Dejectedly Ellis returned to his own room. Again he lifted the receiver of the room phone; but as usual a robot voice answered sweetly, mechanically, and meaninglessly. He hung up and went miserably to bed.
There was something nagging at Harper's mind. Something he should do. Something that concerned robots. But he was too exhausted to think it out.
For five days now his pet robots had put him through an ordeal that made him flinch every time he thought about it. Which wasn't often, since he was almost past thinking. They plunked him into stinking mud-baths and held him there until he was well-done to the bone, he was sure. They soaked him in foul, steaming irradiated waters until he gagged. They brought him weird concoctions to eat and drink and then stood over him until he consumed them. They purged and massaged and exercised him.
Whenever they let him alone, he simply collapsed into bed and slept. There was nothing else to do anyway. They'd taken his clothes; and the phone, after an announcement that he would have no more service for two weeks, gave him nothing but a busy signal.
"Persecution, that's what it is!" he moaned desperately. And he turned his back to the mirror, which showed him that he was beginning to look flesh-colored instead of the parchment yellow to which he had become accustomed. He closed his mind to the fact that he was sleeping for hours on end like the proverbial baby, and that he was getting such an appetite that he could almost relish even that detestable mush they sent him for breakfast. He was determined to be furious. As soon as he could wake up enough to be.
He hadn't been awake long this time before Jake Ellis was there again, still moaning about his lack of treatments. "Nothin' yet," he gloomily informed Harp. "They haven't been near me. I just can't understand it. After I signed up for the works and paid 'em in advance! And I can't find any way out of this section. The other two rooms are empty and the elevator hasn't got any button. The robots just have to come and get a man or he's stuck."
"Stuck!" snarled Harp. "I'm never stuck! And I'm damned if I'll wait any longer to break out of this—this jail! Listen, Jake. I've been thinking. Or trying to, with what's left of me. You came in just when that assinine clerk was registering me. I'll bet that clerk got rattled and gave me the wrong key. I'll bet you're supposed to have this room and I'm getting your treatments. Why don't we switch rooms and see what happens?"
"Say, maybe you're right!" Jake's eyes gleamed at last with hope. "I'll get my clothes."
Harp's eyebrows rose. "You mean they left you your clothes?"