"Stop them!" I shouted, mostly for my own benefit since I was driving. I tried to shift gears and start the engine at the same time, and succeeded in doing exactly nothing.
So Ned stopped them. It had been phrased as an order. He leaned his head out of the window and I saw at once why most of his equipment was located in his torso. Probably his brain as well. There sure wasn't much room left in his head when that cannon was tucked away in there.
A.75 recoilless. A plate swiveled back right where his nose should have been if he had one, and the big muzzle pointed out. It's a neat idea when you think about it. Right between the eyes for good aiming, up high, always ready.
The BOOM BOOM almost took my head off. Of course Ned was a perfect shot — so would I be with a computer for a brain. He had holed one rear tire with each slug and the car flap-flapped to a stop a little ways down the road. I climbed out slowly while Ned sprinted there in seconds flat. They didn't even try to run this time. What little nerve they had left must have been shattered by the smoking muzzle of that.75 poking out from between Ned's eyes. Robots are neat about things like that so he must have left it sticking out deliberate. Probably had a course in psychology back in robot school.
Three of them in the car, all waving their hands in the air like the last reel of a western. And the rear floor covered with interesting little suitcases.
Everyone came along quietly. China Joe only snarled while Ned told me that his name really was Stantin and the Elmira hot seat was kept warm all the time in hopes he would be back. I promised Joe-Stantin I would be happy to arrange it that same day. Thereby not worrying about any slip-ups with the local authorities. The rest of the mob would stand trial in Canal City.
It was a very busy day. Things have quieted down a good deal since then. Billy is out of the hospital and wearing my old sergeant's stripes. Even Fats is back, though he is sober once in a while now and has trouble looking me in the eye. We don't have much to do because in addition to being a quiet town this is now an honest one. Ned is on foot patrol nights and in charge of the lab and files days. Maybe the Policemen's Benevolent wouldn't like that, but Ned doesn't seem to mind. He touched up all the bullet scratches and keeps his badge polished. I know a robot can't be happy or sad — but Ned seems to be happy.
Sometimes I would swear I can hear him humming to himself. But of course that is only the motors and things going around.
When you start thinking about it, I suppose we set some kind of precedent here. What with putting on a robot as a full-fledged police officer. No one ever came around from the factory yet, so I have never found out if we're the first or not.
And I'll tell you something else. I'm not going to stay in this broken-down town forever. I have some letters out now, looking for a new job.
So some people are going to be very surprised when they see who their new Chief of Police is after I leave.
That was the trouble with Filer 13B-445-K, he wanted to know things that he had just no business knowing. Things that no robot should be interested in — much less investigate. But Filer was a very different type of robot.
The trouble with the blonde in tier 22 should have been warning enough for him. He had hummed out of the stack room with a load of books, and was cutting through tier 22 when he saw her bending over for a volume on the bottom shelf.
As he passed behind her he slowed down, then stopped a few yards further on. He watched her intently, a strange glint in his metallic eyes.
As the girl bent over her short skirt rode up to display an astonishing length of nylon-clad leg. That it was a singularly attractive leg should have been of no interest to a robot — yet it was. He stood there, looking, until the blonde turned suddenly and noticed his fixed attention.
"If you were human, Buster," she said, "I would slap your face. But since you are a robot, I would like to know what your little photon-filled eyes find so interesting."
Without a microsecond's hesitation, Filer answered, "Your seam is crooked." Then he turned and buzzed away.
The blonde shook her head in wonder, straightened the offending stocking, and chalked up another credit to the honor of electronics.
She would have been very surprised to find out what Filer had been looking at. He had been staring at her leg. Of course he hadn't lied when he answered her — since he was incapable of lying — but he had been looking at a lot more than the crooked seam. Filer was facing a problem that no other robot had ever faced before.
Love, romance, and sex were fast becoming a passionate interest for him.
That this interest was purely academic goes without saying, yet it was still an interest. It was the nature of his work that first aroused his curiosity about the realm of Venus.
