The shutter stopped in the middle of a code group, the light of reason dying from the eyes.
For one instant Jon knew panic, until he realized that 17 had deliberately cut the power. Druce's harsh voice rasped in his ear.
''What you doing with that? None of your funny robot tricks, I know your kind, plotting all kinds of things in them tin domes." His voice trailed off into a stream of incomprehensible profanity. With sudden spite he lashed his foot out and sent 17's head crashing against the wall.
The dented green head rolled to a stop at Jon's feet, the face staring up at him in mute agony. It was only circuit 92 that prevented him from injuring a human. His motors revved up to send him hurtling forward as the control relays clicked open. He sank against the debris, paralyzed for the instant. As soon as the rush of anger was gone he would regain control of his body.
They stood as if frozen in a tableau. The robot slumped backward, the man leaning forward, his face twisted with unreasoning hatred. The head lay between them like a symbol of death.
Coleman's voice cut through the air of tenseness like a knife.
"Druce, stop playing with the grease can and get down to the main door to let Little Willy and his junk brokers in. You can have it all to yourself afterward."
The angry man turned reluctantly, but pushed out of the door at Coleman's annoyed growl. Jon sat down against the walls, his mind sorting out the few facts with instantaneous precision. There was no room in his thoughts for Druce. The man had become just one more factor in a complex problem.
Call the emergency operator — that meant this was no local matter. Responsible authorities must be involved. Only the government could be behind a thing as major as this. Signal 14—that implied a complex set of arrangements, forces that could swing into action at a moment's notice. There was no indication where this might lead, but the only thing to do was to get out of here and make that phone call. And quickly. Druce was bringing in more people, junk brokers, whatever they were. Any action that he took would have to be done before they returned.
Even as Jon followed this train of logic his fingers were busy. Palming a wrench, he was swiftly loosening the main retaining nut on his hip joint. It dropped free in his hand, only the pivot pin remained now to hold his leg on. He climbed slowly to his feet and moved towards Coleman's desk.
"Mr. Coleman, sir, it's time to go down to the ship now, should I leave now, sir?"
Jon spoke the words slowly as he walked forward, apparently going to the door, but angling at the same time towards the plump man's desk.
"You got thirty minutes yet, go sit — say—!"
The words were cut off. Fast as a human reflex is, it is the barest crawl compared to the lightning action of electronic reflex. At the instant Coleman was first aware of Jon's motion, the robot had finished his leap and lay sprawled across the desk, his leg off at the hip and clutched in his hand.
"You'll kill yourself if you touch the button!"
The words were part of the calculated plan. Jon bellowed them in the siartled man's ear as he stuffed the dismembered leg down the front ot the man's baggy slacks. It had the desired effect. Coleman's finger stabbed at the button but stopped before it made contact. He stared down with bulging eyes at the little black box of death peeping out of his waistband.
Jon hadn't waited for the reaction. He pushed backward from the desk and stopped to grab the stolen pinch bar off the floor. A mighty one-legged leap brought him to the locked closet; he stabbed the bar into the space between the door and frame and heaved.
Coleman was just starting to struggle the bomb out of his pants when the action was over. The closet open, Jon seized the heavy strap holding the second bomb on the rummy's chest and snapped it like a thread. He threw the bomb into Coleman's corner, giving the man one more thing to worry about. It had cost him a leg, but Jon had escaped the bomb threat without injuring a human. Now he had to get to a phone and make that call.
Coleman stopped tugging at the bomb and plunged his hand into the desk drawer for a gun. The returning men would block the door soon. The only other exit from the room was a frosted-glass window that opened onto the mammoth bay of the warehouse.
Jon Venex plunged through the window in a welter of flying glass. The heavy thud of a recoilless.75 came from the room behind him and a foot-long section of metal window frame leaped outward. Another slug screamed by the robot's head as he scrambled toward the rear door of the warehouse.
He was a bare thirty feet away from the back entrance when the giant door hissed shut on silent rollers. All doors would have closed at the same time: the thud of running feet indicated that they would be guarded as well. Jon hopped a section of packing cases and crouched out of sight.
