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Could it be that the robot, having the irained in its tortured mind, found itself incapable of the actual act now that it was face to face with it?
And then he thought that couldn&039;t be, for it seerip was increasing in ses
He cried hat force he could ht up his one free hand frorime There was one last chance, one last, miserably weak chance
He lifted his hand to the robot&039;s head He could not turn his head to see, crushed as that was against the robot&039;s chest His hand slipped along the smooth metal surface of the robot&039;s skull two times, three times, four ti ination, or did the robot&039;s grip see Sun on his side at last?
"Robot!" he cried
The robot ether
Its grip was loosening Noas the tiht be left of the Laws of Robotics into play
Lucky panted, "You "
The robot said, "I round
Its grip was constant, as though rigid in death
Lucky said, "Robot! Let go!"
Jerkily, the robot loosened his hold Not entirely, but Lucky&039;s legs came free and his head could move
He said, "Who ordered you to destroy equiper feared the robot&039;s wild reaction to that question He knew that he hiration But in the last stages before final dissolution, perhaps soht hold He repeated, "Who ordered you to destroy equipment?"
The robot ly, radio contact broke off, and the robot&039;s h, in the ulti to talk by ordinary sound
After that, nothing
The robot was dead
Lucky&039;s own ency of near-death was over, avering and blurred He lacked the strength to unwind the robot&039;s limbs entirely from his body His radio controls had been s
He knew that he et out of the direct radiation of Mercury&039;s big Sun and quickly That e, the shadow he had failed to reach during the duel with the robot
Painfully he doubled his feet beneath hie, dragging the robot&039;s weight with hiain The process seemed to last forever and the universe shiain
There sees, and the robot seeh a thousand pounds
Even with Mercury&039;s low gravity, the task seeth, and it was sheer will that drove hiht blanked out He waited, panting, and then, with an effort that seeround once more and even once more
He was in the shadow One of the robot&039;s legs was still in the sun, blazing reflections in all directions Lucky looked over his shoulder and noted that dizzily Then, alo of consciousness
There were intervals later when sense perception crawled back
Then, much later, he lay quietly, conscious of a soft bed under hi those intervals back to ue iman&039;s voice, shrill and anxious Then, a trifle more clearly, a physician&039;s ain, followed by a sharp entle questions Lucky re in connected fashion, so the worst of his ordeal must have been over by then He opened his eyes
Dr Gardo at himsomberly, a hypodermic still in his hand "How do you feel?" he asked
Lucky smiled "How should I feel?"
"Dead, I should think, after what you&039;ve gone through But you have a re anxiously at the outskirts of Lucky&039;s vision, entered it full now "No thanks to Mindes for that Why didn&039;t that et Lucky out of there after he spotted the robot&039;s leg? What was he waiting for? He was leaving Lucky to die?"
Dr Gardoma put away his hypoderman, he said, "Scott Mindes was convinced Lucky was dead His only thought was to stay away so that no one could accuse hi the murderer He knew he had tried to kill Lucky once before and that others would remember that"
"How could he think that this time? The robot "
"Mindes isn&039;t himself under pressure these days He called for help; that was the best he could do"
Lucky said, "Take it easy, Big it off in the shade, and I&039;ed?"
"We&039;ve got it in the Doh, quite impossible to study"
"Too bad," said Lucky
The physician raised his voice "All right, Bignantly
Lucky at once added, "That&039;s all right, Gardoma As a matter of fact, I want to speak to hied "You need sleep, but I&039;ll give you half an hour Then he o"
As soon as they were alone, Bigman seized Lucky&039;s shoulder and shook it violently He said in a strangled kind of voice, "You stupid ape If the heat hadn&039;t got that robot in time-like in the sub-etherics "
Lucky s, I&039;d be dead I had to gimmick the robot"
"How?"
"Its brain case was highly polished It reflected a large part of the sun&039;s radiation That h to ruin its sanity but not high enough to stop it coood part of Mercurian soil about here is ed to smear some on its head"
"What did that do?"
"Black absorbs heat, Bigman It doesn&039;t reflect it The temperature of the robot&039;s brain went up quickly and it died alh Still, never one? Anything?"
"Anything? Wow! You listen!" And as Bigrew continually graver as the story unfolded
By the tirily "Why did you fight Urteil, anyway? That was foolish"
"Lucky," said Bigy!
You always say I just bull right ahead and can&039;t be trusted to do the shrewd thing This was shrewd I knew I could lick hih you almost didn&039;t Your ankle is taped"