellyn said with a smiling flash of white teeth. “Here’s a bit of an odd thing. See where whatever sliced this robot arm cut into the wall beyond? Well, follow back from the cut in a straight line through the slice in the robot arm.”

Like the others, Phil followed Llewellyn’s directions and saw that the straight line ended in a deep cut in the floor a half dozen feet behind them.

“I don’t git it,” Buck said. “You mean somebody shot some kind of beam from the next floor under us?”

Llewellyn said, “Hardly. The evidence points to a gun that shoots in opposite directions at the same time. I fancy that if we’d have looked behind us at the head of the stairs, we’d have seen some cuts mirror-imaging those in the mesh.”

He thinned his eyes at Carstairs. “I’m beginning to think orthos are rather strange weapons, Carstie old boy.” He glanced at Phil. “You said they’re blue and sizzle, Mr. Gish. Do they also backfire?”

“Say, look at this here communicator,” Buck interrupted. He had been poking around the side of the corridor behind the guard. “One button’s got a new-looking gadget rigged up to it that’s pushed it twice now while I’ve been watching.”

“Don’t touch it,” Carstairs said. “It’s probably a button Headless here is supposed to thumb every so often to show he’s on guard. Whoever broke in ahead of us knows their business. Once more, clown, who were they?”

“Yeah, talk,” Buck said, coming up beside Carstairs. “I figure you’re responsible for my Otie gettin’ killed.”

“Indeed, do,” Llewellyn said, at the same moment letting go of the stub arm which contracted toward the wall until it was like a wrinkled scar, while at the same time, as though internal injuries were now showing up in the thing, a broken clockworks version of Moe Brimstine’s voice wheezed, “That’s right, Mack. Go away and stay away.”

In the moment while that eerie and ominous admonition held everyone else stockstill, Phil walked with drugged aplomb past Llewellyn and through the arch.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I imagine you would like to inspect the treasure house.”

He faced a room that was not extremely high ceilinged, but so wide and long that the only clearly visible wall was the one against which they were standing. The room was not brightly lit, yet it seemed so because of the brightness of the two sorts of ranked objects on which the light fell. To the left were row on endless row of sales-robots, shiny high turtle shapes with a smaller dome set on the main one, the same efficient metal hucksters that daily and eveningly roamed the streets, guiding themselves and spotting customers by hypersonic radar and visual scanner. Only now their fascinating windows for displaying samples were closed, their money collecting and commodity bestowing arms were neatly folded, the restless wheels under their metal skirts were still, and their dulcet voices rich with a restrained sex appeal suitable to robots (male voices for females, female for males, sprightly and wise-cracking for children) were likewise silent.

To the right, marshaled with equal precision, were a host of dress-display robots, arrayed in everything from high collared sable evening cloaks to bathing jewelry. Their hair gleamed with a hundred tints, their suede-rubber skins glowed with a creamy seductiveness, they held themselves with the poise of princesses, but like the sales-robots they were still. No slinky parading, no cute individualized gestures, no mysterious or haughty smiles, no soft lips opening to recite the qualities and prices of the garments they were modeling. They all stared straight ahead like Egyptian mummies not yet wrapped and indeed one, appropriately crowned and clad in a filmy sheath, was a precise copy of Nefertiti.

It occurred to Phil that the ranked sales-robots and dress-display robots really were a military display, that he was looking at the armed might – the money army and the glamor army – of Fun Incorporated.

Llewellyn was the first to break the silence. He darted to the nearest sales-robot, made some practiced manipulations, and then there was a clinking and he was waving a green and silver handful and his teeth and the whites of his eyes shone gleefully in his black face.

“They’re still carrying the day’s cash!” he called softly.

Buck looked from the money army to the glamor army with greedy indecision. When Carstairs snorted contemptuously, he trotted over to help Llewellyn, who was methodically working his way down the first row of sales-robots.

Despite his show of greater self control, it was obvious that Carstairs’ hands were itching too. He looked at Phil uncertainly. Then, “Wake up, Mitz,” he commanded sharply. She obediently turned toward him an oddly incurious face. “Mitz,” he went on, “I want you to guard the clown. If he tries to get away or goes for any buttons, use your shiv on him.” She nodded.

“Hey,” Buck called in an excited stage whisper, “I think we’re coming to some that are gambling robots.”

But Carstairs didn’t go at once, although he was noiselessly snapping his fingers in an excess of impatience. He studied Mitzie fiercely. “You get it, Mitz? I don’t want any slip-ups. You made one already today. Not that I believe for a minute you’re soft on the clown, but you’ve acted a bit silly around him. There mustn’t be any more of that. Understand?”

This time her nod, though mute as the first, seemed to satisfy him and he rushed off to join Llewellyn and Buck.

At the same instant Phil quietly turned around and walked through an archway just beside the one through which they had entered the big room. He hadn’t taken ten steps down the curving corridor before Mitzie had whirled past him and poised herself squarely in his path.

“Get back,” she whispered. The hand directing the ten-inch knife at Phil’s chest didn’t waver enough to make the frosty highlights on it flicker.

Phil smiled at her. “Mitzie,” he said gently, “your friends have found what they came for, but I haven’t. You’re going to let me go past.”

She spat her denial and advanced the knife so that it touched his shirt.

Phil didn’t budge. “You’re going to let me go past,” he repeated softly, “because you’re not sure any more that being cruel and smart, and if need be deadly, is the right way to face the world. You’re not sure any more that the approval of your gang is the only thing that matters. Incidentally, it’s a pretty grudging approval, Mitzie, something you’ve had to sit up and do tricks for like that other dumb pooch, and your comradeship with them isn’t at all the romantic, until death, one for all and all for one thing you pretend it is. But I haven’t the time to tell you any more about that now, because I’ve got my business and I’ve got to get on with it.”

“Get back,” she snarled. But Phil, although the knife now pricked his chest, knew it was no longer a command but a plea.

“I’m going past now, Mitzie,” Phil murmured and walked ahead into the knife. For about two feet it drew back at exactly the same speed with which he walked into it, then it was whipped suddenly to one side, and as he passed Mitzie he caught the choked off beginning of a sob.

Neither of them made another sound. He looked back once and saw her profile in the light from the big room, and the slack line of her shoulder and the arm holding the knife. Often faces look unexpectedly weak in profile, but Phil felt he’d never seen one that also looked so tragically lost.