"I see," Quinby went on, as casually as though we were here on social terms. "Of course the trouble is that you have to use a gun."
"I'm a soldier. Of course I have to use one."
"You don't understand. I mean the trouble is that you have to use one. Now, if you could be a gun—"
It took some explaining. But when the android understood what it could mean to be a usuform, to have an arm that didn't need to snatch at a holster because it was itself a firing weapon, his eye cells began to take on a new bright glow.
"You could do that to me?" he demanded of me.
"Sure," I said. "You give me your gun and I'll—"
He drew back mistrustfully. Then he looked around the room, found another gun, unloaded it, and handed it to me. "Go ahead," he said.
It was a lousy job. I was in a state and in a hurry and the sweat running down my forehead and dripping off my eyebrows didn't help any. The workshop wasn't too well equipped, either, and I hate working from my head. I like a nice diagram to look at.
But I made it somehow, very crudely, replacing one hand by the chamber and barrel and attaching the trigger so that it would be worked by the same nerve currents as actuated the finger movements to fire a separate gun.
The android loaded himself awkwardly. I stood aside, and Quinby tossed up the disk. You never saw a prettier piece of instantaneous trap-shooting. The android stretched his face into that very rare thing, a robot grin, and expressed himself in pungently jubilant military language.