"Will you shut up! I'm taking charge. You're a spoiled empty-head even if you are atomic-plated. I'm not dumb even if I do dance for a living in dives you'd blast clear of.
"Someday Ina Haan's name will be in all the lights of Mars and Terra."
Jay Forsix shook his head numbly from side to side as he heard the women talking. Strange thoughts and sensations were crowding into his brain. His hand went up to the bulky helmet that was designed to keep his synthetic body under the control of humans.
He gasped. The battery compartment was empty, its cover gaping. No wonder his uncontrolled senses were so active and his brain alive.
"Gone," he said to Ina Haan. He recognized her as the dominating character of the group.
Ina pulled out a trim platinum-washed expoder and leveled it at the animat. But her finger did not depress the little stud that would send the explosive needles of biaton into his body.
"Maybe an animat is dangerous without his controls," she mused aloud, "and then again.... We'll see. I can always kill it later."
"Thank you, Ina Haan," Jay Forsix said clumsily.
Ina's dark eyes widened. It was rarely that a robot spoke without being addressed, and then it used the term Master or Lady.
"Get to work," she commanded, "salvaging food and clothing."