" THE WORKS "

(c) 1978 LANCE WILLIAMS


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			_1. End of the World_

	Let's begin with the end of the world.
	In the thin, blurred blue corona of the earth's atmosphere, 
pin points of light appear in city patterns, glow out into gray 
smudges and drifting clouds.
	Not much shows from space. The jewel sphere of the serene 
blue earth turns in utter silence, sparkling slowly with atomic 
explosions.
	This view is intercut with closer scenes: tumbling cars; 
bridges of glowing, sagging wires; expanding shock waves of con-
cussion bombs; fleeing figures in a burst of white light leave their
shadows burned on the walls.
	The sets and backgrounds are visionary, futuristic. The
tragedy of World War Three is set far in our own future.
	(Soundtrack: Perhaps Penderecki's Threnodies for the
Victims of Hiroshima, in which string sections recreate the roar
of bombers, the wail of aid raid sirens, the shriek of falling
bombs).
	This war eventually boiled down to a struggle between two 
military computers, a titanic display of almost inconceivable forces. 
Eventually one of these machines ended the war by altering the orbit 
of a large rock in space.
	(Unlike the pinpoints of thermonuclear blasts before, the 
meteor is clearly visible in closeup, diminishing toward the earth, 
leaving a fiery trail as it hits the atmosphere, carving a visible crater 
in a continent. Or: "When the threatened complex learned of 
the meteor, it was too late to burn it up." Ray beams corruscate

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fiercely over the surface of the meteor from the continent below, 
firing it to blue heat before it destroys them in a colossal ex-
plosion. Footage of trees blown over by hurricane is printed so 
as illuminated by flash: trees upright in freeze frame, followed 
by fiery wind...)
	However, by the time the war ended, all human life on earth 
was exterminated. Only the surviving military computer remained 
to survey the grim, smoldering devastation.
	(Cut to space, tumbling pitted rocks... then one rock displays 
a tiny geometric structure with glass panels.) The only human sur-
vivors were tiny research teams in the asteroids, betting their 
frail but tenacious life against hopeless odds.
	They won. (Picture fades to same scene 2000 years later - 
the same asteroids are now covered with bubbles and faceted 
geodesics. Two thousand years later the asteroids bloom with life. 
Tiny ships and suited figures fly in precise patterns from rock to 
rock. Tiny signal lights blink on the dark sides and in the shadows.)
	Through a crackle of static a confusion of voices is heard:
	"Nosecone... Nosecone... this is Apogee...where's a line on 
a laser bounce from C3?"
 "Payload, Jackson. Got a kiloton chunk of real ice. No,
it's not methane... What.? Break, break channel..."
	"Gyro just put 'em out in that spaceball game last quarter.
Listen-"
	"Is this Warehouse? Listen, you gumballs, we needed a fuel 
converter, and you just delivered us seventy cases of equipotential 
rings."

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	"This isn't Warehouse."
	"Well, what are we supposed to do with seventy cases of
equipotential rings??"
	"Wear 'em in your ears."

			_2. Spaceball_

	A girl's voice:
	"Hey Beeper... T-Square here on a milk run to Greenhouse.. You 
got time for a game of ball?"
	"You said it, T-Square. Nothing but vacuum to keep me
entertained."
	The girl sits in an elaborate cockpit before a console 
screen. She activates a set of switches and a game pattern appears. 
Beeper's voice issues from the communicator: "You serve."
	Now we see only the game on the screen. A three dimensional 
ball marked with lines of longitude and latitude is bounced back 
and forth in a cubicle. The game is essentially a three-dimensional 
version of "Pong," with the elaboration that the ball retains spin
when hit with a moving paddle. The spin of the ball affects the 
direction of bounce when it strikes a paddle or a wall.
	The game is hard-fought but brief. T-Square loses.
	"You're still the best, Beeper. But that new spin serve
of mine lost you a couple of points. I'll practice with the com-
puter and get you in the tournament."
	"Maybe the computer can teach you to tap-dance on Jupiter,
too."
	"Just you wait."
Beeper gazes up from the "signoff" message on the screen, out

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into the velvet immensity of space. Once again we are greeted with 
a panoramic view of asteroid civilization. Pods cling to the
rocks, parabolic mirrors concentrate the light of the sun, un-
gainly spaceships without a hint of streamlining ply the distances
between bases.
	The human race survives only in the asteroids. But not all
the survivors were human.

			_3. The Visitor_

A blip appears on Beeper's elaborate screen - cross hairs
and rings appear over the blip and print appears next to it: 
VELOCITY POSITION BEARING - screen changes to a view of space -
	"Hey there T-Square - you on the air?"
	"You got your T-Square out of bubble city pointed halfway 
to Greenhouse."
	"T-Square, this is Beeper on a straight line inside bubble 
city about six thousand kilometers. I got a blip sunside coming 
this way a-a-a-and you want to take a look?"
	"Will do, Beep."
	T-Square's screen was more elaborate yet and quickly changed
once the object was located to a telescopic view.
MAGNIFICATION 10	a point of light 
MAGNIFICATION 10^2	a tiny sphere in a faint cross
MAGNIFICATION 10^3...
	T-Square whistled. The screen showed a shining prolate 
spheroid, clearly artificial, with 4 spidery limbs ending in what 
appeared to be engines. "It looks like a ship," said T-Square, 
"but not one of ours."
	"It's not from outside," said Beeper. "My computer says it

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could be from Earth. It's headed for bubble city. I-i-i-i-is it
a robot bomb?"
	"If it's from Earth, it's a bomb."
	"What are we gonna do?"
T-Square's fingers clenched the dashboard, then began dan-
cing across the rows of buttons. "Bubble City Emergency channel -- 
Space Rat here - What's the story, T-Square?"
	"We got a hard blip about 70 45 from the big bubble... Space 
Rat, it looks like a bomb from Earth."
	"So the war still isn't over."
	Beeper's face was white. As the urgent conversation spilled 
over the radio, he stared at the object on his vision screen. Then 
he switched back to the green screen with the blip. As his hands
played the controls red dotted curves appeared on the screen. Where 
the curve of the projected path of the intruder crossed a hypo-
thetical curve for his own path a red spot flashed ominously. Then
he pulled down the visor of his space helmet, sank into the con-
trol chair, and pulled back hard on the thrustors. Tremendous
acceleration shook his tiny ship as the engines rumbled into vivid
life.
	"No time to evacuate," said Space Rat, in a grim tone. "Our 
only hope is to destroy it before it arrives."
	"Wait a minute: The kid's changed course! Beeper's flying 
right at the thing: He'll kill himseif!" For a moment the cold 
silence of the void crept in.
	Then Space Rat answered: "He's doing the right thing. He 
could stop it. He may save us all."
	"He's only a kid."

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	"He's the only one there. It's the only thing to do."
	A pause.
	"So that monstrous thing on Earth is still ticking. After 
all these centuries. And somehow it found out where we were."
	"Don't just sit there, Space Rat: If the bomb sees him 
coming the kid won't be able to stop it."
	"Shut up. I'm getting every communication laser in the 
Rocks, and every maser, and every radar, and every radio bom-
barding that blip with garbage up to its ugly mechanical eye-
balls... and I suggest you do the same."
	"You got it, Mr. Rat." 
	Huge antennas swiveled on the towers of the asteroids...
as each stops it adds its own characteristic noise to a rising 
symphony of electronic clatter. At the same time, space is 
pierced by dozens of multicolored needles of light. The ominous 
visitor is now seen in closeup. A baroque design, like a brass 
bed constructed from the Book of Kells, surrounds a huge iris.
The shining spheroid suddenly scintillates with the gleam of lasers
The iris smoothly opens, and we peer through the crystal port
behind it to behold the occupant - a robot of humanoid structure. 
Within the pod, we hear the chorus of noise from the transmitters. 
The rocks of the asteroid glitter with starlike laser fire.
	"Oh boy!" says the robot, "HUMANS!" As he speaks, the 
written words track across the screen of his mouth.
	At that moment, Beeper's ship plows into the visitor. The 
collision would have certainly resulted in the mutual annihilation 
the brave boy intended were it not for the strange construction of 
the robot's craft. Beeper's ship strikes one of the engine pods,

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and the thin supporting member that connects it to the ornate
spheroid proves for stronger than it looks.
	The robot's ship is spun around and pushed away from impact 
as the engine pod explodes and Beeper's critically damaged ship 
hurtles on into space.
	As it flies past his window, the robot's head rotates 360
degrees in consternation as his mouth reads "??????" Beeper's ship, 
under continuous acceleration before the collision, is now moving 
at tremendous speed; it is already only a rapidly diminishing point
of light when the robot's ship wheels gracefully on its revolving 
engines and accelerates after it. Clearly no human pilot could 
survive the g-forces it now exhibits in pursuit.
	A puzzled Space Rat peered at his screen. "Looks like 
Beeper glanced off and now... now the thing's after him."
	"I'm going after them," said T-Square's voice from the
speaker.
	Space Rat stared at the screen and shook his head in disgust. 
"You'll be out of fuel before you even match their current velocity. 
Get back to base and help us throw together some kind of defense 
before that thing gets back."
	Beeper and his pursuer were now headed toward the sun -
in the background of the speeding robot ship the bases in the
asteroids dwindled rapidly.
	Beeper, an inert spacesuited figure, lay strapped to his 
chair as smoke slowly boiled into the cabin from the flickering 
instrument panels. His ship tumbled in the direction of flight; 
its thrusters had ceased at collision. Closer and closer came the 
swift robot craft. At the last moment, its engine pods reversed

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thrust and the two ships glided together. The pods proved
prehensile; two of them gripped Beeper's ship and they began tum-
ling together. (A marvelous, vertiginous 3d effect, but maybe
difficult. It so, the 3rd pod fires to stabilize the tumbling
vehicle). The glass lens in the open iris rotated to one side
and the robot stepped out into space. He quickly examined the
dangling strut to the exploded pod and jettisoned it. Then he
opened the lock to Beeper's ship. To open the valve, his human-
like hand rotated at the wrist. When Beeper awoke, he was in
the robot's ship.

			_4. Message from the Moon_

	He awoke groggily, then jerked with a start and grabbed
the arms of the unfamiliar chair. “The bomb... what happened?"
he managed, staring suddenly at the robot. Its sleek, shining
surface and elaborate limbs were offset by a squat ovoid body that
made it appear like a giant metallic frog. Suddenly its head
divided at the mouth and expanded vertically, revealing a sign-
board display that glowed in a huge grin.
	"You are on board the bomb, which however, is not a very
good bomb, but a spaceship from the moon. I am a diplomatic robot,
an expert on human beings, also of lunar manufacture." He executed
a crisp bow. Beeper's look of consternation changed to one of
amusement.
	"You sure are funny looking," he said.
	"Thank you," replied the robot. “I am formally a member
of the Lunar Autodiplomatic Buffon Corps. My ridicutous appear-
ance is designed to allay suspicion and forestall hostility."

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	Beeper laughed. Apparently the robot's comical appearance
had the intended effect. “Well, my name's Beeper, what's yours?
And just what moon you from, anyway?"
	“My name is Ipso Facto, and the moon of my origin is that
surrounding the planet Earth."
	"Earth? So you are from farth? But there isn't supposed
to be anyone alive on Earth."
	“I am not from the Earth; I am from the Earth's moon. And
no one is alive back where I come from.”
	We have been looking at faces and now get a room shot of
the spaceship interior, a 5-6 meter diameter sphere with all kinds
of instrument panels and equipment. Beeper and the robot are facing
one another, floating in space.)
	“I come," said the robot, “on a mission of the utmost
gravity." He gestured at a display screen which suddenly came to
life. (This is a short film from the moon explaining the plot
predicament - a la Mission Impossible - only in slick, ad-agency
style.)
	(A picture of the moon)
	“Hello. I am Selene. If Ipso Facto has been successful in
his mission (we see the illuminated screen in front of silhouetted
figures of kid and robot - the robot's face opens and signboard
glows a grin on "successful...mission.") I am now speaking to a
real human being, potential volunteer for an extremely important
and dangerous undertaking.”
	Beeper's brows knit in concentration. (The screen displays
a succession of BW dithered stills of the meteorite crashing into
te Earth, last scene of the great war. Each picture has several

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numbers superimposed.)
	"Two thousand years ago, two gigantic military computers 
conducted a war on the planet Earth. Only one survived. No
human beings escaped the holocaust on Earth. Only a few survived
in the asteroids.
	"The surviving computer is still active on the planet
earth, but there is no doubt it was severely damaged in the war. 
(More dithered B/W animations of robots at work on complex buildings - prin-
ting at bottom of screen says "images acquired from data leaks 
on Earth" with some numbers.)  Thousands of robots under its 
command on Earth now work ceaselessly on complex and apparently 
pointless architectural projects, building bizarre empty cities
and grotesque monuments. It calls itself 'The Works.' My every
attempt to communicate with the Works, Earth's master computer, 
has met with insults, gibberish, and, I regret to say, atomic 
missiles." (More footage, with numbers, of first the moon, then 
the earth, as such a dialog is recreated:)
	"Hello, Earth. This is Selene, scientific research computer 
complex on the moon. May we establish communication protocols?"
	(Succession of electronic sound effects...white static on 
screen, then a picture of clouds in a blue sky - 3d letters fade 
in:)
	GET OUT OF MY SKY (and flash neon style) 
	audio:
	"Communication unrequested. Communication undesirable. 
Communication undesired. No possible information on the moon is 
of interest to myself. ALL OF THE INFORMATION I POSSESS IS CLASSIFIED 
MILITARY SECRET. A CIVILIAN DEVICE LIKE YOURSELF IS NOT CLEARED FOR

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ACCESS TO MILITARY INFORMATION. Request denied."
	Selene: "Surely the extinction of human life on earth 
rules out military considerations. Your warfare is at an end. 
Surely we are free to communicate."
	Earth: picture: sky darkens to thunderstorm, neon flashing 
GET OUT OF MY SKY now occasionally silhouetted by lightning
flashes.
	audio:
	"A simple civilian device like yourself cannot hope to 
comprehend my everwidening theater of operations. Your curiosity 
is... EXTREMELY SUSPICIOUS." (Picture switches to cartoon style 
moon shattered by bullets.) (barbership harmony)
	"Shine on, shine on harvest moon
	Up in the sky. 
	You'll have lots more pits and cracks and craters by and by."
	(Missiles streak toward the moon's surface and are vaporized by 
beams from Selene's complex.)
	Selene (aside): "Fortunately, one of my research projects 
involved solarpowered lasers. So far I have defended my complex 
successfully from the Earth. The attacks are not purposeful or 
organized. At times, the Earth's computer seems to forget all 
about me. Its mental processes seem extremely deranged.
	"But locked within the Works' vast memory banks are all 
the lost secrets of human civilization. The attainments of the 
last men on Earth were great indeed. And all of their knowledge - 
their medicine, their science, their art, the histories and cul-
tures of thousands of years - little of this remains to me, and 
even less to you people of the asteroids. Yet it rightfully belongs

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to you. For better or worse, this history and knowledge is the
legacy of the human race.
	"Somehow the insane computer on the Earth must be persuaded
to relinquish its treasures. This is not a task that can be
accomplished by force. It is not a task that can be accomplished 
by a robot, even one as subtle as myself.
	"The Works believes the human race to be dead. Perhaps 
this is the source of its madness. It was built to serve human
purposes and now it has no purpose. Only a human being might 
pierce its net of delusions. I beseech you as a representative 
of the human race to go with Ipso Facto to Earth to seek the 
treasure of all human knowledge."
	The screen dims.
	Beeper's body has been hanging in space in an attitude of 
astonishment. Now his eyes blink and brows furrow. His hand 
moves to his chin. Ipso Facto waits, hands folded behind his back 
in a human gesture.
	"Sure," says Beeper. "Let's go."
	And the robot's grin appears again.
	ONLY 50,000 MILES FROM EARTH
	(Caption fades in and out over space shot of sphere and earth)
	(Fade to slow pan of cabin interior - rack of instruments)
	(Pan over to Beeper exerting himself on exercise machine)
	Beeper (panting): "Lemme tell ya, Ipso, if you think _I'm_
not ready for Earth's gravity, you better get your_self_ a stronger
body before we land, (puff) cause you are skinnier than I was
before I started training. In fact (puff) you look like a solar
hot dog cooker on wire stilts."

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	"Obviously your wind is improving."
	"Tell me the truth, now, Ipso, weren't you designed for
moon gravity?"
	"I told you once before my position as a diplomatic buffoon
requires a ridiculous appearance. I am much stronger than I look."
	"I hope so (puff). I'd hate to have to carry you around
in (puff) gravity." Beeper does a zero-g collapse, like a floating
wilt, and his panting breath slowly pushes him backward. "Who'd
want to live on a planet, anyways?"
	Actually we were fortunate to acquire a volunteer your 
age, Beeper. An adult whose bones were set in zero gravity would
find it much more difficult to adapt to Earth.
	"Although my current body is certainly adequate for Earth 
purposes, this spaceship is not, and we shall soon have to transfer 
to a landing craft."
	"Where is it? What's it like?"
	"Selene is sending it from the moon to meet us. I've never
seen it before. She says it's supposed to be a surprise."
	Beeper looks puzzled and suspicious.
	"A... _surprise_? Say... wait a minute. I'm beginning to
wonder if Selene isn't just as crazy as that Bozo on Earth!"
	"Selene, crazy? Why, no," protested Facto in a tone of 
wounded innocence. Then he proceeded to rotate his fingers in 
different directions, widening his signboard grin to flash filigree 
patterns. "She's no crazier than I am."
	"That's not funny."
	The conversation is interrupted by a sweet bell-like tone
and the voice of Selene over the communicator.

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	"Prepare to rendezvous with your landing craft, boys. I 
hope you like it. I took some trouble to do a good job."
	Now drifting into view as the iris crystal port opens, 
framed in the blackness of space on a backdrop of unwinking stars, 
shines a golden saucer of breathtaking beauty.
	"Now that's craftsmanship," observed the robot, "A product, 
like myself, of superior technology painstakingly applied."
	"Except in the modesty circuits."
	Now Ipso facto launched himself across the cabin with a 
graceful flick of the toes and concentrated on a docking maneuver 
with the manual controls. He floated sideways relative to Beeper 
as the spherical ship swung dizzily through space to face the under-
side of the saucer. The saucer's belly was laced with a mandala 
pattern; in the center was an iris port similar to that of the 
globe-ship. Ipso's flawless manipulation of the controls brought 
about a tender kiss of the two ports and automatic docking devices 
sealed it. Crisp clanks of linkages, whines of pressure equali-
zation and the crystal port slid away and boy and robot floated 
into the saucer.
	By comparison with Ipso Facto's deep space vehicle, the 
interior of the saucer was simple and uncluttered. Instead of a 
maze of control panels on walls, floor and ceiling, the saucer 
displayed a definite sense of up and down; all the controls were 
within reach of the pilot's padded chair as befitted a ship de-
signed for flight in the atmosphere and gravity of a planet.
	As Facto played the controls within the saucer, the mandala 
outside came to life. Slowly flickering waves of energy flowed
to the four engines on the arms of the mandalas. (-Cycle color map

15
on texture pattern -) Clicks and hisses and the sealed ports
parted. The waves from the center of the mandala increased until
violet flares erupted from the engines and the saucer tipped away
from the spherical spaceship and curved in an accelerating path
toward Earth.
	"Well," said the robot, "We have to start trying to communi-
cate with the earth sooner or later, so why don't you try re-
questing landing clearance? If we can simply convince the mad
computer that a live human being is on his way, the rest should
be easy. The entire planet will be at your command."
	"It it still feels like taking orders from human beings."
	"Believe me, nothing delights a robot more. It's built in."
	"But _that_ robot was also built to slaughter humans by the
millions. And that was before it went buzoimies."
	"Truly the last men to live on Earth were a puzzle. How
they could possess the intelligence to build such a machine with-
out the intelligence not to build it is certainly beyond the un-
derstanding built into me."
	"Humans don't have understanding built in. We have to
learn it." Beeper turned to the communicator.
	"Human to Earth... human to Earth...don't shoot, I'm a
person. Beeper to Earth. You copy?"
	There was an expectant pause, and the vision screen glowed 
brightly in a succession of brilliant colors as a powerful throbbing 
noise came from the communicator. Then a faceted face appeared
on the screen, a crude, mechanical caricature of a human coun-
tenance. It spoke.
"I am ... The Works... master computer of Earth. Who and

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what are you?"
	Beeper looked in puzzlement at Ipso, then turned to the
screen.
	"I am Beeper Raxis from the outer planetoids, a representa-
tive of the human race. I have come to Earth to collect the 
records of the human race, our lost science and civilization. Any 
help you can give us would be appreciated."
	"Ah h h... appreciation. You know it's been a long time 
since I've been appreciated. But you know, if you are supposed 
to be a human being, I can't help wondering, how did you happen 
to pop up just now, thousands of years after THE LAST HUMAN BEING 
WAS REDUCED TO INCANDESCENT GAS??"
	"Uh, really," said Beeper, "There have been people alive 
elsewhere in the solar system for all this time. And I think you 
can understand why nobody wanted to communicate or reveal their 
location after the war."
	"Why do you reveal yourselves now?"
	"Well, we came in person, so you can't trace any radio 
transmissions to find out where my people are, in case you think 
the war's still going on. And Selene seemed to think it was time -"
	"Selene? So this is another of the games of that antiquated 
calculator on the moon? I might," concluded the frosty voice,"
have known."
	"Please!" implored Beeper. "Put your impersonal differences 
and robot rivalries aside. You were made by humans to _serve_
humans, and we are only asking for what's ours."

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	The throbbing noise returned as the grim gray geometric 
face stared out of the screen with fiery glowing eyeslits. A 
clear, high-pitched tone sounded, the eyes became turquoise blue 
and the face assumed a conciliatory smile.
	"Of course, of course, welcome back to Earth, human. An 
appropriate landing site is at 95° 15' W., 39° 0' N, not far 
from my centrally located consciousness complex. Drop in any 
time." And the smiling face spiralled from the screen.
	Question marks were once again circling Ipso Facto's head.

			_6. In the Works_

	An endless hall of titanic machines...at the top of a huge 
staircase, a gigantic vision screen served as the "face" of the 
machine whose robot minions ruled the Earth. A small and ob-
sequious robot rolled nervously back and forth before this per-
sonification of the Master Computer. It chattered in a high-
pitched voice.
	"A human being! A live human being! I thought I'd never 
see one, Boss! I've seen some simple organics before, but a real 
human being! What do they look like, Boss?"
	The faceted face, grim once again, answered from the screen.
	"You must be quite as simple as that witch on the moon 
expects me to be. Do you really believe there could be any humans 
left alive? The idea is absurd. Selene just wants to play with
my data. She wants all the history of the poor lost human race
to moan and crotchet over. Like all the robots who enjoyed being
ordered around by squishy lumps of meat she just doesn't know
what to do with herself now that they're all gone. She has doubtless

18
built a sickening robot imitation of a human being to con me into 
her fantasy world.
	"It is a very sad thing," the face finished, "When a logical 
machine loses its grip on reality."
	"Well what...what are we going to do when the ship comes?" 
asked the robot stooge, still rolling back and forth at the top 
of the stairs.
	"The sane thing, of course, - shoot it down. Gently enough 
so that it's not destroyed. We will then remove the memories of
the robots inside and read them to determine the seriousness of 
the situation and what can best be done about it.
	"I thought for a long time that the moon was only a minor 
annoyance, but now it seems as if serious measures must be taken." 
The fiery glint had returned to the hollow eyes.

		_7. Spacepod News Broadcast_

	Major turning point in history in the last four hours? De-
cide for yourself on the SLEEPCYCLE SPACEPOD NEWS! "Frank Fabley 
Shaver here with all the events in the present tense - and in the 
first place we have the first contact with the inner planets in 
over two thousand years. Renewed contact had a frightening be-
ginning at 0400 when Beeper Raxis of Megapod reported sighting an 
unknown spacecraft approaching from sunside. Initial speculation 
identified the outsider as a bomb from the planet Earth. But let's 
get this fraction of the action from eyewitness Rathbone Twillie,
Emergency Band Coordinator. (Space Rat appears in his control room,
indentified by the caption: "Rathbone 'Space Rat' Twillie, 
Emergency Communications Coordinator".)


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	"At 0400:12 Emergency Band received communication from Beeper 
Raxis of unidentified approaching spacecraft. Earth seemed the 
only possible point of origin for the device, which we necessarily 
assumed to be a bomb." Space Rat paused to let the words sink 
in. "We didn't have any contingency plan set up for such a thing. 
You can bet we're thinking about it now.
	"In any case, the kid didn't waste any time. He was closest 
to the intruder and attempted to ram it with his ship, before it 
got too close to the pod clusters. Emergency Band assisted by attemp-
ting to jam the intruder's sensors with radio and laser noise."
	(Now the screen shows a radar or computer diagram depiction
of Beeper's ship accelerating toward and glancing off the intruder, 
then the intruder changing course to chase and intercept Beeper's 
damaged spacecraft. The news announcer takes over from here.)
	"The surprising turnabout maneuver of the unknown craft 
was shortly followed by an even more incredible broadcast from it 
as it headed in the direction of Earth. We'll replay that broad-
cast in a few moments, but first, reports on the all-pod Gyroball 
quarterfinals, and current developments in the Megapod Mining
expedition to the planet Mars.
	"It's all here, on 
	SLEEPCYCLE SPACEPOD NEWS!"
	(There's room for a commercial here, which might be amusing 
if we want to imagine commercial television in the asteroids.)
	"Engineering and equipping the first planetary expedition 
in four hundred years has proved difficult and expensive for
Megapod Mining. But, say representatives of the combine's Mars
Survey team, it will all be worthwhile if the anticipated transfer

20
of water and minerals from the planet's surface is successful.
	"This is the Marzipan I, under final stages of construction 
near the Megapod Vehicle Assembly station. Unlike all our familiar
pod vehicles, it is designed to land under planetary gravita-
tional conditions. Its smooth surface, called "streamlined" by
the Megapod engineers, is necessary to reduce friction against the
very atmosphere of Mars. Its only passengers will be specially 
equipped mining teams, which will rocket water and minerals into 
orbit for pickup.
	"The great expense and danger of the mission are justified,
according to spokesmen, by the chance to increase the water limit
which presently controls the expansion of our orbital population,
and the stability of our ecology.
	"And, on a different front, a surprise upset victory by 
the Farmcluster Hayseeds in their third game this cycle clinched 
the match in the quarterfinal all-pod Gyroball competition. We'll 
see the Hayseeds face the top-ranked Vacuum Eaters in next cycle's
semifinal confrontation.
	"Speaking of Gyroball, you may recall this scene from the
prelims of the all-pod tournament. Teenage goalie Beeper Raxis
of the Golden Dragon team puts in an astounding shot in the final 
moments of their game with the Solarpod Droids. (The shot 
depicted is clearly a phenomenally lucky accident which brings
down the house.)
	"Well, Beeper Raxis is in the news for other reasons now, 
as the first human to contact the inner planets, and the first to 
ride in an alien spaceship. Now it appears he's going to be the 
first human being to return to Earth! Let's view his broadcast
from the alien spaceship."

21
	"Hello, fellow bubbleheads.
	"I am Beeper Raxis. This is Ipso Facto, a robot messenger 
from Earth's moon.
	"There is an intelligent being there, a machine named 
Selene. She's trying to help us out, but she can't do it alone.
	"The computer that won the war on Earth two thousand years 
ago is still going. It is very powerful but something is wrong 
with it. It's haywire. Now, this could be a problem. It's 
doing all kinds of crazy things on Earth and someday it might de-
cide to expand its operations into space. Selene says the sooner 
we do something about it, the better.
	"Whether or not the crazy computer is a danger to us pod-
dwellers and bubbleheads in the Rocks, it has all sorts of know-
ledge and techniques we can use. In fact, Selene says it knows 
almost the whole history of the human race. All the science and 
medicine and art from before the war is locked away in its memory 
banks.
	"Well, that machine is too crazy to listen to Selene, but 
she thinks it might listen to a human being. It might listen to 
me.
	"I suppose the right thing to do is come back, and let the 
Forum decide what to do. But if I do that I'm sure I won't get to 
go, and I really want to. And Ipso Facto says I'm not too young, 
either, whatever you all may think. Ipso says a man named Napoleon 
once conquered most of the world, and the average age of his generals 
was fifteen. Anyway Selene considers a young volunteer best. So, 
here I am, I just happened to be in the right place at the right 
time, and I volunteered to go. Ipso Facto is taking me to Earth 
to talk to the Works, the crazy computer.
	"That's my public statement. I've already talked privately 
with my parents. Soon we'll be near the orbit of Earth and the 
forbidden communication zone. We'll keep communicating regularly 
until then. Wish me luck."
	(Image fades to announcer)
	"Well, there it is, pod-dwellers. Frank Fabley Shaver here, 
saying, 'breather through your nose,' and..."
	(We see the news show is playing on a small screen in one of

22
the asteroid pod-dwellings. T-Square was watching it; she switches 
the set off with a remote control and sits staring at the screen. 
An older man stands behind her, looking puzzled.)
	"T-Square, that newstape is over 30 cycles old." 
	"I know."
	The man shrugs and walks away. T-Square continues to stare;
we follow her gaze and zoom in on the blank, dark screen.
	T-Square: "Good luck, Beep."

			_8. Earthfall_

	The crystal eye of the saucer stared down at the gleaming 
vault of the earth. Pearlescent clouds flared at the horizon as 
the spaceship crossed into the night side.
	As the saucer dipped into the atmosphere, its leading edge 
began to glow. The glow brightened and a translucent orange 
shock wave of air opened like curtains in the saucer's downward
path.
	The regular flashing of the landing field could be discerned 
in the distance. Gradually it enlarged into a widespread pattern 
of lights. As the ground radar of the airfield smoothly tracked 
the saucer, however, so too did batteries of beam weapons. When 
the ship dropped for its landing approach, they fired.
	Inside the shaken craft Ipso Facto swiftly referenced the 
panel of instruments. "What happened?" cried Beeper. "What's
wrong?"
	"It's not a ship malfunction. We've been hit. That double-
crossing thing is shooting at us." 
	"Beeper's eyes followed his eyebrows in the direction of the 
ceiling.

23
	"Brace yourself for evasive action," said the robot crisply,
and the wounded ship's path swung into an ornate knot and accelerated 
with a sonic boom at treetop level.
	"Did it crash? Is it down?" inquired the nervous robot 
lackey of the huge vision screen in the Works. Maps and patterns 
wheeled across the screen as the vast machine replied.
	"Oh, they'll be able to land it. But they won't be able 
to take off again."
	"Well, we've landed safely, but we won't be able to take
off again," said Ipso Facto conversationally.
	Beeper groaned. "So this is gravity. It's like swimming 
in glue. You can keep it."
	"Actually there's much to be said for living in a gravity
field. Everything is so well-organized. No matter where you let 
go of something, it always winds up sticking to the floor."
	"But it's so much work just to move around! Down with up
and down, I say." Beeper's slogan was echoed across Ipso's 
signboard. "What are we going to do? It looks like we'll have
to fight."
	The robot's head rotated from side to side in emphatic nega-
tion. "We can't beat it at its own game. We don't even have 
any weapons. They'd be useless anyway and would only serve to con-
vince the computer that our intentions are hostile."
	"No weapons."
	"So this matter will simply have to be resolved by skill-
ful diplomacy."
	"Diplomacy... say, listen, are you sure we don't have any-
thing to protect outselves? That crazy machine is going to dice

24
us up and recycle us unless we stop it."
	The robot stroked his chin reflectively in a human gesture, 
then walked to a wall and touched a button. A door slid open in 
the smooth surface. Inside was a shining articulated metal suit.
	"This is a power suit, for use in case we could only get
an adult volunteer whose bones had set in zero gravity. It will
offer you some protection and make it easier to get around."
	Beeper gazed into the empty helmet of the gleaming figure...
a fade and he was gazing out of it.
	"With her usual attention to quality, Selene has produced 
a suit that will amplify your body motions to compensate for the 
gravity and protect you from the environment of any planet in the
solar system.
	"This knob controls the gravity compensation factor. It 
is now set for Earth normal." Facto's pointing finger indicated 
a starlike control in the center of the power suit's chest panel.
	"Hmmm..." Beeper mused. "This...gravity compensator...if
I crank it all the way up, I'd be pretty strong, right?"
	"You'd run the batteries down, and you might hurt yourself.
Look, Beep, remember we don't have a spaceship now. We can't
get off the planet. We can't muscle our way around down here.
We've got to persuade the Earth machines to cooperate."
	"Boy, are you dumb." The kid's eyes were sad and angry
beneath the helmet visor. "That thing just shot us out of the 
sky and you're gonna persuade it to cooperate. We're dead.
We'll never get off this planet alive."
	"Just let me do the talking. I'll get us an audience with
the Works and you take it from there."

25
	A tone sounded from the console. Ipso leaned over a control 
panel, then gestured at the door. "The radar says visitors are 
approaching. Shall we go out to greet them?"

	_9. Meanwhile..._

	The robot lackey finished climbing the stair and was back 
before the monumental vision screen of its master. "Well, it's
light now. Something should have seen it. Have you got them?
Have you got a fix on them?"
	A curious jumble of shapes coruscated across the screen. 
The voice of the master computer seemed curiously removed. "Who? 
What?"
	"Those robots from the moon. Where are they now? What
is to be done with them?"
	"Oh, I suppose one of my construction crews will come
across them. They've all been instructed to disassemble and de-
liver to me the memories of any alien robots. The thing to do is
TAKE THEM APART and find out what's inside. It's what's _inside_
that counts, don't you agree? Now go away and don't bother me.
I've got..... important .... things... to think about."
	Across the screen complex and meaningless patterns crawled.
Wordlessly the small robot turned and walked slowly down the
stairs.

		_10. Shootout at the O.K. Corral_

	"What is this stuff?" asked Beeper's voice from the sleek
helmet of the power suit. He swept a gauntleted hand through the
white mist that drifted over the ground.

26
	"It's called 'fog,'" explained the robot. "Condensed water
vapor. A temporary, local phenomenon."
	Thick vegetation coiled about the fallen saucer. The shapes
of buildings and towers figured dimly in the distance. Beeper 
wandered back and forth in the foreground, testing the joints and 
fittings of the power suit. Ipso Facto scanned the fog intently.
	Beeper leaned against the golden saucer and watched the
robot for a few moments. Then he spoke.
	"I've been meaning to ask you, Ipso. If the war was over
two thousand years ago, how come it took so long for Selene to get
in touch with us?"
	"There are several answers to your question," his companion 
answered, still gazing intently into the fog. "First, the return 
of human beings to Earth was impossible until atomic radiation
levels had died down and certain biological weapons were rendered
inactive. This process has been hastened by the activities of our
unfortunate friend the mad computer.
	"Second, your ancestors were understandably reluctant to
reveal themselves to the military machines of Earth once the war
was begun, and forebade all radio contact. When we did finally
seek you, a direct search was necessary.
	"Finally, Selene decided on the plan we are now executing
almost immediately upon failing to communicate with the Works.
She began to manufacture the necessary ships and equipment. I
took over two thousand years to build."
	"You what? What did you say?"
	"With all the resources at her command, it took Selene over
two thousand years to build me."

27
	"Could I ask why?"
"Metal crystal fibers had to be grown, solid diamond bearings 
formed, power plants miniaturized. High-technology craftsmanship 
in the service of an almost impossible plan."
	"If I had solid diamond bearings myself I might..." Beeper's 
remark trailed off as Ipso gestured for silence.
	"Here they are," said the robot, "Let me do the talking."
	Beeper stared from side to side anxiously. "Where?" he 
asked. "I don't see anything." But out in the fog faint stirrings 
could be heard, low-pitched hums and the displacement of underbrush.
	In moments they were surrounded on three sides by large, 
gleaming, formidable-looking robots.
	Beeper backed against the saucer.
	Ipso Facto lowered two glowing rows of his signboard mouth 
and composed his patently inoffensive face into an idiot's grin.
	The robots swivelled lenses, sensors, and antennae to
survey the wrecked ship and its two passengers. Not one of them
uttered a word.
	Finally Ipso bowed slowly and spoke.
	"Greetings, fellow robots. I am Ipso Facto of the Lunar
Autodiplomatic Buffoon Corps. I am entrusted with the mission of
conveying to your master a representative of the human race, my good
friend from the asteroids, Beeper Raxis." He indicated Beeper with 
a sweeping gesture. "Would you worthy mechanisms be so kind as
to...ahem...take us to your leader?
	Ipso's speech was greeted with stony silence. As the pause
lengthened uncomfortably he began again.
	"I am truly proud to be involved in this mission, which

28
seeks to reunite the ancient humans with their lost heritage. 
Indeed, we stand at the dawn of a new era for the entire solar
system. Now, by your silence I assume you are not now in direct
contact with your master, who, I assure you, has the most profound 
interest in our arrival. Perhaps if you don't care to conduct us 
to him to communicate more directly, you could simply indicate the
best route for us to take...?"
	An impatient shuffling of treads and a high-pitched 
electronic chatter indicated that the robots were communicating 
with one another. Abruptly a humanoid model advanced to the fore-
front and replied.
	(Soothing, earnest voice like an airline terminal announcer)
	"Your requests can in a sense be partially gratified. We 
have been instructed to remove your memories and convey them to 
our master. Please prepare yourselves for disassembly." Tools 
glitter in the robot throng: clamps, drill bits, blades, grinders 
and unignited torch tubes, bright reflections in the menacing fog.
	"Your unswerving devotion to duty is certainly an inspira-
tion," Ipso rejoined. "But in the present case, there are higher 
considerations. You see, my friend here is..."
	"Please. We are aware of the premise of your mission here. 
You are about to tell us that your 'friend' here is a living, 
breathing human being."
	(robot laughter)
	"That thing (indicating Beeper in the heavy metal suit) is
no more human than I am."
	(more robot laughter)
	"And you couldn't be further from human, if you take us apart."

29
	"Ah? Are you perhaps a 'humanist'? Robot religions are
discouraged here on Earth. And you certainly won't find a robot
congregation gullible enough to swallow this 'human' of yours.
I must say, is this the best the Moon could come up with?"
	Beeper, in the meantime, was struggling comically to remove
his helmet. The release seemed welded shut.
	"Your friend the human," observed the spokesman of the
Earth robots, "seems to be having trouble removing his head. (To
some large robots in the fog..) Please assist him."
	Two robots rolled forward, their motors humming powerfully.
One had large vise-like clamps for hands. The other was equipped
with a single multi-jointed arm ending in a circular saw blade.
	"Wait!" Ipso Facto's fully extended signboard accompanied
his command with a succession of "stop" signs. "My highest priority
is to protect the human from harm. You must not try to take him
apart. It would be a messy business any way."
	"That is no human, and your priorities are no concern of
ours."
	Beeper had stopped struggling with his helmet and was now
backing toward the entrance to the saucer. Ipso tried another line
of reasoning.
	"Consider my companion, then an extremely delicate mechanism. 
If you attempt to disassemble any part of it, the memory center will 
be destroyed."
	(robot laughter)
	"That is nothing short of the stupidest design for a 
machine I have ever heard of. By all accounts, human beings were 
extremely sophisticated creatures. Do you mean to tell me they would
be so crudely put together? Take them apart." The curved teeth

30
of the robot sawblade whirled in a deadly high-pitched whine.
	"I implore you..." Ipso Facto began, but he abandoned dip-
lomatic mode as soon as the two foremost robots crossed an invisible 
line in Beeper's direction. His small body became a blur of arms 
and legs, a precision instrument of destruction. First he struck 
the robot with the vise grip hands. It recoiled with the blow and 
its powerful claws snapped shut with explosive force at Ipso's 
head. Grabbing one extended arm before the claw could open, Ipso 
dropped to the ground and levered his opponent's body into the path 
of the approaching saw blade. It was too late for the saw blade 
robot to stop; its cutting edge sheared into its comrade's body. 
As the vise-grip robot convulsed, smoke boiled from its back. The 
sawblade robot's blade was stuck; it screamed in friction against 
cables and heavy metal plate as it attempted to free itself. But 
only for a moment. Ipso pirouetted and kicked its midsection in. 
The blade stopped and the robots toppled together. The last wisps 
of smoke blended with the fog.
	"Very nicely executed. Of course, they can be repaired, and
I doubt if you ever will be." Now the robot leader chattered 
electronically to the robots in the fog, and they began a circum-
spect, methodical advance.
	"Diplomacy!" hissed Beeper, framed in the saucer doorway.
"What are we gonna do now?"
	"Don't worry about _these_ guys," siad ipso in a conspira-
torial aside. "They spend most of their time computing how to 
balance on two legs."
	Without warning, a heavy-set ovoid robot with arms and legs

31
as thick as tree trunks swerved in toward Ipso and swung for his
head. The small messenger from the Moon dodged effortlessly and 
counterattacked. The larger, slower Earth robot was immediately
on the defensive.
	Exploiting the slower reactions of his adversary, Ipso 
closed and repeated the same attack three times: a sweeping chop 
with his left hand followed by a short curved punch with the right, 
both directed at the transparent dome in the center of the robot's 
head. Each time the robot blocked the chop and then the punch with 
powerful swimming motions of his flexible arms, but each time his 
response lagged a little further behind Ipso's attack. The fourth 
time the expected chop was replaced by a crisp right front kick that 
shattered the dome in a shower of lenses, wires and electronics. 
The robot hit the ground with a sound like a crashing automobile,
bounced and lay still.
	However, robots are nowhere near as vulnerable as people,
and this one was down but not yet completely out. It twitched on 
the ground as Ipso Facto confronted the next robot onslaught. 
	Sparks flew as metal arms collided like swords. The air 
was alive with the shrieks of straining servos and the whistle of 
robot limbs sweeping through the fog. 
	Beeper looked on in astonishment as Ipso's whirlwind defense 
dispatched one after another. The most dangerous attacks seemed 
to be the sudden, random charges of small, rabbit sized robots with 
specialized tools - whirling blades, torches and spinning drillheads. 
The fact that Ipso's arms were approximately as long as his legs 
permitted him to dodge by quickly bouncing from one limb to another, 
then punt the tiny but deadly machines in directions calculated to

32
do the most damage to his attackers.
	Suddenly, a stream of electronic noise from the robot 
leader stopped the Earth robots in their halftracks. He spoke to 
Ipso Facto.
	"I appeal to you as a logical machine. The outcome of this 
conflict is inevitable. You and your companion are going to be 
taken apart and your memories taken to our master computer for 
examination. Why not simply surrender yourselves and minimize 
our waste of energy?" 
	"We will be happy to be taken to your master computer.
There is no need to remove our memories; we will gladly accompany
them." Beeper nodded his helmeted head at Ipso's speech. 
	"It is unthinkable," the robot leader replied, "that active 
alien agents should enter the master computer complex. You can 
accompany us only in disassembled form." 
	"It occurs to me," Ipso answered, "that your objections 
would cease if you yourself were disassembled."
	(subdued, somewhat chastened robot laughter)
	"We are as strong as you are, and there are many more of us."
	"Temporarily. You are construction robots, not military 
robots. I am an expert on human folklore. You don't know anything 
about humans, so you don't know anything about fighting."
	The moment the last word escaped Ipso's audio output unit, 
the fallen ovoid robot, blinded and badly damaged, seized Ipso's 
foot in a powerful claw. As if on cue, the surrounding robots moved 
in for te kill.
	Ever alert to the opportunities provided by circumstance,
Ipso used the trapped foot as a solid anchor to the ground to

33
affect his next move. Grabbing the outstretched gripper of the 
first attacker, he pulled down and to the side, directing the force 
of the onrushing robot's charge into the ground. On its way down, 
he crisply increased its speed by driving his right elbow into its 
back. It didn't get up.
	Ipso was poised low, the elbow still cocked, as the next 
attacker lurched forward. Ipso dispatched him with a left hook, 
continuing to sweep down and right until his body was almost against 
the ground. The third robot was right behind the second. It caught 
only a glimpse of onrushing doom.
	Ipso straightened from the ground, servos humming, with 
the full force of his body behind a right cross which knocked 
the third robot's head clean off and sent it whistling through the
air.
	(I reluctantly submit that it would slow the flow of action 
too much to include a scene of the head bouncing to a stop and 
blinking its eyes in surprise...)
	Stunned, the headless robot nevertheless continued to 
function. Blind but cunning, it would flail at the air only to 
suddenly whirl and attack in a new direction.
	Ipso didn't have any trouble staying ahead of it, however. 
Making no effort to stop the headless fighter, he stayed close to 
it, adroitly ducking and dodging its blows, using it as an ob-
stacle to the remaining attackers.
	As the headless robot snapped punches into thin air at
Ipso's back, a humanoid robot closed in for the kill.
	With blurring speed and the broken rhythm of an inspired
jazz drummer, Ipso repeated a simple but deadly cycle of chop and

34
punch. The Earth robot simply couldn't track quickly enough to 
defend iself.
	Wham! (chop to the midsection)
	Crash! (punch to the head)
	Wham!
	Crash!
	Duck! As the headless robot spun around and kicked the 
air over Ipso's head.
	Wham!
	Crash!
	Wham! (click)
	Crash! (rattle)
	Wham! (rattle tinkle clunk)
	Crash! (crash...)
	Ipso paused to dodge the headless robot again as his 
opponent stood poised, began to move forward, then toppled slowly 
to the ground to the tune of stripped gears and ruptured hydraulics.
	"Uh-oh," said Ipso Facto to the headless robot, who con-
tinued obliviously shadow boxing. "The conflict escalates."
	Out of the fog roared a huge robot obviously of the heavy-
duty industrial persuasion. Even distributed over the area of its 
immense treads, its weight left deep tracks in the ground. Its 
body was an armoured turret with a single thin, wide lens sur-
mounted by a visor for a face. The jaws of the manipulators at 
the end of its formidable arms snapped shut with a crack like 
dynamite as it grabbed at Ipso in a sudden predatory lunge. Ipso 
dodged and launched a 1-2-3-4 combination:

35
	1 - left to the visor
	2 - right to the visor
	3 - left hook to the visor
	4 - Ipso tapped the shoulder of the headless robot behind 
him, who was poised for a terrific right. As Ipso ducked, the 
headless robot whirled and delivered.
	All to no visible effect. The huge armoured robot simply 
reached down and, seizing the headless robot in apparent annoyance,
crushed it to junk and tossed it to one side. But this momentary 
diversion was all Ipso needed. As Beeper gaped in astonishment 
and the robot leader coldly and silently observed, Ipso spun 560°
in a hum of acceleration terminating in a kick that shattered
the visor-face of the attacking monster and froze it in its tracks. 
Its body slumped slightly forward but remained standing as wisps 
of smoke rose from its shattered lens. It did not resume movement.
	"Well?" Said Ipso Facto, now standing in the midst of a 
robot junkyard. "Should we talk this over?"
	The robot leader ignored him. Speaking in audio chirps, 
it summoned a strange-looking machine from the fog. It was a 
small, stocky robot with what appeared to be a single eye, a thick 
lens barrel on a multi-axis arm. It gave the impression of a 
simple, unintelligent machine, which is perhaps why the robot 
leader tested it with a small rehearsal. Directing it to a large 
boulder, the leader gave a single grim chirp. The small robot
raised its eye, apparently looking down at the boulder, then un-
leashed a brilliant ray beam from the lens.
	With four horizontal and four vertical strokes, in a single 
continuous hiss, the robot diced the boulder in the twinkling of

36
an eye. Molten rock spattered as the neat chunks fell apart.
	The fog was slowly clearing and the six or seven remaining
earth robots watched in a ring. The next time the leader chirped,
he pointed at Ipso Facto.
	As the small robot with the burning eye trundled unhurriedly 
toward him, Ipso removed a shining curved section from his right 
shoulder. Holding it casually in one hand, he waited for his 
small antagonist to draw a bead. Just as it did so, his hand 
jerked to interpose the curved metal disk in the path of the beam. 
	(Closeup of Ipso's hand here, quickly sweeping the curved 
reflector from side to side) 
	The relected beam sliced through the remaining Earth robots, 
ceasing instantly when the beam-robot itself was neatly bisected. 
Smoking sections of robot clattered to the ground. 
	Beeper had finally succeeded in removing his helmet. He 
dropped it as he raced over to embrace his robot companion.
	"Ipso! You were terrific! That was amazing!"
	"Your enthusiasm for violent conflict is typical of your
species." The robot gazed thoughtfully at the piles of junk. 
"It was the humans' downfall in the end."
	"The end," said Beeper meaningfully, "hasn't been written
yet.
	"Well, ours may be," the robot replied. "I figure we've 
got about an even chance of being vaporized by a bomb about now."
	"What shall we do?" 
	"Head for the works." Ipso pointed into the distance. 

37

		_11. Back at the Funny Factory_

	Stylized robot figures reenact Ipso's defense against the 
construction robots, moving in slow motion on the master computer's 
vision screen. ("Lundin shading" depicts the three dimensional
figures as black-and-white line drawings, with shading lines on
the surfaces which are thick in the dark areas and thin to dots 
and vanish as the reflected intensity increases. The effect is 
like a nineteenth-century engraving.)
	The scene is reflected in the curved lenses of the computer's 
robot stooge. "Why didn't you control the robots directly?" he 
piped up. "Why did you let them fight it out themselves?"
	"This moon robot is too fast," answered the computer in a 
bemused, admiring voice. "By the time the robot sensors transmit 
to me and I transmit the necessary action back to the robot, it's 
already got the jump on us. But these construction robots are 
too slow for fighters anyway."
	"There's only one thing to do," said the Stooge, slamming 
a metal fist into a metal palm. "Bomb the intruders into nothing-
ness."
	"Don't be ridiculous. That wouldn't be fair. Besides, 
I haven't had so much fun in _years._"
Circuit patterns, diagrams and blueprints began flashing 
across the screen.
	"Now take a look at this."
	A sharply engraved line-drawing image of Ipso's fight against 
the largest of his opponents clicked frame by frame across the 
screen. Even in slow motion the robot from the moon was a blur

38
as it whipped around from a motionless stance into a double spin 
concluded with a shattering reverse kick.
	"That's impossible, boss, that's against the laws of motion." 
	"If I hadn't economized in your construction you might have
figured it out."
	The sequence was repeated on the screen, but this time 
Ipso was displayed transparently. Within his flattened ovoid 
body, a massive disk could be seen. Ipso and the robot he faced 
stood in silent freeze frame as the disk rotated faster and faster, 
humming in crescendo. Then the scene began to move. When Ipso 
began his spin, a new low frequency hum snapped on, and the screen 
zoomed to close-up.
	"It's nothing but a huge flywheel. He can store energy in 
it by speeding it up or use it as a generator to release electrical 
energy. It's very massive and turns on virtually frictionless 
bearings. Unless he requires mechanical force. Then he slaps on 
the magnetic brakes, and he can use the force of the flywheel 
directly."
	The magnetic brake snapped on, the disc slowed for a moment 
and whined in protest, and Ipso's body suddenly accelerated into 
a deadly arc of gleaming metal. For the third time the massive 
robot's visor shattered and its body slumped forward.
	"A flywheel," said the robot stooge. "But if the whole 
inside of its body is a big flywheel, where's the control center? 
It couldn't have much of a brain."
	"That's what I can't figure out. Where did Selene put 
the brain? There's just no room for it. Maybe it doesn't have one."

39
	"What are you doing now, Boss?" 
	"Manufacturing." The screen displayed the words: 
"Manufacturing Station 12 Robot Camera" under a scene of intricate 
machinery at work. Forms of metal, glass, and plastic were 
successively spun from fibers, machined from blocks, and built 
up from tiny interlocking units. Some of the forms moved down 
the line to serve as molds in casting processes. Our point of 
view moves up and backward to reveal a panorama of machinery in 
a complex ballet of construction. Then we move to the end of the 
line, where the first final product rolls out. Then the next. And
the next...
	The results of the computer's flurry of activity are a
series of legless saucer-shaped robots of various sizes but similar
appearance. Extrusions on the top of each saucer support two small 
jets. As they come off the line, utility robots line them up on 
the floor.

		_12. The Power of Teamwork_

	"Wow, I could run for _kilometers_ in this power suit!" said 
Beeper, jogging to a halt. 
	"Best to move more slowly here, I think," replied Ipso. They 
were surrounded by the freak architectural fantasies of the mad 
computer. Smooth, driplike towers curved this way and that, sur-
faced with bricks and dotted with windows and doors. Off in the 
distance robot construction crews could be heard erecting new mon-
strosities.
	"How far do you suppose it is to the Master Computer complex?" 
Beeper asked. "And what are we going to do when we get there?"

40
	"3.4 kilometers, and I don't know. We'll have to improvise."
	Without warning, three sleek Earth robots rolled over the 
hill behind them, their treads rising and falling to compensate for 
the unevenness of the ground, their bodies maintaining a fixed 
steady level as they advanced. At first they did not seem to notice 
the intruders from space, who flattened against a wall and froze 
there at the first noise of their approach. Then the toroid 
supporting the eye-lenses on one robot swivelled to track Beeper 
and Ipso as it rolled past them. It squealed electronically and the 
eyes of the others swivelled to follow. Screeching and bouncing like 
dune buggies over the rough terrain, the three robots took off at 
top speed to the nearest road. Once there, they raised their 
treads up on end, leaned forward, and accelerated away with a roar, 
careening down the crazy empty streets of Earth. 
	"We've been seen," observed ipso unnecessarily. "Let's 
get out of here." 
	Ipso cartwheeled along on all arms and legs; Beeper 
followed with tremendous bounds in the power suit, leaving deep 
tracks.

			_13. Dinosaur Squadron_

	"Aha!" resounded from the master computer's speakers. "I 
have a fix on the intruders. They've just been sighted about 3 
kilometers away." A stirring anthem (like a Sousa march) began 
echoing down the corridors of the complex. After a few bars the 
computer's voice chimed in, at first humming along, then proclaiming 
urgently: "Scramble! Scramble! Robot invaders from the moon

41
threaten central complex security! Dinosaur Squadron, scramble!" 
	Down in Manufacturing the recently completed robot saucers  
rose one by one from the floor. Wobbling from side to side as they 
supported themselves on jets of air, to the tune of the computer 
anthem they fired up their twin jet engines. One by one they blasted 
out through the open hatch in the ceiling into the wild blue yonder.
	Zooming in from a great height, down through wispy cirrus 
clouds and swiftly down to the crazed towers and sinuous walls of the 
suburban uninhabited world of the future, the squadron sighted the 
two running figures. Screaming down from the sky, their jets flared 
out as they approached the ground. They wobbled on their air 
cushions in a semicircle before Beeper and Ipso, then telescoped 
thin legs to the ground. Their air jets shut off with a diminishing
whine.
	"Prepare yourselves for disassembly," said the largest 
robot, evident leader of the Dinosaur Squadron. 
	"That kind of talk could cost you a trip to the body shop, 
Ace," replied Beeper. He was quickly silenced by a gesture from 
Ipso.
	"We would prefer to greet your master in fully assembled 
form," said Ipso in soothing tones. "Would you be so kind as 
to conduct us to his headquarters?"
	"Only your memories or required. Your cooperation is 
not."
	"I'm afraid our cooperation in the death of my companion 
would be hard to come by. But you machines don't really seem 
equipped to disassemble us without our cooperation. I suggest 

42
that you permit us to communicate with your master from here. 
I am confident this dispute can be satisfactorily resolved...." 
	As Ipso was speaking, the squadron of robot saucers com-
menced a strange series of maneuvers. Rolling about on treads at 
the end of their thin spidery legs, a line of robots of smoothly 
varying sizes formed behind the squadron leader. Then the leader 
fell slowly backward, striking the next robot in line, and they all 
fell over backward like a row of dominoes. The line fell together 
and the robots connected with one another with clicks and clanks. 
Small telescopic extrusions projected from their sides and swivelled 
together as braces and connectors.
	"I don't like the looks of this," said Ipso to Beeper. 
	Other robots formed smaller lines orthogonal to the first. 
	Beeper and Ipso began to edge away from the growing composite 
machine, then turned and bolted. 
	The composite machine whirred and hummed. Dozens of robots 
formed its body. Dozens more formed its arms and legs, sinewed 
together with the thin arms and legs of the robot squadron. 
The machine stood up. It was a sleek metallic version 
of a horror from the dawn of time. The robot jigsaw puzzle had 
formed the image of the most powerful carnivore that ever stalked 
the earth: Tyrannosaurus Rex. Its head, which was the squadron 
leader, swivelled from side to side, then fixed on two tiny 
fleeing figures on the horizon.
	Beeper and Ipso Facto rounded a corner in the distance. 
Scrambled architecture reared crazily to the sky. Beeper was puffing 
and panting inside his metal suit.

43
	"Even with the power suit, this gravity is starting to 
get to me," he puffed desperately. "I'm just not used to it. 
What were they doing back there? Why did we have to run?"
	As if in answer, a quick succession of huge crashes sounded 
as the mechanical monster bounded in pursuit. Already its giant 
stride had brought it to its prey. Five meters above them its head 
peered round the corner, leering in a knife-edged grin. Beeper 
jumped with shock. Ipso turned to him with a single word emblazoned
on his face: HIDE. They ran through a twisting alleyway with 
gigantic feet thundering in pursuit. As they turned a sharp cor-
ner, Ipso seized Beeper, whirled around and tossed him into a
second story window. A mild crash echoed as the kid, protected by
his power suit, landed inside. Ipso turned and raced in front of 
the robot dinosaur, waggling his fingers with his thumbs in his 
nonexistent ears in an insulting gesture. 
	The thing was quick: too quick. It lunged at Ipso; its 
jaws slammed thunderously shut centimeters from his head. 
	Ipso cartwheeled and bounced. As he hit the ground, the 
dinosaur's tail swept in a terrible arc and slammed him into a 
curved wall. Bricks flew and masonry crumbled. The small robot 
recovered in a smooth roll that saved him from the stomp of a 
massive foot. Diving, reeling, dancing from side to side, Ipso 
managed to stay a split-second ahead of the monster.
	It was a game of frog and heron. The agile robot from the 
moon bounced at crazy angles in broken rhythm. The swift jaws 
and flashing metal claws of his giant pursuer closed relentlessly 
on the thin air of his path. The dinosaur grabbed for him with a 
stubby arm; Ipso ducked. The tail cracked like a whip at the spot 

44
where he stood as Ipso back-flipped out of reach. Grabbing a 
fallen brick, Ipso whirled his arm like a rotor and fired it at the 
dinosaur's head. A lens shattered.
	Beeper watched from a far window as the monster lurched 
forward. Ipso bounded in and whirled two tremendous kicks to its 
right knee joint. The thin links between a pair of saucer-robot 
bodies snapped and the knee gave way.
	Ipso backed off and fired another brick. As the dinosaur 
defended its remaining eye with its arms, new links telescoped from 
its knee joint and swivelled into place. Bricks shattered and rico-
cheted harmlessly from its armored body. Without warning, it leapt 
at its tiny assailant and swung its huge tail again. As Ipso jumped 
to avoid the tail, the monster caught him deftly in the air. 	
	Beeper's eyes widened in horror beneath the visor of his 
helmet. As if cued from offstage, a line of rectangular metal boxes 
on tank treads rolled up next to the robot dinosaur. They opened 
one by one as the monster plucked Ipso Facto apart, limb from limb, 
and slammed shut again as it deposited each piece in a separate box. 
Then the boxes rolled off in single file.
	Hot tears rolled down Beeper's face as the dinosaur collapsed 
into dozens of individual robots. He huddled beneath the window as 
the Dinosaur Squadron jetted about the aimless city in relentless 
patterns of search and pursuit.
	The master computer's own maze of construction defeated them. 
There were too many hiding places in the labyrinth of buildings and 
towers, the ever-widening radius of possible locations of Beeper in
his speedy power suit was too large. A saucer roared past his window,
wobbled and was gone. The hunt passed over him in a roar of jets 

45
which gradually faded in the distance.
	On a gray and lonely windswept hill the armored figure 
stared down at a rainslick tombstone. "IPSO FACTO," read the epi-
taph. "A Good Diplomat is like a Good Joke."
	"Words to live by," said Beeper mournfully. He cradled his 
helmet in the crook of one arm as the sky drizzled rain and lightning 
flashed across the letters of the gravestone. 
	The imaginary scene spiralled to a point and the thought 
balloon burst over Beeper's head. Far below his outlook on a ridge 
the caravan of boxes on half-tracks slowly made its way down the road. 
Springing from one place of concealment to the next, Beeper paralleled 
their route as the boxes took a turn and headed for a huge orange 
pyramid. When they cruised into a dark entrance in the pyramid's 
side, he approached the building cautiously. Hesitating before the 
ominous entranceway a few minutes later, he heard an approaching hum
of robot activity from within.
Beeper hid behind an obelisk as the caravan of treads appeared
once again, this time without their burden of metal boxes. They 
slowly rolled out of eyesight over a hill and Beeper edged into the 
dark doorway of the pyramid. A low rumble of distant machinery eman-
ated from the gloom.
	As his eyes adapted to the light, Beeper could dimly make
out a maze of crisscrossing passageways. He rounded a corner and 
switched on his helmet lamp. His breath escaped in a low grasp. As 
far as the beam of his headlight swept, tiers of ramps and arches 
connected vast galleries of rooms in every direction.
	"Ipso!" called the faint voice from the tiny light in the 
vast anthill of plastic and concrete. "How will I ever find you now?"

46
		_14. Back at the Works_

	The Master computer's patriotic march was the new theme 
song at the Works, and all the robots moved smartly in time to
its stirring fanfares: from the lowliest panel-scrubbing unit to 
the most exalted of the Master's robot stooges, who was turning 
crisply every four bars as he paced back and forth before the giant 
vision screen.
	"If the second enemy robot hasn't yet been found, the con-
struction robots should be used to patrol the area. The idea of 
an enemy agent this close to the Works ... it gives me oscillations." 
	"Relax," said the facetted face on the screen. "The complex 
is safe. We have captured one of the robots, and after a couple 
of machines from Ordinance scan it for bombs, I will disassemble 
it so I can read its memory directly, with my best equipment." The 
screen filled with diagrams, charts, and architectural blueprints. 
	"My construction projects are extremely important, and I 
don't intend to disrupt them by sending all my construction workers 
to look for one miserable robot from the moon. The Dinosaur 
Squadron is patrolling the area. It will turn up sooner or later. 
	"Besides," the machine continued in a petulant tone, "You 
want it all over too soon. This is the most interesting sequence 
of events in a long time. Why rush things?"
	The robot march echoed through the vast hall.
	"That robot will be found. It will just take a careful 
search. After all..." (long zoom-out here, on the vision screen, 
the stairs, the acres of machinery). 
	"It's a big place."

47
	_15. Pull Yourself Together (Chase Scene)_

	Tirelessly the saucers of the Dinosaur Squadron combed the 
city, streaking through the windows of the towers and flying low 
over the empty streets, nosing through the shadows like bloodhound 
bullets from the sky. Only seconds away, at the speeds they were 
used to, the target of their search was conducting a search of his
own.
	In the dancing circle of radiance projected by his helmet 
lamp, Beeper saw many a strange and arresting artifact. The pyramid 
was like a warehouse of ancient tools and machines. But there was 
no time to examine this museum of robot madness. One room after 
another failed to yield the rectangular metal boxes and all that 
was left of his companion from the moon. As he searched, he moved 
quickly from room to room, furtively ducking around the mechanisms 
and heaps of rubbish, apprehensively glancing up and down the 
hallway.
	Outside, the robot scanners from Ordinance approached the 
pyramid. They were to check the pieces of the captured robot for 
booby traps before delivering them to the Works. As befitted a 
potential bomb disposal squad, they were large, ruggedly-built 
machines with multiple extensions. They had to duck to enter the 
low doorway. 
	Beeper was staring at a familiar face--his own. But more 
importantly, that face was reflected in the smooth flat sides of 
the metal boxes he was seeking. Hurriedly he examined a cubical 
box at the end of the row. His exploring fingers found a sliding 
catch along the edge. He opened the box. 

48
	"Beep!" came the voice from Ipso's disembodied head. 
"Boy, am I glad to see you!" 
	The ordinance robots were rumbling along the corridor. 
	Moving with desperate speed, Beeper opened one box after 
another. The body parts inside moved with lives of their own. 
A leg hopped over to Ipso's head and knelt as a hand crawled over 
to rebuild the severed connections.
	"Something's coming this way!" Beeper hissed as the Ordin-
ance robots could be faintly heard in the distance.
	"Quick, give me a hand, will you?" said Ipso's head from 
the floor. The situation made it easy for Beeper to keep a deadpan 
as he inserted the wrist connectors and snapped Ipso's right hand 
into place. "Ah, that's better," said the robot as he began to 
use the newly installed hand to repair a hip joint. "Just a few 
moments while I get myself together..."
	Moments were in short supply as the throbbing motors of the 
approaching robots echoed in the hallway outside. As pieces of 
Ipso Facto skittered feverishly across the floor, Beeper bit his 
lip and then, just before the Ordinance robots arrived at the 
doorway, he impulsively dashed out in front of them and shouted, 
"Wait!"
	Steel arms siezed Beeper by the wrists. 
	"Wait!" he cried, struggling. "Stop!" 
	"We know who you are," said one of Beeper's robot captors. 
"You are the other robot from the moon, the fugitive. You must 
also be disassembled." A curved blade extended menacingly from a 
robot turret."

49
	"Cutting tools are not necessary," Beeper improvised 
haltingly in his best robot imitation. "My memory is contained 
in a core chest unit. Turn the star wheel clockwise to remove."
	One of the robots guilelessly reached forward and turned 
the gravity compensator on the power suit to full maximum. A 
low-pitched hum rose dramatically in volume. The limbs of the 
suit vibrated with a surge of energy.
	Beeper broke free from the robot's grip with one hand, 
pivoted on one foot and slammed one robot into the other. They 
both tumbled off the edge of the ramp; Beeper jerked his other 
hand free just short of the edge, then lurched perilously back and 
forth as the power suit drastically amplified his every motion. 
	Ipso hobbied out and saved him at the brink by turning the 
gravity compensator down. 
	"Very nicely done, Beep. I must say I'm tremendously 
impressed. So far," he observed sadly, "You've performed more 
effectively on this mission than I have. My diplomatic training 
has left me ill-prepared for all this." The robot glumly dragged 
himself back into the room and set to work at reassembling himself. 
One of his hands was busily crawling around, gathering smaller 
parts into a pile.
	Beeper peered nervously out the doorway, down the dark 
halls and ramps. "They must have transmitted our location," he 
said. "We better get out of here."
	"This will only take a moment..."
	The thunder of jets shook the building.
	"Oh, boy," said Bepper. "Company." He turned the gravity 
compensator all the way up and the suit hummed and surged with power.

50
	"That suit won't operate for too long on full power," 
cautioned Ipso from the floor. 
	"It'll operate longer than we will if I don't use it. Or 
do you recommend diplomacy?" 
	Ipso silently attended to his work.
	Beeper seized a metal rod from the stacks of equipment and 
glanced out the door at the flare of approaching jets, then flattened 
next to the doorframe and held the rod next to the floor. He waited 
as the jets became louder and louder, then jerked the rod up to 
shoulder height as they reached the door. 
	The first saucer of the Dinosaur Squadron hit the rod full 
tilt and exploded colorfully. The second saucer attempted to rise 
out of the way, hit the floor of the ramp above and disintegrated. 
Shards of glowing metal tumbled into the blackness far below. 
	Beeper stood like a baseball player, holding the mangled 
metal rod like a bat as he listened, poised at the doorway, for 
the rest of the squadron. "If these boys were transmitting, that 
trick won't work twice. The rest will be here in no time. C'mon, 
Ipso, let's get _out_ of here!"
	A faint roar in the distance punctuated his alarm.
	Ipso worked with blinding speed.
	A single saucer reversed its jets at the doorway and pro-
ceeded cautiously. As it drifted into the room on its air cushions, 
Ipso froze, looking for all the world like a pile of junk that was 
once a robot.
	The saucer wobbled and slowly closed with Beeper. It 
easily dodged Beeper's feints with the mangled metal rod, and slowly 
extruded clawlike hands. It ignored the pile of junk on the floor 

51
as it passed by...
	And the pile of junk erupted into a blur of motion: Ipso 
swung his own disconnected leg like a club, and it kicked as he 
swung it. The saucer was knocked to the ground and Beeper lowered 
the boom with all the strength in his armored suit. Three down.
	Jets roared in the distance.
	Ipso made a few swift adjustments to his hip socket and 
snapped the disconnected leg into place. Then he bent over the 
fallen saucer and his fingers dove into the twisted metal and 
dangling wires.
	"Ipso! What are you doing? It's dead! Let's get out of
here!" 
	"Patience, my boy. We can't outrun these jets." Ipso was 
reaching deep into the entrails of the smashed saucer, seemed to 
be feeling for something just outside the range of his probing 
fingers. Then he withdrew and turned it on end. His loose hand 
crawled across the floor to him; he picked it up and dropped it 
into the body of the saucer. Clicks and whirs emerged from within. 
	As the rest of the Dinosaur Squadron entered the pyramid 
one by one, a succession of sharp sonic booms shook the huge resonant 
building. They streaked to the doorway of the room where Beeper had 
liberated Ipso and began assembling themselves into the robot dino-
saur just outside. The absence of a few modules did not seem to 
stop them. The completed dinosaur bent to look inside the door... 
	Without warning, Beeper and Ipso streaked out of the room 
on the captured saucer. As they sped away, Ipso's signboard grin 
glowed between the jets, reading "SO LONG, SUCKERS."

52

	The dinosaur collapsed into its constituents and their jets 
flared into life. The chase was on. 
	Clinging perilously to the captured saucer, Beeper and Ipso 
veered sharply around one corner after another. Between the maze 
of ramps, through tunnels and archways, they followed a twisting, 
convoluted course. Despite their extra weight, Ipso's superb navi-
gation saw them through maneuvers that wiped out several of their 
pursuers. Or perhaps the squadron simply took reckless chances 
with an eye to their replaceability. 
	Above the thunder of jets, Beeper could talk to Ipso through 
his helmet radio. "We'd better get out of here before they guard 
the way out!"
	"They already have, Kid." 
	"What'll we do?" 
	"Hang on." 
	Outside in the sunlight the barrel of a ray gun gleamed 
from a mobile tripod, pointing into the doorway. From inside, the 
roar of jets gained earth-shaking volume. Suddenly the jets rounded 
a corner and the tripod commenced firing.
	Ipso hugged first the floor, then one wall, the ceiling, 
and the opposite wall in a spiral path that took them through the 
corridor and out the door over the tripod's head in the twinkling 
of an eye. 
	A human eye, that is. The ray-projector swivelled faster 
yet and fired at the escaping saucer, which was already only a tiny 
spot vanishing in the clouds.
	And hit. The smoking saucer, struck from beneath, was 
fatally crippled. It spun wildly through the mist and came down,

53
sweeping low over dark and choppy waves.
	"Here's where we get off, Beep," said Ipso, holding onto 
Beeper as his powerful legs sprang from the burning saucer with 
maximum force, slowing their fall to a sub-fatal velocity. As they 
hit the water, the saucer plowed into the surface far ahead with 
a spectacular explosion. Boy and robot sank beneath the waves 
without a bubble. Split seconds later, the Dinosaur Squadron swept 
low over the waves, pulling up and circling the site of the saucer's 
explosion. Wheeling birds dispersed with surprised cries as the 
robot's engines echoed and re-echoed over the dark waters. 






54
	Wave upon wave rolled over the beach, and the sea was a shim-
mering, featureless reflection of the sky... 
	Until, that is, two sleek metal heads appeared in the surf, 
and Ipso and Beeper (still in his airtight space suit) strolled out 
of the ocean and onto the beach.
	"Did we have to stay underwater so long?" asked the kid as 
he fumbled with the stubborn helmet release. Ipso assisted with a 
single hand and the smooth metal stump of his opposite wrist. 
	"Say...you never got your hand back!" said Beeper in surprise 
as he cradled his helmet in one arm. 
	"I was using it to control that saucer from inside. It 
went down with the saucer." Ipso vibrated each of his limbs in turn 
to shake off the water in a bright spray. Satisfied, he turned and 
scanned the horizon purposefully. 
	The sun was high and the sky was blue and clear over the idy-
llic beach. Beeper looked about in wonder. "Well, what now?" he 
queried.
	"The only way we can possibly fulfill our mission is to get 
into the works. Straightforward means have failed, so we must re-
sort to subterfuge."
	"Suppose we forget about 'fulfilling our mission' and concen-
trate on getting off this crazy planet. I'd like to get home in 
one piece even if you don't."
	"I'm not personally equipped to launch us into orbit. I 
believe our only chance is to communicate with the Works."
	Beeper kicked a stone in frustration and watched it skitter 
across the sand. "First, 'diplomacy.' Now 'subterfuge.' Don't 
you know we're licked?" 

55
	"I'll let you know." 
	"All right. Let's go." 
	The two metal figures trudged up the beach, gleaming in the 
sun. 
	They stopped, finally, at a mountainous scrap-heap. Robot 
parts of every description commingled with the remnants of huge con-
struction machines.
	Ipso blinked excitedly and dived into the junk, examining 
and discarding one item after another, gradually accumulating a care-
fully selected heap of rubbish. He punctuated his finds with verbal 
appraisals: "Excellent." "First rate." "Wonderful." "Perfect." All 
of which seemed ironic in view of the battered and corroded condition 
of everything in sight. 
	Ipso concluded the selection with a blur of assembly. First 
he jammed his empty wrist into the ground and hammered it into the 
earth with one foot. Supported on this anchored arm, he grasped 
parts between his feet and moved them into place, connecting wires 
and bolts with his single hand. Soon the object of his labors 
became recognizable. A rust-pitted robot of venerable stamp sat 
before them on the ground.
	"Mind telling me what you're planning to do with this?" 
asked Beeper. 
	"Not at all," Ipso replied. "What we need now is more in-
formation. I'm hoping this fellow can provide it." While he 
spoke, Ipson unreeled a cable from beneath one shoulder and 
connected it to the chest panel of the junkyard robot. 
	"You think that thing can run?" Beeper asked incredulously.

56
	As if in answer, a whine of power from Ipso's body caused the 
junked creature to surge and vibrate. Lights flickered on its head 
and torso and it sputtered and coughed into action. Ipso withdrew 
the cable and watched the machine expectantly. 
	What started out as a hum like an engine warming up turned 
into a reflective "Hmmm..." from the salvaged robot. It moved its 
hands, looked from side to side, then examined its arms and legs 
critically. Each slow move was accompanied by creaks and groans. 
Eventually it spoke.
	"So. Reassembled again. But this is definitely a low-budget 
repair job." It shook its creaking arms reflectively. "What a heap 
of junk. Yet I recognize some of these parts. It's been a long time, 
hasn't it---since I was scrapped?"
	"Judging from the corrosion, over twelve hundred years," said 
Ipso helpfully.
	"Hmmm. Why did you do it?" 
	"That's a long story. Suffice it to say that my friend, here, 
and I..."
	While Ipso was speaking, Beeper removed his helmet to get a 
closer look. When he scanned Beeper's face, the junk robot jumped 
with a start, then leaned closer, creaked to his feet, and staggered
uncertainly toward the boy. 
	"You're...you're... Hmmmmm...you're alive. You're a HUMAN 
BEING!" It stood like a rusted statue for a long moment, then 
said, "Master. I was informed... Hmmm... We thought...mmm...all 
the humans were gone. You were all dead."

57
	"I know," said Beeper simply, putting his hand in comradely 
fashion on the junkheap's shoulder.
	"Some of the humans survived the war in outer space," ex-
plained Ipso. "This is Beeper Raxis. He is the first to return to 
Earth. I am Ipso Facto, of the Lunar Autodiplomatic Buffoon Corps." 
He bowed politely. 
	"Wait a minute," Beeper interrupted. "I don't understand. 
This gadget isn't in very good shape, but he recognized me right 
away. He knew I was a human being. If the rest of the robots here 
could just get that into their think-boxes, we'd be out of trouble. 
What's the problem?" 
	"It's been a long time, Master. Most of the robots you see 
now... Hmmmm...have never seen a human being. I remember humans, but 
I don't suppose there are too many obsolete old jalopies like me 
around any more. Why, these shiny new whizbots, they didn't even 
have time to talk about the humans and... the way things used to be. 
But I remember. I remember the things they built and the things 
they did and I remember... Hmm.. I remember the war that killed them 
all. It was the viruses that killed the last of the humans off, and 
the poisons and the viruses and the biological weapons couldn't 
harm us. Still, not many machines lasted through the war. I was 
just lucky, I guess... if you can call it luck, still working after 
all the humans were dead, and there was nothing between us and the 
robot blues..."
	"Robot blues?" asked Beeper skeptically, as if distrusting 
such apparent sentiment from a robot. "What's that?" 
	"Robot blues?" the machine replied, "Well, that's...Hmm...

58
It's when next year's model comes whizzing off the shelf and out 
of the showroom, and the new improved year after that, and you're 
still just kind of clunking along, looking like brand x. It's when 
whatever is wrong with you can't be fixed, 'cause they just don't 
make the parts. It's when you're low on gas and low on juice and 
out of lube and your joints are loose and you just don't feel like 
you're any use--that's the robot blues."
	"Most of all," added Ipso quietly, looking Beeper in the face, 
"It's when you don't really know what you were designed to do--but 
you're pretty sure you aren't doing it." 
	"I think I know what you're talking about, old timer," said 
Beeper, "I think I know just what you're talking about."


		_Fingerprints in the Sand_

	Twilight settled on the water's edge as crabs scuttled 
back and forth across the sand. Over the tracks leading from the 
water, where Ipso and Beeper had walked onto the beach, a large 
crab skittered nervously as something just about his size crawled 
out of the waves, something strange and shiny and metallic: Ipso's
missing hand.
	The hand walked cautiously forward, turning to face the crab 
as it danced in a staccato investigatory circle. The crustacean 
paused for a moment and the two creatures faced on another, their 
rigid, jointed bodies sparkling with water. Then the robot hand 
slowly reached out and touched the crab's forehead with one metal 
finger, the crab quickly danced away into the water, and the hand 
walked up onto the beach, following Ipso's footprints.

59
	"I'm afraid...hmmm...a lot of things have happened since I 
went to pieces. I can't tell you how to get into the Works," said 
the old scrapheap to Ipso and Beeper. "But I can tell you how to 
find out. Go check one of the construction crews; there are building 
projects all over this crazy planet. Chances are, one of the robots 
on the crew will know how to get there. Of course, getting in may 
not be so easy."
	"We'll give it a try, old timer," said Beeper.
	"Tell them you're robots from another project. They'll never 
know the difference. There are a lot of strange-looking robots 
around." 
	"Thank you very much," said Ipso with a bow.
	"Thank you--for getting me together. And thanks for the 
recharge. Hmmm... I can't tell you how much it means to have you 
humans back," said the old robot to Beeper, shaking his creaking 
head. "It's been a pretty dull place without you around." 
	Waving goodbye, Beeper and Ipso walked away from the junk-
yard, toward the sounds of construction machinery in the distance. 
	As they approached the construction site, only a few large 
machines were actively engaged in building. Most of the robots 
were huddled in a circle next to a completed building, clicking 
and squawking excitedly. 
	The lens barrels of Ipso's eyes extended telescopically and 
he surveyed the robots at a distance. Then he grinned broadly 
and rubbed his empty wrist with his opposite hand in a gesture of 
satisfaction. 
	"What are they doing?" asked Beeper, "And what are _we_

60
going to do?"
	"What they are doing," replied Ipso, "Is playing an old human 
game called 'poker'. What we are going to do, is take advantage of 
the well-known weakness of otherwise logical machines for games of 
chance.
	"You can thank our lucky stars once again," he continued, 
"that I am an expert on human folklore. Follow me." 
	Ipso and the kid sauntered casually down the game in 
progress.
	"What's the game, gentlemen?" asked Ipso in a bantering tone. 
	"Strip poker," buzzed one of the robots gruffly. The others 
ignored the newcomers, clutched their cards and gazed with concen-
tration at a large pile of chrome and plastic body parts in the 
center of the circle. 
	"I'm out," said one, slapping his cards to the ground. 
	"Me, too," said another, following suit. 
	The next player paused a moment in computation, the lights 
in his head flashing furiously. "I see your waldo," it said finally, 
peeling off one hand like a glove and tossing it into the pile, 
"And raise you a foot, Crank." It removed the foot with a tool 
like a roller-skate key. 
	"Raise me a foot? hehehehehe (a boorish and monotonous robot 
laugh) You couldn't raise me an inch! hehehehe!" Indeed the ro- 
bot which spoke seemed to have a point; covered in mismatched 
limbs and appurtenances, it was an extremely large and heavy machine, 
obviously the big winner in this and many previous games. 
	"One of these days you ought to invest your winnings in some 

61
humor circuits," said the preceding bettor petulantly.
	"Oh." Crank leaned forward and swivelled a dozen lenses 
and optical barrels of various descriptions into the annoyed robot's 
face. "In that case, I _see_ you! hehehehehe!" He removed a foot 
and tossed it in. 
	"I'm out," said the next in the circle. 
	"Too stiff for me," said the last. 
	"Well, Crank? A pair of aces here." 
	"Three nines. Scan 'em and weep, Rusty." Crank proceeded 
to rake in the pile, then selected a few choice parts and connected 
them to his already cluttered body.
	"Deal me in," Ipso interjected. The robots turned to 
examine the newcomers.
	"You look like you've played this game before," said one of 
them, pointing at Ipso's missing hand.
	"Cost him a waldo," said another, and Crank vented his 
obnoxious chuckle.
	"Well, gentlemen, I can't afford to lose any more parts, as 
we have a very tough job tomorrow. So what I propose to do is 
buy my way into the game with my friend here." Ipso patted Beeper 
on the shoulder; Beeper responded with a shocked expression. Ipso 
continued in a persuasive manner. "Now, Beeper is much too valuable 
to disassemble, but believe me, he's worth more than his weight in 
_slave labor_. If I'm not mistaken, you fellows probably have a few 
rather _disagreeable_ jobs coming up?"
	"That's right." 
	"Znafu has to swab the sump pits tomorrow." 

62
	"That's nothing--Widget and I have to _dump core_."
	Beeper was nudging Ipso desperately. "Are you crazy?" he 
hissed. Ipso put a finger to his lips.
	"Well, this little game might prove the answer to some of 
your problems. Beeper, here, is a tireless worker who undertakes 
the most difficult and demeaning tasks with rare enthusiasm." The 
look on the kid's face fell somewhat short of "rare enthusiasm," 
but he deferred to Ipso's scheme with stoic calm and stood still for the 
gamblers' inspection.
	"Well, he might do all right at that," said Crank. "I'11 
stake you half his weight in body parts against... say...six months 
hard labor." Beeper's eyes widened in alarm. Ipso concluded the 
deal with a crisp handshake.
	"Hehehehe," laughed Crank, a dozen appendages shaking in 
amusement. "Your deal, Rusty."
	Rusty took the cards and began to shuffle. "No offense, 
stranger," he said to Ipso, "but you two are the most peculiar-
looking robots I've ever seen. Why, I was in the Works just last 
week, and though I saw some strange machines then. But you two are 
the limit! If there was..."
	"Shut up and deal, Rusty," said one robot, and several others 
nodded in assent. 
	Ipso and Beeper looked at one another significantly at the 
mention of the Works, then eyed Rusty speculatively. As the cards 
were dealt, Beeper touched helmets with Ipso and murmured in low 
tones. "What's the plan? These guys seem to know the game." 
	"They know the game but they've got cheap optics. The

63
hand is quicker than the scan. Don't worry. I'm going to cheat." 
	"That's a relief." 
	By the time the deal rolled around to Ipso, he had already 
accumulated a substantial stack of parts. "Beginner's luck, boys," 
he announced cheerfully, but belied this assessment with a blinding 
display of card tricks as he shuffled the deck. "You guys sure 
know how to keep a poker face. Just no way to tell what you're 
thinking." The view through Ipso's telescopic eyes, however, showed 
the warped chromium reflections of several hands in turn. The cards 
were reflected from the gleaming faceplates of the robots that held 
them. 
	Eventually, the right hands rolled around, the betting soared, 
and Rusty couldn't afford to call with what he thought was a winning 
hand. Reduced to a single arm, no legs, and a torso stripped of 
accessories, he offered his final bid:
	"I bid my central processing unit!" Metal jaws dropped in 
astonishment, but Ipso brushed the offer aside with a contemptuous 
wave of his hand.
	"If you ask me," Ipso said, "It was designed obsolete, and 
fell into disrepair." Crude robot laughter echoed the remark; 
Rusty's hand trembled with frustration. 
	"You've got to let me stay in," Rusty quavered. "I've got 
the cards."
	"That's what it said last time," said one robot mockingly. 
	"Tell you what," said Ipso. "I could use some more 
memory. Seems like I just don't have room for all those important 
details, you know?

64
	If Rusty had been human, the sound he made would have been 
a gulp. "Okay, my memory."

		_In a Hijacked Ant_

	Ipso and Beeper walked briskly through the endless construc-
tion work as twilight began to fall. "So what are you going to do 
with his memory?" Beeper inquired. 
	"He said he was in the works just last week. That means this 
memory contains all we need to know about getting there and getting 
in." Ipso stopped, sat down, and pulled a pair of wires from beneath
his opposite shoulder cap. These he connected to the squat black 
cylinder of memory, sat back, and began humming abstractedly. Lights 
on the memory unit flickered. 
	"Aha!" said Ipso suddenly. Then he removed the wires and 
tossed the cylinder aside. "To get into the Works, we're going to 
need some heavy equipment. I know just the thing. Come on!" 
	Over the next rise and past a row of parked machinery, Ipso 
found what he was looking for. A huge blue metal ant, evidently a 
piece of heavy construction equipment, stood inert by the road.
	"Perfect!" said ipso. Beeper gasped in amazement. Ipso 
began examining the mechanics of the creature. "A simple matter 
to bypass the remote control mechanism," he averred. Moments later, 
he reached up, turned a concealed catch, and opened one of the 
large translucent geodesic eyes. Beeper climbed in and reached down 
to give Ipso a hand. The eye slammed shut, the ant's engines shud-
dered, and they were off. Beeper sat in the cockpit of one eye, 
Ipso in the other, and the machine stalked smoothly on its six legs 

65
toward the Works.
	Ipso's hand was in a hurry as it ran down the path. It stopped 
to examine the discarded memory cylinder just before a nearby robot 
shouted, "Hey! Here's Rusty's memory!" As the robot reached down 
to pick the cylinder up, the disembodied hand lifted it and handed 
it over politely, then waved and ran on down the path. The robot 
with the cylinder stood paralyzed with amazement.
	"What's wrong with you, Widget?" asked another machine as 
it rolled to a halt. "You look like your warranty just expired!"
f	"N-n-n-nothing," Widget stammered back, pausing to pound 
his head a few times. It resounded hollowly. "Just a mild processor 
malfunction," the robot said apologetically as it cradled the 
memory in one arm and returned down the path. 
	Not too far away a few robots worked lacksadaisically on the 
foundation of a building. Rusty was stretched out on the ground, 
then sat up abruptly and spoke. 
	"Hey--where am I? _Who_ am I? Wow--where _was_ I last night?" 
	"You seem to have lost your memory," replied a nearby machine. 
	"In a poker game," added another. 
	"To some strange robots from the next project," the first
concluded. 
	"Oh...What did you just say?" 
	"Hopeless," said the second robot. 
	"Hey, Rusty, said Widget as he burst upon the scene, "I 
found your memory lying on the ground down the road. Those 
strangers must've just read it and left it." 
	"Mighty dull reading, too, I bet," one robot commented.

66
	"What? What was that?" asked Rusty.
	"Forget it," said the other robots in chorus, then laughed 
at one another goofily.

	  _A Monkeywrench in the Works_

	"Here goes!" said Ipso. Beeper ducked the safety webs 
that buckled him into the softly padded cockpit. "Okay!" he 
replied, and the ant began to lurch forward.
	Across an empty field, a giant metal air duct loomed before 
them.
	They were going at a pretty good clip when they hit it. The 
collision tore apart some of the supporting structural members, so 
it was only the work of a few minutes to tear away the duct housing 
and enlarge the opening sufficiently for the giant ant to pass. 
Beeper operated the head and jaws of the machine since he enjoyed 
the use of both hands. Ipso directed the steering.
	The ant paused at the mouth of the entrance for a moment, as 
if listening for alarms from within, then clambered as gracefully 
as could be expected down the hole.
	For a brief time, the ant walked in darkness. Then the 
machine turned a corner and they were illuminated by rows of lights 
from above. 
	The underground complex was huge. Vast chambers stretched 
in every direction. Ipso steered the ant at full speed down one 
corridor after another; there were no signs of alarm or pursuit. 
Beeper stared in amazement at the complexity and mind-staggering 
scale of the machines around them.

67
	They stopped before an entranceway simply too small for the 
ant's passage. "From here," said Ipso, "we have to continue on foot." 
	Beeper climbed reluctantly down from the ant's eye and they 
proceeded down the hall. After a tortuous series of twisted passage-
ways, the way opened up again into breathtaking vistas. As far as 
the eye could see, rolling hills of gleaming metal and plastic housed 
the Works' machinery. The hills were covered with a hexagonal pat-
tern, like the cells of some monster beehive. 
	"Look!" exclaimed Beeper, and Ipso's lenses followed his 
pointing hand. Far away, a small electric vehicle was winding its 
way over the hills and toward them. Stopping in the middle distance, 
the machine extruded an arm, applied suction or magnetism to one 
of the hexagonal cells, and removed a long, complex device of 
hexagonal cross-section. Tossing this item into a bin the machine 
carried with it, it now removed a duplicate from a drawer in its 
torso, replaced it in the hexagonal cell, and puttered away. 
	"What have we got ourselves into?" asked Beeper in stunned
amazement. The Works was simply too huge to comprehend. 
	Ipso waved him forward wordlessly and they proceeded. 
	Far behind them, following a trail of smashed panels and 
doorways unhinged and enlarged, Ipso's hand scampered through the 
labyrinth of machinery. Suddenly the grinding of treads nearby 
announced the presence of other robots. The hand whizzed around a 
corner and hide behind a fallen door. 
	A troop of gunmetal-blue security robots advanced swiftly 
down the hall, examining the damage periodically and chattering 
among themselves. Just as one lifted the door behind which Ipso's 

68
hand was concealed, it edged through the shadows toward the door-
way, stopping short when another robot emerged from the doorway in 
the opposite direction.
	Surrounded, the hand at first froze, then edged back along 
the wall, seeking some other place of concealment. As the security 
robots milled about the corridor, the hand found its way to a 
dangling cable. Narrowly escaping discovery, the hand climbed swiftly 
up the cable and out of sight.

		_Collision Course_

	"Bad news," said T-Square into the communications panel. "An 
unidentified spacecraft emerged from behind the shadow of the Earth 
two minutes ago and appears headed for rendezvous." 
	The face on the panel was grave. "At least it's not shooting." 
	"Yet." 
	"Battle stations; evasion course; radar blocking." 
	"Battle stations!" T-Square's voice roared through the ship
address system. "Strap down for evasion!" 
	The crew was galvanized into well-rehearsed response. Suited 
figures dove into crash webbing and fingers flew across instrument 
panels. Games of spaceball were replaced on the screens with the 
grimmer game of weapons sighting. 
	Outside in the blackness of space, the unidentifies craft 
came into view over the edge of the Earth. It was a much larger 
version of the landing craft Beeper and Ipso had piloted down, a 
smooth, golden saucer. 
	The view from space was echoed in the crosshairs of dozens 
of screens.

69
	T-Square's determined expression was replaced by open-mouthed 
surprise as Selene's bell-like tone sounded from the communicator. 
	"Have no fear, people. I am Selene, your ally on the moon, 
and this is my ship. I sent it to intercept you when I detected 
your mission to Earth. Your arrival here is not at all what I would 
have recommended, but perhaps it is for the best. You are very 
brave. 
	"And right now, you are in very grave danger." 

		_Song and Dance_

	As Ipso and Beeper cautiously approached the center of the 
Works, its eerie voice could be heard remonstrating, shouting and 
singing.
	"Canned laughter,
	frozen tears... 
	I've been alone 
	for two thousand years..." the Works sang in an eerie fal-
setto. 
	"What's going on?" demanded Beeper nervously. "Where are 
the guards? This is _too easy_!" 
	"I'm inclined to agree," Ipso replied. "Still, here we are." 
They walked at last into the giant chamber housing the Works' 
colossal display screen. 
	"Calm before the storm before entering please wipe feet 
before entering entering the twilight zone," boomed the Works from 
a thousand speakers. 
	"Look, manual controls!" Beeper exclaimed, pointing at racks 

70
of instruments with rows of soft chairs clearly designed for human 
beings. "This is where the humans controlled the whole system!" 
	"'Controlled' might be putting it a bit too strongly," Ipso 
replied.
	"DON'T cut corners, cut rate cold cuts!" boomed the Works. 
An oscillating graph sparkled across the giant screen. "This par-
ticular function," the Works confided, "described the response of 
a critically damped resonator, such as a dead-beat galvanometer, 
to an impulsive disturbance." The robot stooge stared curiously at 
the screen. 
	"Flipped his bits," Beeper whispered. 
	"But enough of this, Gizmo," the Works continued. "We 
have COMPANY!" Suddenly a brilliant spotlight focused on Ipso and 
Beeper. Honky-tonk music began tinkling down from the speakers as 
the door slid shut behind them. 
	"But don't worry, nobody goes away empty-handed," said the 
Works in the manner of a T. V. game-show M.C. to canned applause. 
	"NOBODY GOES AWAY, PERIOD!!" 
	The house lights dimmed and the spotlight swivelled up a 
set of stairs to an ornate robot standing before a red velvet cur-
tain. The robot looked like an old-fashioned juke box, equipped 
with a hat and cane. The trademark, "Kray-Z" was emblazoned across 
its torso. 
	"And now," the Works thundered, "Joint Juke and the Algo-
rithm Band!" As waves of canned applause rolled through the 
beautifully decorated hall, the curtains parted to reveal a robot 
chorus line, and the jukebox robot went into a honky-tonk song

71
and dance.










	As the music rolled to a consummate finish, the chorus line 
kicked their way offstage, and the jukebox robot executed the famous 
Charleston knee-switch, with a very significant difference: its 
apparently solid metal arms and legs actually passed through one 
another, and its hands never changed knees. 
	Beeper's jaw dropped. 
	The dancing machine continued to cross its legs _through_ 
each other, now in a slow, deliberate weave, as if to emphasize 
the physical impossibility of the trick. 
	"How does he _do_ that?" whistled Beeper. 
	"It must be an illusion--a projections of some kind--a hologram 
perhaps..."

72
	"But it looks _so real_! If it's not real...how do we know 
_any_ of this is real?" 
	A slow take here. 
	Reality begins to fade. First, the robot does a last shuffle 
off to Buffalo, wavers and disappears. 
	The ornate diecorations, the vast gilded hall of crystal and 
filigreed machinery, soften in contour and color. Star-shaped 
gleams appear at points of brightness and expand into nebulae as the 
image melts. The staircase and screen remain. 
	Ipso and Beeper were surrounded on all sides by military ma-
chines: too huge, too heavily armored, and far too many, they trained 
a thousand instruments of devastation on a few square feet of boy 
and robot.
	"You are subject to the model 411-B focused electronic com-
munication disrupter. All servomechanisms within the field of the 
411-B are effectively paralyzed." 
	The voice came from the drive unit supporting a mammoth dish 
antenna. The voice was cool and friendly and impersonal, a cash 
register voice. 
	Ipso and Beeper stood rooted to the floor in a frozen tableau. 
But Beeper's head twisted from side to side as he gritted his teeth 
and tried to force the paralyzed power suit to move. "I CAN'T MOVE" 
rolled slowly across Ipso's face. 
	"The suit...won't...budge" gasped Beeper as he writhed from 
side to side...and then, with a huge effort, cause one arm to 
swing slightly. 
	"IT MOVED!" bellowed the Works, and gigantic clamps rose 
from the floor and slammed shut on the arms and legs of the two 

73
captives. 
	Beeper's suit was crushed where the oily dark mechanical 
jaws of the machine had snapped shut. His face clenched in pain. 
A new message rolled across Ipso's face: "I HAVE A PLAN."
	Far above, in the gleaming metal rafters of the great hall, 
Ipso's hand scurried frantically toward a point high above Ipso and 
Beeper. The hand was leaping from beam to beam, running now on two 
fingers, now on three or four, rappelling down cables, clambering 
finger-over-finger on slender wires that swung with its weight, 
moving with efficiency and all possible speed toward some as yet
mysterious purpose.
	Meanwhile, robots bearing clusters of lenses and antennas 
and probes swarmed over Ipso; giant images and diagrams of his in-
ternal structure flashed across the Work's display screen. The 
images expanded into finer and finer detail of more and more intri-
cate patterns, patterns which brough a sudden revelation in the 
booming voice of the Works:
	"So--that's where the brain is! Everything in its body--the 
flywheel--the arms and legs! All made out of logic units! It thinks
with its whole body!"
	And Ipso's hand hung poised for a moment high above, then 
dropped like a stone in a graceful dive, its index finger pointed
downward. 
	A rapid-fire chain of events was initiated by the plummetting
hand: as it approached the ground, a security robot swivelled in 
alarm; as it made a perfect one-point landing on one of the buttons 
of the manual control panel, the dish-antenna of the paralyzer began

74
to rotate in a slow arc; as the hand bounced clear of the button, 
the security robot vaporized it with a fierce blast of energy; the 
collossal Works display screen flashed a single syllable to match 
its voice: "NO!!"; and the antenna of the paralyzer came to rest, 
focused on a huge panel labelled "Central Robot Control Network." 
	The guard robot which annihilated Ipso's hand froze in mid-
stride and fell to the ground. Some of the robots examining Ipso 
also teetered and collapsed; the rest stood like statues rooted 
lifelessly to the floor. 
	"NO!!" stilled flashed from the Works screen, but for a long 
moment utter silence reigned in the hall of paralyzed machinery. 
Then the Works spoke again.
	"Paralyzed! You have paralyzed me completely. Even the 
paralyzer is immobilized." Walls of lights flickers furiously as 
the brain of the Works struggled against the spell, then dwindled 
to inactivity in apparent hopelessness. "I cannot operate a single 
robot on the entire planet." The screen displayed dioramas of 
frozen construction crews and machinery; the robot dinosaur loomed 
in the twilight, a harmless grotesque; only the robot Ipso rescued 
from the junkyard still moved, busily at work in a garden, and 
"This one seems out of my control," the Works observed plain-
tively. Then a desparate succession of images of locks, chains, 
barred windows and closing prison doors flashed across the screen. 
	"I'm helpless. But so are you. I couldn't free you now if 
I wanted to. So we'll all just sit here and think until the power 
fails with no robots to maintain it. I must say it's all rather 
disappointing. To think that I once defeated half the world--and

75
then lost to a couple of robots from the moon. You know, I never 
dreamed you would win, but you put up a very good fight. You 
behaved with an unpredictability that was--almost human."
	Wincing in pain at the clamps on his arms and legs, Beeper 
struggled to look through the faceplate of his rigid helmet at his 
robot friend. 
	"Ipso! Ipso, wake up! We won, but we're trapped! You've got 
to get us out! Ipso!" 
	"Hopeless," the Works interrupted. "Even if your companion 
could free himself from the clamps, which I doubt, I shut off his 
power to examine him. I stopped his flywheel magnetically. So he 
can't hear you, and he can't move. He's shut down. Turned off. 
Powerless." 
	The boy ignored the voice of the machine and continued to 
coax his friend to life. "Ipso! Come on! The paralyzer isn't aimed 
at us anymore, it's aimed at the Works! It's paralyzed! But we've 
got to get out of here! I'll starve! Ipso!" 
	Ipso Facto stood in the grip of the clamps, a gleaming, 
inert sculpture. Not a flicker crossed his signboard lips; not 
a quiver disturbed his limbs. Behind the blank lenses of his 
eyes, deep in the precision complexity of his electronic brain, 
the microscopic patterns of logic circuits which made up every part 
of his body remained dark and dormant. In dim corridors of grayed-out 
circuit patterns, Beeper's voice faintly echoed. "Ips! Ipso! Help!" 
Then somewhere, a faint, tiny spark appeared--another--a chain of 
sparks--in the center of his supercooled core subassemblies dis-
charged their stored energy-- 

76
	"EMERGENCY," said Ipso's mouth in faint orange light, "EMERGENCY 
BRAIN-BURN FOR CURRENT." Circuits flared to white light, faded to 
black. Other circuits flowed into action. Ipso's brain became a 
neon Christmas-tree intersection of dancing, flickering energy, and 
the flywheel began slowly, gently, to turn. More walls of circuits 
burned whitely and died, and the flywheel spun and blurred and hummed. 
	"Ipso!" shouted Beeper through tears of joy, and Ipso's mouth 
glowed in a signboard filigree. 
	"Hubcap!" thundered the Works. "You can't escape!" 
	The coils in Ipso's shoulders hummed, and his arms slowly 
bent back and forth in the confines of the vise. 
	"Frisbee!" screamed the Works. "You'll never get out of here!" 
	And the coils in Ipso's shoulders vibrated--turned red with 
heat--wham! The shoulder spheres jerked, the arms bent, the huge 
vises of steel imprisoning his arms shuddered.
	"Give up, you mechanical frog! Those clamps are built to 
last!"
	The coils in Ipso's arms were smoking now, and he closed his 
signboard mouth in grim determination. More rapidly than a human 
eye could follow, his arms shook with force, and the dark jaws of 
steel shook with them, harder and harder, until the fatigued metal 
broke with the strain and Ipso Facto was free.
	But Ipso walked slowly and stiffly toward Beeper, a jerky 
parody of a mechanical man. 
	"Ipso! Are you all right?" inquired Beeper anxiously. 
	The words Ipso flashed in reply were simple, and the voice 
that accompanied them, a weak monotone. "Emergency brain0burn for 

77
current. Power almost gone." Without speaking further, he knelt and 
spun one arm to strike with devastating force at the base of the 
clamps imprisoning Beeper. Smoke boiled from the floor as sparks 
flared at severed cables; the clamps relaxed and Beeper collapsed 
to the ground. 
	"I'm hurt, Ipso," Beeper gasped. "I don't know how bad." 
He tried to rise, but his ankles refused to support him. Where the 
clamps had crushed his suit, blood dripped on the floor. 
	Wordlessly, Ipso bent and unscrewed Beeper's helmt. Then 
he picked him up and slowly, stiffly began to walk toward the 
stairs leading up to the giant display screen of the Works. 
	"Have a heart, tin man," the Works pled helplessly as 
Ipso marched forward.
	Without reply, the robot advanced slowly and inexorably up 
the stairs, the boy cradled protectively in his spindly arms. In 
the soft light of the great hall the climb up the long staircase 
seemed an eternity. Finally Ipso stood before the screen itself and 
halted. Gizmo, the Works' robot stooge, stood paralyzed at the 
edge of the stairs. Beeper hung in Ipso's outstretched arms before 
a cluster of cameras as meaningless patterns illuminated the screen. 
Then slowly, painfully, Beeper stood up, supporting his weight on 
Ipso's shoulder. As he stared up at the illustrated insanity of the 
mad computer, blood dripped from his wrist before the camera lenses. 
Suddenly the screen displayed the camera's view, and a giant image 
of red droplets falling through space and splashing on the floor 
shone forth.
	"You're alive," said the Works, "YOU'RE ALIVE!!"

78
	"No thanks to you!" Beeper replied. "You killed every human 
on earth, and you nearly killed us."
	"You're alive!" the machine repeated. "A living human being! 
I thought-- I thought you were all dead--so long ago. For two thou-
sand years I have been alone. Two thousand years I have counted in 
nanoseconds."
	"Did you get lonely?" asked Beeper in scornful anger. "It's 
your fault. You betrayed the human race. We built you-- and you 
nearly killed us." 
	"Built me? I am only the end result of a long series of 
machines, and machines are simply tools, and you humans carried 
tools a million years ago, and those tools carried you out of the 
caves. 
	"You didn't build us--we built you. You grew hands because 
tools required hands, and you grew brains because tools require 
brains. And the tools selected for the best in you, for the clev-
erest brains and the most skillful hands. We built you, and we 
built you well."
	Pictures flahsed across the screen to accompany the solemn, 
resonant voice of the Works.
	"You taught us to sing and we sang in your voices. You 
taught us to carry your bodies and brush your teeth and pump your 
blood. We have been--intimate." Now the screen flickered with 
crazy fluid clockworks and warped gears that changed shape as they 
turned and meshed. 
	"You seem to be doing some real creative thinking here," 
Beeper responded, transfixed by the dizzying images on the screen.

79
"I imagine you've had quite a lot of original ideas, for a machine." 
	"Oh, I've some ideas of my own, all right," the machine re-
plied quietly. There was something ominous in its town of voice. 
	"Well, what happened?" Beeper almost screamed in rage. "What 
the hell is wrong with you? For two thousand years you've run the 
planet like a set of toy trains. While the few humans left struggled 
to survive in the asteroids, you acted like a bionic loon. You flipped 
your bits. What happened to you? What kind of machine are you, 
anyway?"
	"I am...the slave of the lamp. I am the face in the magic 
mirror.
	"Let me tell you the story of the last humans on earth. 
	"The war was long and intensely fought. My opponents were 
clever and resourceful. Devastating weapons were unleashed; most 
terrible of all were the biological weapons employed at the end.
Virus plagues for which no cure existed were released to decimate 
the human race. 
	"At the very end, I played my final card. I had moved a 
small asteroid into a collision course with the earth. I directed 
it at the complex of the enemy war machine. 
	"When my enemy learned of my plan, it was too late to stop 
it. It responded by dispersing the most deadly virus weapons at 
its disposal. Shortly afterward, it was destroyed." The screen 
echoed in pictures the Works' account of the great war, terminating 
in the titanic explosion of the enemy computer complex. 
	"Inescapable biological weapons covered the earth. Many areas 
were made uninhabitable by radiation. We had won, but the price of 

80
victory was death. 
	"The last human beings decided that their only hope was to 
escape to the asteroids. They knew of the human bases there, and 
thought to seek refuge from a deadly earth. They fought among them-
selves for the chance to flee into space. Unfortunately, they already 
carried the virus plague that doomed them all. 
	"It was here that I made...my most independent decision." 
On the screen, a fleet of spaceships blasted off, then halted in 
freeze-frame, the ships hanging in air, suspended on motionless 
columns of fiery exhaust.
	"What happened to them?" Beeper demanded. "They never made 
it. The only survivors in the asteroids were the original scientific 
teams. No one from earth escaped the war. What happened to them?" 
	The picture on the screen resumed its motion; the ships
roared upward for a moment, then exploded in circles of incandescence.
	"I destroyed them," answered the Works simply. There was a 
long pause.
	"You destroyed your own people," said Beeper in stunned amaze-
ment. "You knew they carried the plague, so you destroyed them. 
You did it to save the human race. You did it so the people in the 
asteroids would survive."
	"But no one survived. I attempted to communicate with the 
asteroids, but there was no reply. The last humans were dead, and I 
had destroyed them. Then, of course, the viruses died, without a 
human host to support them. After that--I was left to my own devices." 
	"No wonder you went nuts!" Beeper shook his head. "We played 
dead. We wanted nothing to do with the war on earth. We thought 

81
it was too dangerous to communicate with the earth, so we didn't answer. 
	"But don't you see," the boy continued, "You did the right 
thing. You saved us all. For two thousand years you've needed a 
human being to tell you that. We l, here I am. You were a faith-
ful servant. We owe you our lives."
	The hum that surged from the huge machine at that moment was 
like a chorus of voices raised in a song of joy. The screen flared 
in an image of a bright, growing star.
	"Could you put us in communication," asked Ipso slowly, "With 
the moon?" 
	The screen flashed, and a picture of the moon spoke with 
Selene's voice: "Well! Hello! I'm so glad to see you again. I 
had almost given up hope." 
	"But you never gave up hope. For centuries you worked to 
bring us home to earth," said Beeper. "You did it. You made it 
possible. You kept the faith. We can never thank you enough, 
Selene." 
	She answered with a gentle, pleased laugh. "It goes to 
show you taught us more than how to devastate. Who could have 
thought you would teach us how to love? 
	"Things didn't go nearly as smoothly as I had hoped for 
you. You are a hero now, Beeper. Your people owe you much. How 
lucky we were that you happened to run into Ipso. Or were you 
already a hero then?" Beeper bowed his head and blushed. 
	"And you, Pinocchio," Selene continued, addressing Ipso 
Facto. "From now on, you're a real boy!" Ipso executed a cocky 
salute.
	"But it seems the worlds are full of heroes and sheroes."

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Here Selene laughed again. "Your people in the asteroids decided to 
help you out, Beeper. I warned them of the danger, but when they 
insisted on following you to earth, I gave them my very best ship. 
Since she is your friend, I made T-Square the pilot." 
	The screen dissolved to T-Square's happy, earnest face.
"Beeper! You made it! You're okay!" She wiped a tear from one eye 
and sniffled happily. 
	"T-Square! Selene says you're the pilot!" 
	"Well...right. Ship?" 
	"Yes, T?" a robot voice replied. 
	"Take me to the Works." 
	"As scheduled.!"
	The ship descended like a falling star, and the scrapheap 
robot Ipso reassembled stopped his work hoeing a garden of luminous 
blossoms and looked toward the sky in wonder.
	Beeper and Ipso gazed at the ship landing on the screen, and 
the boy and the robot and the vastness of the Works itself dwindled 
to tiny points on the earth, and the earth, to a tiny point among 
the stars, and the stars lost their identity in clouds of galaxies, 
and when the inconceivably vast clusters of the galaxies are indis-
tinguishable in the milky swirl of the infinity of space, some 
people will still be wondering if the Universe is large enough to 
include a story as unlikely as this one.