“Not so fast,” Rick retorted. “I said 'almost.' We’ve got another half-hour’s driving before we’re clear. It’ll be close, but it’ll probably catch us. Even if it doesn’t, it’ll be close enough to use its slicer on us.”

Hosato studied the pursuing vehicle as it came into view again.

“Where are the surface suits?” he asked finally.

“In the tall lockers back in the crew area. Why?”

But Hosato was already gone.

“Hosato—” the boy began, looking up.

“Not now, James,” Hosato mumbled, brushing past him. “We’ve got problems.”

“If I might suggest…” Suzi began, but Hosato ignored the robot.

“If anything happens, James,” he said, dragging the bulky surface suit from the locker and gathering it in his arms, “get in touch with the Hungarian. Suzi can tell you how to find him.”

“But—”

Hosato cut him short, calling ahead to Rick as he started for the cockpit again.

“Stop the crawler in the next gully!”

“What for?” the mechanic called back.

“We haven’t got time to argue,” Hosato growled, joining him in the cockpit. “Just stop this thing and help me get into this suit.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to take a blaster and lay a little ambush for our friend there.”

“You’re nuts,” Rick proclaimed. “You won’t stand a chance out there.”

“If I don’t, none of us have a chance. At least I can create a diversion until the rest of you are out of range. Now, stop this thing.”

The mechanic obediently pulled the vehicle to a halt in the dark shadows of a gully.

“All right,” he said, swiveling in his chair to help Hosato with the suit, “but how will we know to come back and pick you up?”

“You don’t,” Hosato replied, struggling with the suit’s fastenings. “You get out of range and wait. If this works, I’ll follow your tracks and catch up with you. If I’m not there by sunrise, I’m not coming.”

“Well, good luck, Hosato.” Rick slapped him on the back as he headed back to the crew area.

Just through the doorway, he stopped suddenly. His swords, his clothes, were all heaped in the center of the floor next to James. It took him a moment to realize the implications of this fact; then he cast about the area, opening his faceplate.

“Where’s Suzi?” he demanded.

“She she told me to unload her,” James stammered.

“But where is she?” Hosato barked.

As if in response, he heard a muffled hiss of compressed air. The outer airlock door had just opened.

Hosato stoqped and rummaged desperately through his gear.

“I didn’t know what she was going to do!” the boy insisted. “All of a sudden she was gone.”

Hosato finally found what he was looking for. The radio unit he and Suzi sometimes used for communications. Thumbing the unit on, he raised it quickly to his lips.

“Suzi!” he called. “What are you doing?”

“What’s going on?” Rick called from the cockpit Hosato pushed his way forward again, centering his attention on the rear viewscreen.

“See for yourself!” he said, nodding at the screen.

Suzi could be seen clearly, steadfastly making her way back along the crawler’s tracks.

“If you don’t mind my saying so,” Rich said archly, “that’s a waste of a fine robot. She can’t do anything against that ore scout.”

“I didn’t send her,” Hosato snarled. “She’s out there on her own.”

The robot was almost out of sight as Hosato thumbed the radio button again.

“Suzi. I asked you a direct question. Respond!”

“I am executing your plan for diversionary action,” came the calm reply.

“The plan was for me to create a diversion,” Hosato barked.

“That was the only flaw in your plan. I am eminently better suited than you for this mission.”

“Return to the crawler at once!”

“May I remind you”—. Suzi’s voice was dry, despite the radio—“the purpose of this maneuver is to gain time for the crawler to escape. That effect will very quickly be lost if you continue to delay your departure. The time for argument is past.”

“She’s right,” Rick said, and set the crawler in motion again.

Hosato started to stop him, then hesitated. Suzi was right—at least on the time element. Then again, if she failed, he could still try his own gambit.

“For the record,” he said into the radio, “I disagree with your assertion that you can deal with the ore scout better than I could.”

“Normally you would be correct,” Suzi retorted, “but under surface conditions my mobility and maneuverability exceed your own.”

“But your programming won’t allow you to carry out any aggressive functions. How do you expect to stop it?”

“Even though I cannot pose an actual threat, if the ore scout perceives me as a threat, it’ll stop.”

“And then it will start again and you’ll be dead.”

“Actually, the correct phrase is 'nonfunctional.'”

Hosato was involuntarily startled by the correction. He realized suddenly that he had grown to think of Suzi not as a robot but as a living individual.

“Suzi—” he began slowly.

“Future communications will occur only as time permits,” the robot’s voice interrupted. “The ore scout is in sight now.”

Hosato waited impatiently for the crawler to top another rise, thereby giving him a view of the action occurring to their rear. But as the scene rose into the viewscreen, he could see nothing. Then, as they were about to plunge into the next gully, there was a quick flash of light.

The ore scout had fired its slicer. Apparently the two robots were somewhere in one of the gullies, hidden from the crawler’s line of sight.

As their vehicle reached the bottom of the gully, the front viewscreen picked up a second flash of light reflected on the ridge ahead. The slicer had been fired a second time.

“Suzi!” Hosato called into the radio. “Are you all right?”

“It missed,” replied the robot.

“How are you drawing its fire?”

“Just a minute.”

There was another flash of light.

Hosato waited. There was no sound from the radio.

“Suzi?”

Silence.

“Suzi?” he repeated.

“In response to your question,” came Suzi’s voice, “I am playing upon the machine’s target-image sensitivities.”

Relief flooded over Hosato, but he kept it out of his voice. “Conld I have that last bit in English?” he asked.

“From the actions displayed by the security robots at the complex, it is apparent they are being directed by the central computer to seek out and destroy objects of a humanoid form. That means the target unage must display cerain properties, of shape—specifically, a head, a given body shape Excuse me a moment.”

There was another flash of light.

“Suzi. What are you doing?” Hosato barked.

“That is what I am attempting to explain,” came the calm response. “Additional questions will only prolong my efforts.”

Hosato ground his teeth. He had dealt with Suzi’s explanations before. They were usually drawn out and detailed, but it was useless to try to rush her.

“Sorry, Suzi.” He sighed. “But could you try to keep it to the major points only?”

“I never indulge in needless… Excuse me.”

There was another flash of light.

“Whatever she’s doing, it’s keeping that thing pinned down,” Rick commented.

Hosato nodded absently, waiting for Suzi to continue her oration.

“As I was saying,” Suzi’s voice came again, “fortunately I have been provided with just such a shape— or half of one, to be specific. It seems to be sufficient to convince the ore scout’s scanners that I am a target.”

For a moment Hosato was confused, but then he remembered. The fencing manikin. By facing the fencing manikin with its single arm toward the ore scout, she was making it believe she was a human!

“We’ll be out of range soon,” Rick announced.

Hosato ignored him. The information was welcome, but at the moment his attention was commanded by Suzi’s report.