Would it be enough time?

Running, head down as fast as I could, I turned and skidded into the narrow opening of the service street. This cut through behind a row of buildings and emerged on a different street. There were robots here loading rubbish into bins, but they ignored me as I ran by since they were simple M types programmed for nothing but this kind of work.

The robot pusher was another matter. He was human and had an electronic lash that he used to stir the robots along. It cracked out and snapped around me and the electric current crackled into my side.

It was shocking, to say the least, but I barely felt it. The voltage is kept low since it is meant to stir the robots, not to cook out their brain circuits. I grabbed the whip as soon as it hit and pulled hard.

All of this was of course according to plan. I had seen this robot pusher and his work gang in this same place every day when we passed; Cliaand does love its routine. The robot pusher, a thick-necked and thuggy looking individual, could be counted on to interfere with a running alien-and had done just as I had hoped. When I pulled on the whip I had him off balance and he staggered towards me, jaw agape, and I let him have a roundhouse right on the point of that a gaping jaw. It connected.

He shook his head, growled something, and came at me with his hands ready to crunch and rend.

This was not according to plan. He was supposed to drop instantly so I could rush through the rest of the routine before the cavalry arrived. How could I have known that not only did he have the IQ of a block of stone but the constitution of one as well? I stepped aside, his fingers grabbed empty air, and I began to sweat. Time was passing and I had no time. I had to render this hulk unconscious in the quickest way possible.

I did. It wasn’t graceful but it worked. I tripped him as he went by, then jumped on his back and rode him to the ground accelerating his fall. And held him by the head and pounded it against the pavement. It took three good knocks-I was afraid the pavement would give way before he did-before he grunted and relaxed.

In the distance the first siren sounded. I sweated harder. Indifferent to the ways of man the robots dumped their dustbins.

The robot pusher was dressed in a uniform of a decomposed green in color, no doubt symbolic of his trade. It was closed with a single zipper which I unzipped, then began to work the clothing off his bulky and unyielding form. While the sirens grew closer. At the last moment I had to stop and tear his boots off in order to remove the trousers, a noisome operation that added nothing good to the entire affair.

The siren echoed loudly from the walls of the service street and brakes squealed nastily close by.

With what very well might be called frantic haste I pulled the uniform on over my own wasp-like garb and zipped it shut. Running feet pounded loudly towards me. I grabbed up the whip and let the nearest robot have a crack right across his ball bearings.

“Stuff this man into a bin!” I ordered and stood back as it grabbed up its former master.

The feet had just vanished from view when the first of the red uniformed soldiers burst into sight.

“An alien!” I shouted, and shook my whip towards the other end of the narrow street. “He went thataway. Fast. Before I could stop him.”

The soldiers kept going fast as well. Which was a good thing since the pair of recently removed boots were lying there right in plain sight. I threw them in the bin after their owner and cracked the whip on my half dozen robots.

“We march,” I ordered. “To the next location.” I hoped they were programmed for a regular route-and they were. The truck-robot led the way and the others fell in behind them. I went behind, whip ready. My little procession emerged into the police gorged, soldier full street. Armored vehicles twisted around us and drivers cursed. My faithful band of robots struck straight across the street through this mess while I, with a paralyzed smile on my lips, trotted along after them. I was afraid that if I made any attempt to change the orders my mechanical team would stage a sit-down right there in the street. We passed behind the abandoned groundcar just as my old bodyguard, Pacov, was being helped from it. I turned my back on him and tried to ignore the chill prickling up and down the nape of my neck. If he recognized me…

The first robot entered another service way and I staggered after them until, after what felt like a two day walk, I entered this haven of relative safety. It was a coolish day but I was sweating heavily: I leaned against the wall to recover while my robots emptied the bins. More cars were still appearing in the street I had so recently left and a flight of jets thundered by overhead. My, but they certainly were missing me.

What next? A good question. Very soon now, when no trace of the fugitive alien could be found, someone would remember the one witness to his escape. And they would want to talk to the robot pusher again. Before that moment came I would have to be elsewhere-but where? My assets were very limited; a collection of garbage collecting robots, now industriously clanking away at their trade, two uniforms-one worn over the other-either of which made me a marked man, and an electronic whip. Good only for whipping robots; the feeble current it generated was just enough to close a relay to cancel a previous order or action. What to do?

There was a grating noise close behind me and I jumped aside as a rusty iron door slid upwards. A fat man in a white hat poked his head out.

“I got another barrel in here for you, Slobodan,” he said, then looked suspiciously at me. “You ain’t Slobodan.”

“You’re right. Slobodan is someone else. And he is somewhere else. In the hospital. Having a hernia removed. They’re putting in a new one.”

Was opportunity tapping? I talked fast and thought even faster. There was still plenty of rushing about in the street I had so recently crossed but no one was looking into the serviceway. I cracked my whip across the gearbox of the nearest robot and ordered him to me.

“Follow that man,” I said, snapping my whip in the right direction. White hat popped back inside, the robot followed him and I followed the robot.

Into a kitchen. A big one, a restaurant kitchen obviously. And there was no one else in sight.

“What time do you open?” I asked. “I’m getting quite an appetite on this job.”

“Not until tonight-hey! Tell this robot to stop following me and get that garbage out of here.” The cook was backing around the room with the robot trundling faithfully after him. They made a fine pair.

“Robot,” I said, and cracked the whip. “Do not follow that man any more. Just reach out your implacable little robot hands and grab him by the arms so he cannot get away.”

The robot’s reflexes, being electronic, were faster than the cook’s. The steel hands closed, the cook opened his mouth to complainand I stuffed his hat into it. He chewed it angrily and made muffled noises deep in his throat. He kept this up all the time I was tying him into a chair with a fine assortment of towels, securing the gag in place as well. No one else had appeared and my luck was still running strong.

“Out,” I ordered the robot, cracking it across the patient metal back. The others were still working away and I laid about like a happy flagellant until they were all quivering for orders.

“Return. To the place from whence you came this morning. Go now.”

Like well-trained troops they turned and started away. Thankfully, in the direction away from the street we had just crossed. I popped back into the kitchen and locked the door. Safe for the moment. They would trace me to the robot rubbishmen sooner or later, but would have no idea where or when I had left the convoy. Things were working out just fine.