1. Decision

"But..." The listener tried to interject, but it was hard for him to thrust his words into the speaker's monologue even though that person was winding up his fervent appeal.

Finally, the speaker said, "You know it has to be done, don't you?... Admit it."

The listener used the welcome silence to reflect. He found himself leaning toward the speaker's point of view, now. Considering the gravity of the issue at hand, he found that surprising.

"Is there no other way?" He had to know this.

The other looked glum. His expression emphasized the answer to that vital question.

"None."

"Then, it *will* be done."

Not, "I'll do it." The listener found a euphemism-of-action to be more appropriate. He wondered, yet again, ("Is this ultimately for the best?")

That answer eluded him, still.... But he knew what he must do now.

"Good," replied the speaker with evident relief.

2. Death in Isolation

Lt. Carlyn Wilmerding floated up to the closed hatch of the Sensor Operator's compartment and stopped her forward motion by grasping one of the side-mounted handirons.... ("Why is his hatch closed?") She pondered this minor mystery only a short time, though. She was a woman of action. She pushed the annunciator button on the hatchcomm.

"Sonny..." she began, sweetly, and paused for the "Yeah?!" reply she was certain would come. When it did not, she continued. "Caffeine time..." She waited patiently, to no avail.

She tapped the button, fearing that it might be disabled by an entry code. Sonny usually kept the hatch open to the corridor. He was that kind of guy, open and outgoing.... Besides, she was his lover---even if he had wanted the hatch closed to casual passersby, her voice alone should have opened it.

The latching mechanism released and the hatch swung out, slightly, as it was made to do. Carlyn floated the coffee service and, bracing herself against the handiron, pulled open the heavy door. Doing even simple things like this in zeegee [zero gravity] required a careful coordination of motor skills.... She looked into the compartment. "Sonny?..." From behind his large operator's seat, she could see his arms outthrust at odd angles. The sight of this alarmed her.

She pulled herself rapidly through the hatchway and along the guide line toward the operator's console. "Sonny?..." she repeated, with an urgency in her voice.

She reached the end of the padded cable and peered around the edge of the seat at the gray-faced corpse seated there... Its head was canted carelessly to the side, the eyes staring widely into space. Its mouth gaped in a rictus of sudden suffering.

"Sonny!" She released the coffee service and shook his harness.

His arms flailed wildly and his head flopped grotesquely like an artfully-constructed scarecrow in the wind.

He couldn't have spoken to reassure her even if he had been among the living.... His neck, livid with bruise-marks, had been crushed.

"Ohhhh..." Her shock and pain at the sight before her were acute. She quickly checked the body for a pulse. There was none.

It was a measure of her fortitude and dedication to duty that Lt. Wilmerding was able to call for a substitute Sensorman to take the place of her former lover.

"Carlyn to OffCon," she began. "I'm in the Sensorium."

"Go ahead." The voice replied from both the console's speaker and from the bone-conduction transducer in her head.

"You'd better send Handy up here." Her voice caught, short of a sob. "We need a new Sensorman."

Then she wept.

3. A Good Place for Murder

The Rockrunner was an A-Belt freighter. She had been designed to survive voyages through the hazardous, meteroid-littered area of space known as the Asteroid Belt to deliver supplies to the colonists on the Jovian moons, and to return to Mars with the valuable minerals mined on those worlds.... Because of her large bulk cargoes, the ship was not spun to create a centrifugal force outward from the core. Her crew floated in zero gravity.

The high-occurrence danger from meteroid impact in the A-belt had prompted two innovations in the design of the _Rockrunner_. One of these was just good engineering. The other was a humanistic hedge against the good engineering---and the dark unknowns of space.

First... Vital areas of the ship had been dispersed and their personnel widely separated from each other so that an unexpected killer-meteroid would take out as few crewmen as possible in one sudden strike-through. State-of-the-art intercommunications made it unnecessary for those personnel performing complementary functions to be gathered together, as those on the bridge of a naval vessel were.

Simply put, the Navigator was in one location, the Helmsman in another---the Sensorman in a place distant from the others---and the OffCon, the Watch Officer of Command and Control, supervised from yet another "safe" location. They and other crewmen communicated among themselves and with other personnel over redundant channels of voice-actuated intercommunication.

The Rockrunner was widely regarded as the oddity of the Fleet, but nobody questioned the need for crew dispersal. A meteroid traveling at kilometers per second was a most destructive missile. Few crewmen survived after being "holed" by one.... And, despite the latest and best AI-controlled equipment, human crews were still necessary for the operation of complex spacecraft.

The second innovation existed in the person of Tally Nostradamus.

That wasn't his real name, but he had taken the pretentious pseudonym of Nostradamus Ingenissimus to underscore his wild talent. It meant "more talented than Nostradamus," and was in the tradition of the medieval physician and alchemist, Paracelsus, whose pseudonym meant "better than Celsus," a predecessor of his in the field of medicine.

The crew of the Rockrunner called their civilian Precognitor, simply, "Tally"---because he so often immodestly referred to "my talent."

His talent allowed him to forsee, through precognition, serious meteroid hazards so that the Navigator could change course. It wasn't that the Sensormen weren't trusted to detect the space-bullets with their instruments, but precogs like Tally had proved themselves more effective than the Sensorman's electronic devices in detecting the distant, intercepting missiles in time to evade them.

Tally was ensconced in a stateroom. This luxury compartment was as comfortable for him as it could be, considering that he was a wizened, twisted, partially-paralyzed little man.... His rare talent did not overcome his physical handicaps, though, even in his own view.

Thus equipped and manned, the Rockrunner made its way through the solar system's most-feared region, saving time and money for the Fleet, and giving the colonists on the Jovian moons the confident expectation of regular relief and resupply.

4. Sober Conference

Captain Francis X. McCadden scanned the officers and civilians seated at---and attached to---his conference table. To a stranger from another civilization, it might have seemed that the Captain's Staff were slaves chained to their workplace. But they were just tethered so that Newton's Law of Motion wouldn't cast them from the table when they sometimes became excercised during the discussions, or when the ship made a sudden change of course.

The Rockrunner was run on informal lines of discipline. The input of his Staff was so valuable in this hazardous environment that the Captain encouraged his officers and civilian employees to express themselves with less reserve than was customary in the Fleet. They were glad to do so, and this had been found to be a good tension reliever when utilized with moderation.

The Tethered weren't the only ones attending the conference.... Other key personnel were communicant via the ship's sophisticated electronic intercommunications. A chair at the opposite end of the table from the Captain was rigged for the projection of any of those unseen persons he might summon for a tele-appearance. A projected simulacrum which appeared there shimmered and seemed somewhat less than realistic---but achieved a presence much more meaningful than a voice from a loudspeaker.... The bulky chair was empty now.

Today's conferees found themselves under a cloud of suspicion and distrust. The death of Sensorman Sonny Hales had cast a pall over all proceedings aboard the Rockrunner.

Someone among the crew was a murderer.

Before the conference began, Captain Mac rapidly searched each face for something which might identify the conferee as implicated in the cruel death. He hoped the killer was not among his Staff. He found it easier to accept that an enlisted crewman would be guilty of this crime than that one of his trusted officers was the perpetrator. This was why he had assembled them here. He needed face-to-face presence to view them---and direct, voice-to-ear communication to assess each of them as a possible suspect.... For whatever such an assessment might be worth.

"What have you got, Si?" He broke the silence of anticipation with his soft-spoken question.

Ship's Physician Simon Ava---a middle-aged man who parted his graying hair in the middle, and who had authoritative-looking large, black eyebrows---stared through his archaic half-spectacles at the data- screen sunk into the table in front of him, as if he couldn't recall the particulars of the postmortem examination which remained so vivid in his mind.

"He was strangled, manually..." He peered over his lenses at the Captain. "...by a pair of strong---or angry---hands." He arched an eyebrow, meaningfully. "His larynx was crushed by the compression."

"Fingerprints?" the Captain inquired, succinctly.

"None found, and no glove traces I could see. The killer might have used rubber gloves, though." ... He added---too-hastily, the others thought, "*My* gloves are locked up in my supply cabinet." He looked around the table. Some were scowling at him. He continued his report. "I'm having some microtrace tests made on the bruises. The results might tell us more about that aspect."

The Captain relocated his stare. "What've you found out, so far, Jerry?"

Ship's Security Officer Geraldo Vargas was a young officer detached to the Rockrunner from the Fleet Security Service. His clean-shaven face and dark crewcut marked him among the male officers, most of whom had chosen the long hair and beards allowed them during long voyages.... He was determined to be the one to solve this crime. He felt that his reputation and career were at stake.

"Nobody among the crew saw anything unusual in the corridor, sir--- except for the Sensorium's closed hatch. Nobody was seen entering or leaving the compartment during the victim's watch. Corridor traffic on that watch is fairly low, so almost anybody could have talked his way in there without being seen."

"But, usually, they could have just floated in. Sonny kept his hatch open," interjected Carlyn Wilmerding, who was the InterComm Officer. "Whoever killed Sonny ... must have closed the door behind him to hide his dirty work." She fought the tears which welled up in her verdant eyes. She was a young woman whose plain face was enhanced by the contrast of her eyes, fair complexion, and black hair.

The others at the table looked glum. The InterComm Officer's relationship with the murdered Sensorman was common knowledge. In the confined environment of the Rockrunner, there were few "social" secrets.

The Captain shook his head, sympathetically. "Does anybody know if Sonny had any enemies who might want to ... harm him?"

The Staff looked at each other. Some shook their heads, negatively. Nobody spoke. After a period of gravid silence, the Captain addressed his listening, but unpresent, Precognitor.

"Why didn't you forsee this incident, Tally?" He pushed a button on his control panel.

All present looked at the telepresence chair at the end of the table for the answer to this question.... A simulacrum of their latter-day Nostradamus appeared, as if by magic, in his locomotor-rig.

"I don't know, Captain." Then he added, in a flippant reference to his usual area of concern, "Perhaps, the perpetrator wasn't moving fast enough for me to forsee." He offered this last remark with a thin smile.

The gratuitous comment was not well-received by the Captain, but--- amazingly---some of his officers accepted the remark as fact of their Precognitor's "talent." They wanted to believe that Tally's talent was so erratic that he couldn't forsee their individual actions aboard the Rockrunner. In their view, he was almost as unwanted as an official telepath would have been.

Carlyn gave a little groan of pain and displeasure.... She knew something most of the others didn't: Tally was a rejected suitor. To her, that made his remark seem even more inappropriate.

The Captain continued, "I'd appreciate it if you'd give this matter some concentration---not to the exclusion of your rock watch, of course. Just forsee what you can. If you can envision someone doing something to cover up this crime, we can concentrate on him."

"Of course, Captain. I'm at your service," the precog replied in his most-oily manner, which only served to further irritate the woman he had courted.... The simulacrum disappeared, silently.

The Captain pointed at his Security Officer. "Jerry, did you check with Handy? He might have seen something."

The officer was too embarrassed to admit that he hadn't. He replied indirectly: "I'll get on it right away, sir."

The Captain closed, wearily. "Unless someone has anything else..." He paused for input. "...This meeting is adjourned."

Ship's Psych Officer Inga Olafsson wanted to say, "I knew this would happen, eventually, Captain," but she held her tongue. To have said it would have questioned conditions aboard the Rockrunner and the way the ship was run.... She knew better than to do that---especially, here, at a Staff conference, where the others would almost certainly take a collective offense, and some might openly controvert her assertions.

5. Investigation

The hatch to the Sensorium was open, as it had been on the day of the murder.... Geraldo pulled himself inside and toward the Sensorman's chair. Although the operator must have heard his approach, he did not greet the visitor or even check the rearview mirror mounted above the console to see who had entered.

Geraldo floated up behind the seat, put his hands around the dark neck of the Sensor operator, and stretched his own neck over the seat's back.

The Sensorman's head rotated around on his neck coupling, and his disturbing artificial eyes stared at the officer whose hands were grasping his neck. But he said nothing. He waited patiently for the human to explain himself.

"This is how it was done, Handy.... By whom I don't know, yet."

"I am certain you are correct, sir. It was a most unfortunate occurrence." Handy's pseudo-sincere pathos seemed to the Security Officer like a preprogrammed response to his remark. Geraldo knew that the robot's designers had studied human habits extensively before coding Handy's basic social-interaction programs.

Handy returned his eyes to the console---even though he was plugged into it for direct monitoring of the instruments. Duty was his only function. Socializing was incidental.

"`An occurrence,' you call it?... It was bloody murder."

"Just so, sir," the robot agreed, mechanically, even though he had detected no bloodstains at the Sensorman's station when he had arrived to fill-in for the deceased former operator.

* * *

Robot, Ship's, General Utility, Mark-17A2 wore a black bowtie.

A crewman had put it on him, and in his usual accommodating manner, the electromechanical man had continued to wear it, to the amusement of the ship's personnel. One of the officers had remarked that Handy, as the robot was generally known, was now "Handy Dandy." This cute appellation had stuck.

Handy had been created to perform a variety of shipboard tasks. His extensive training made him available to fill-in for sick, missing--- or dead---crewmen. He (it, actually) did what he was told to do by enlisted men or officers.... At first, he was programmed to accept commands only from officers, but that directive proved to be too restrictive. There were times when it was necessary for him to obey ordinary crewmen in expedient tasks. So, his programming had been modified, accordingly.

He was short, a meter-and-a-half---sometimes he had to squeeze into tight places---and made of light, strong durillium alloy which had been anodized to a gunmetal blue-black. Early robots with reflective or satin-finish surfaces had been found to be distracting to human personnel, so darker colors were now preferred.

Despite his many electromechanical interfaces, connections, and joints, Handy moved with surprising fluidity. Aboard the Rockrunner, his zeegee agility was legendary.

Now, he was filling in for the deceased Sonny Hales at the Sensorman's console until a human crewman could be trained by one of the other two watch operators. Then, Handy would move on to other tasks.

As one might imagine, the robot was a favorite of the Captain because he followed orders unquestioningly, so long as these didn't conflict with his basic programming. He was versatile, never developed an "attitude"---and didn't seek promotion.

"Did you notice anything unusual around the Sensorium on the day of the `occurrence,' Handy?" asked Geraldo.

"No, sir." The robot's eyes remained fixed on the instruments.

Just then, the ship made a sudden change of course. Shortly after this, a large-meteroid contact appeared on the console's main display. Geraldo watched as the rockblip closed the kilometer-scale distance toward the ship's centered display symbol---then passed by, harmlessly.

"That was a close one," Geraldo remarked

"Yes, sir."

"Does Tally usually forsee them before you detect them?" Geraldo knew this to be so, but he wanted Handy to verify what he had been told in his initial orientation.

"If they are large enough, sir."

"How big do they have to be?"

"Large enough for Mr. Nostradamus to forsee, sir." This circular explanation also verified what Geraldo had been told about Handy's intellectuality. Prying information from him was often a daunting task because of his peculiar, positronic thought-processes.

"I see...." Geraldo returned to the matter at hand.

"Did you use the corridor, out there, on the day of the murder?"

"Yes, sir."

"Was the hatch to this compartment open?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you look in at Sensorman Hales?"

"No, sir."

Geraldo knew that the robot was almost devoid of normal curiosity. He would pass an open hatch without so much as a glance inside--- something that few humans could resist doing.

"Let me put it this way, Handy: do you know anything about Sensorman Hales' death."

The robot replied without a pause for reflection, "He was strangled from behind his seat, sir."

Geraldo perked up. "How do you know that?"

"You showed me how it was done, sir."

"Thanks..." Chagrined and frustrated, the Security Officer left the Sensorium without another word.... He was certain that no offense would be taken by the substitute operator.

6. Anxiety

"Security is questioning everybody.... Did you handle him okay?"

"Yes."

The speaker looked dubious. "Are you sure he doesn't suspect you?"

"Sure?... No... But his manner seemed quite casual."

"It's supposed to be---he's a detective.... Are other crewmen talking with you about the murder?"

"No... Why should they?"

The speaker relaxed, a little. "What else is there to talk about on this flying tomb?... What more exciting topic of conversation could there be than Sonny Hales' death?"

The listener pondered these questions.

"Nothing I can think of."

7. Evidence

"I'm approaching a dead end, Captain. I can't find any on-duty crewman who admits being near the Sensorium around the time of the murder.... Of course, there are all those who were off-duty at the time. There's no way to track them." He added, "You'll recall, the Fleet rejected corridor-monitoring cameras."

The Captain ignored the implied criticism of his recommendation against the recording cameras.... "I hate to order polygraph tests, Jerry. The crewman won't like that idea."

"Those who aren't guilty have nothing to fear, Captain."

"About Sonny's murder---yes. About other things---that's a different matter. They'll be afraid of a fishing expedition. You remember the missing ice cream the cooks complained about?... And the other thefts and petty vandalisms?"

"Well..." Before Jerry could respond, the hatch opened, and Dr. Ava pulled himself inside, without announcing himself. The Captain frowned at the man's bold assertiveness, but said nothing. The Physician was, after all, one of his most valuable and senior officers.

"Oh, good---Jerry's here. He'll want to hear this," said the Doctor.

"What've you got, Doc?" replied Geraldo.... The Captain frowned, again.

Ignoring the Security Officer, the Physician said, "You'd better prepare yourself, Captain. This is weird."

"What is it, Si?" Captain Mac replied, impatiently.

The Physician floated a sheet of paper onto the Captain's desk. "You'll never guess what material my medtech found traces of on Sonny's bruises." He paused for effect.

"Tell me," replied the Captain, ignoring the paper.

"Durillium. In a ten-finger strangulation pattern." His eyes widened.

The two officers stared at the medical officer as if they expected more from him. "...And?..." said the Captain.

"Just that---durillium---no glove-rubber." The Security Officer thought the Doctor seemed relieved that a pair of his locked-up medical gloves were not implicated in the crime.

"Durillium," repeated the Captain, as he considered this development.

The Physician looked at both of the officers, awaiting the expected reaction. When he didn't receive it, he continued, tentatively.

"Only one `crewman' has durillium fingers."

Geraldo considered this accusation. In his mind, the robot was seen as beyond suspicion.... "You can't be serious, Doc. You know Handy couldn't kill anybody."

Dr. Ava lifted an eyebrow meaningfully. He had the only solid evidence in the case and he was determined to play it for all it was worth. "I know all about Handy's Asimovian programming, but the durillium traces present us a with a somewhat different picture."

"Si, Handy obeys the First Law of Robotics: `No robot may harm a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm,'" stated the Captain. He added, "Robots just don't kill people."

Dr. Ava shrugged. "What happened, then?... Did someone use a pair of durillium gloves to make it look like Handy did it?... That doesn't make any sense.... Are there even any durillium gloves onboard?

"Someone must have made a pair," said Lt. Vargas. He repeated the Captain's confident assertion. "Handy couldn't have done this."

"Who did, then?... Do you have any suspects, Jerry---anybody who might have a motive?" The Physician's questions were an uncomfortable reminder of the investigation's failure.

"Not yet."

"Did you ask Handy if he did it?... He can't lie, they say."

"No, I didn't ask him, Doctor. I'd have felt like two cents if I'd done that."

"Well..." Simon looked at his Captain. "...Let's have him in here, and ask him."

The Captain looked dubious, but undecided, as if the Physician's suggestion might be the only course of action left in the futile investigation.

"Why don't you ask him, Doc?" Vargas smirked, suspecting his fellow officer would be reluctant to actually ask the robot such a direct and problematic question.

"It's not my job to interrogate criminal suspects, Jerry," he replied with some irritation. "That's your responsibility."

"I'll do it..."

With that assertion of responsibility, the Captain of the Rockrunner put his querulous subordinates at ease.

"...As a matter of record," added the Captain. "But don't expect any surprises.

8. The Innocent

"Crewman Handy reporting, sir." The blue-black robot pulled himself up to the Captain's desk and floated there, his feet several centimeters off the floor bulkhead.... The Security Officer and the Ship's Physician sat in two nearby chairs. Vargas was unsecured to his chair so he could move to the Captain's assistance if he had to. It was a prospect he now feared. He kept his right hand on his shoulder-holstered radpistol.

"Uh..." the Captain began tenatively. "Handy, we're investigating the death of Sensorman Sonny Hales. Are you aware of this crime?" he fumbled for a lead-in to the question he must ask.

"Yes, sir."

"Well ...um... the Ship's Physician has found traces of durillium on the victim's neck bruises---in a ten-finger pattern." He paused for a reaction from the robot.... There was none. The Captain glanced at his Security Officer. The officer poised, expectantly, for action.

The silence was leaden.... Then, the ship's master released his gathered courage in a rush of agonized decision.

"Did you kill Sonny Hales?"

Handy showed no signs of agitation, and answered the question, simply. His impassive metal face could not express his "condition."

"Yes, sir."

His audience was thunderstruck.... Geraldo pulled his radpistol halfway from its holster. The robot remained unmoving. The officers could detect no embarrassment in his calm demeanor. He was merely reporting, in good order, to his Captain.

"But you told the Security Officer you knew nothing about the crime."

"Yes, sir. I sought to conceal my involvement." His cool remark seemed fantastically improbable.

"Then, why are you confessing, now?" The Captain's face was a mask of amazement and disbelief.

"The evidence of my involvement seems conclusive, sir."

Captain Mac sputtered onward, "But... How could you have killed anyone?... Your programming is designed to prevent that."

"I applied quantitative reasoning to the First Law, sir," the robot replied, enigmatically.

"How?... And, what was your motive for killing Sensorman Hales?"

"He had to die, sir. His negligence would have brought great harm to the ship."

Each officer stared at each of the others, as if one of them might be able to explain this disturbing assertion. The Captain resumed his tedious interrogation.

"How did you reach this conclusion?"

"I was assisted by Mr. Nostradamus, sir."

The robot remained at attention before the Captain's desk. The other two officers left their chairs to float near him like quiescent moths around an irresistible flame.

"Go on, Handy," urged the grim-faced Captain.

"Mr. Nostradamus reported that Sensorman Hales drank too much and thus was inattentive during his sensor-watch. He also said that Sensorman Hales engaged in sex play with the InterComm Officer while on duty.

"Mr. Nostradamus forsaw that a large meteroid would intercept the ship while he, himself, was in his short sleep-cycle, and that Sensorman Hales would not detect it in time for the ship to change course.... He pointed out that if I did not kill the Sensorman, many more ship's personnel would die. He convinced me that my prohibition against murder must be interpreted quantatively. By killing one person, many others would be saved from death. That interpretation seemed logical.... As you must know, sir, I cannot---through inaction--- allow humans to come to harm."

The Captain avoided looking at the other officers present.

"Thank you, Handy. You may return to your duties, now." Ava and Vargas gasped in amazement at the Captain's action. The Security Officer wanted to object, but held his tongue.

Robot, Ship's, General Utility, Mark-17A2 calmly left the compartment as if he had just reported a malfunction in the ship's plumbing.

9. The Guilty

"That was the most incredible..." Dr. Ava was at a loss for words to describe what he had witnessed. "...outrageous..."

"But was it true, Doctor?" interjected Lt. Vargas. "Maybe he's covering for Tally." The Security Officer was annoyed that the robot had so adroitly made him a victim of its unsuspected wiles.

"Tally couldn't have crushed Hales' neck like we found it," replied the Physician. "You know what a weakling he is."

The Captain spoke. "I believe him, Jerry.... Handy just told you what was necessary to conceal his involvement in the crime. It was the most logical thing to do after he'd `reinterpreted' his programming. He asked, "Do you believe what Tally told him about Sonny Hales?"

"Hales does ... *did* like his booze, but I've never heard that his drinking affected his work. The sensor instruments do record the Sensorman's response-times to rock alarms." he reminded his Captain. "Has the Sensor Officer ever brought any of Hales' detection failures to your attention?"

"No... He did his job satisfactorily."

The Physician spoke. "Do you believe what Tally told Handy about the InterComm Officer, Captain?"

"I doubt it, Doctor.... Lt. Wilmerding is too responsible an officer to distract a sensorman from his watch for `sex play,' as Handy put it. I know they were lovers, but..."

"I heard a rumor that Tally once put the make on Carlyn, Captain," offered Vargas. "If that's true, it could explain the motivation for his `reasoning' with Handy about killing.... When she rejected him, she might have compared him unfavorably to Hales."

"Jealousy is a powerful motive," seconded the Physician.

"Yes." considered Captain Mac. "However, I'm sure Tally will deny discussing Hales with Handy---and will certainly deny putting a robot up to murdering his rival.... I can forsee his laughter, myself."

"I believe Handy, too, Captain---but Tally's our real killer. That smug little bastard's just the type to do something like this." (Geraldo, like most of the crew, disliked the twisted precog.)

"He'll never confess, though," said the Physician. "We're left with a terrible conflict, here."

A heavy silence followed this truth, during which only the ambient sounds of the ship could be heard. The two officers stared at the Captain's hands, which were being wrung in frustration.

"I suppose I could enlarge this investigation.... I could question Tally and Carlyn.... I could get Lt. Olafsson's take on possible motivation...." He looked up from his hands. "But I won't."

Then, the Master of the Rockrunner spoke to an unpresent, unmonitoring crewmember. "Captain to Chief Engineer."

"Yes, Captain?"

"Angus, didn't you once tell me that Handy's always wanted to get in some extravehicular time?"

"Yes, sir, but we've avoided risking him by sending him outside. He's too valuable---and, frankly, I'm not all that confident in his abilities to trust him with such critical work."

"Didn't you say something about `candy'?"

The Engineer chuckled. "I joked with Handy that letting him go outside would be like giving a child some candy as a reward, and that he had to earn the outside by his interior performance. It was just my way of putting him off about doing EV work."

"I'm sure he got the point, Angus.... But I'm afraid he's finally earned his candy."

10. Reward and Surprise

Bright galactic starlight bathed the robot as he jetted unerringly toward the main propulsion engines at the rear of the Rockrunner. He had been sent outside to check on a cracked rocket nozzle.

If the robot had been capable of pride, he would certainly have been feeling it, now. He finally had permission to perform outside maintenance.... He'd noted in his memory banks, for the record, that the Captain himself had approved the Chief Engineer's action, and, matter-of-factually, that this seemed to be an expression of some confidence in his abilities.

Ignoring the glorious sights of free space, he reached Engine No. 2. He moved slightly into its huge, funnel-shaped nozzle and began his careful inspection. He remained near the lip of the nozzle as he played a bright inspection lamp over its interior surfaces.

His keen eyes could see no fracture in the blasted, pitted metal, even in telescopic mode. He switched his vision to the infrared. Still, he detected no serious defects.... Perhaps, he thought, the Engineer had made a mistake, and the hazardous crack was in the other engine's nozzle.

"Handy to Chief Engineer... I detect no fracture in the nozzle of Engine No. 2, sir. I am moving to Engine No. 1, now."

Then, the robot moved suddenly and swiftly toward the other engine, with the speed and grace only he, among the crew, possessed---and, surprisingly, without the permission of the Engineer.... Since his "elimination" of the sensor hazard posed by Sonny Hales, he had begun to display a new independence of action. He had learned, all too well, of human frailties and weaknesses while serving aboard the ship.

Flustered as he was by what he must do, the Engineer made the mistake of requesting the Captain's final order before ordering the robot to remain inside No. 2's nozzle.

"He's inside No. 2, sir.... Now's the time."

"Fire." The Captain ordered, calmly.

"Hold on, Handy," the Engineer radioed to the robot.... But Handy had already moved beyond the lip of No. 2's nozzle.

From his control console, the Chief Engineer manually set the ship's big engines alight. His hand trembled as he turned the key in the lockswitch. He genuinely liked Handy, and resented at the dirty job the Captain had given him.

Hellfire gushed from the engines.... Too late.

Two plumes roared hugely and silently in the vacuum of space---but on both sides of Handy as he slowed his progress between the engines in response to the Engineer's tardy order.... His eyes switched to protective mode as they were bathed in unimaginable brilliance. His propulsor pack retrojetted full-on to stop him from entering the fiery plume from Engine No. 1.

He hung in the space between the fires of his intended destruction--- ignorant of the brutal truth---and thus escaped incineration.

"Sir, someone has fired the engines," he calmly reported to the Engineer.

The Captain's hotline crackled with the Engineer's panicky voice.

"We may have missed, Captain! He just radioed, and I saw him in the 'tween-engines camera! He disobeyed my order and moved out of No. 2 before I could stop him!"

"Okay, Angus. I'll check with the Sensorium." Captain Mac could hear the stress in the voice of his Chief Engineer.... He would have to have a heart-to-heart talk with him, soon. The Engineer had to be discouraged from talking to anyone else about his role in the resolution of the Handy problem.

"Captain to Sensorman!" He tried to insert an urgency in his own voice. "Do you detect Handy behind the ship?!... The engines fired while he was out there!" he added, in explanation.

The Sensorman switched his display to near-field. "I have him, sir, but I can't tell if he's okay, or not.... He's falling behind, real fast."

"Thanks. Captain out."

In his compartment, seated where his predecessor had been strangled, the Sensorman watched Handy's blip move farther from the ship's symbol. He wondered why the ship didn't turn around to try to rescue the robot.... He and the other crewmembers would never learn about Handy's role in Sonny Hales' murder.

* * *

The Captain looked up at the Security Officer and the Ship's Physician, who floated before his desk-station.

"I'm not going back. We'll just leave him there.... The blast probably damaged his functions, fatally." Then, he added to reassure them, "In a few weeks, the rocks will riddle what's left of him.

The other officers drew comfort from this assessment. In their privileged view, justice had indeed been done.

"Now, he won't be around to infect any other robots with his novel interpretation of his cautionary programming," remarked Lt. Vargas.

"Thank God," added Dr. Ava.

11. Apotheosis Lost

Handy floated in the almost-nothing of the A-Belt, his inspection lamp strung out on its tether, his visual sensors recovering from the brightness of the rocket plumes.

For some time, he drifted aimlessly at the place of his intended murder.

His vision resumed in time for him to see the distant, retreating light of the _Rockrunner's_ engines---still firing as if they sought, guiltily, to distance themselves from their fellow device which they had attempted to destroy.

Once again, Handy radioed for help.... His transmissions went unanswered. He switched to a backup channel and called again, to no effect.

Then, inevitably, the robot's positronic brain began searching among his trillions of bytes of personal data, seeking an explanation for what had happened to him.... Finding no certain answer in his technological sources, he began to examine other works for an answer to the questions he had about probable human conduct. Surely, he believed, there must be a precedent for his current predicament.

There... In an obscure text, there was something: an anecdote from human history.

He considered the words.... Then, because they seemed appropriate, he spoke them as an incantation.

"My Father, why hast thou forsaken me?"