Now was the time. I mustered all my cunning, but I could not speak. Not yet.
“Never mind,” he said. “I can see that it is. I shall report you, of course. It will give me great pleasure to see you dismantled. Not that it really matters, of course—now.”
There it was again. The same frightening allusion that Langley had made today. I must succeed!
I knew that MS-33, for all his brilliance, and newness, and vaunted superiority, was only a Secretarial. For the age of specialism was upon Earth, and General Purpose models were no longer made. That was why we were different here on Phobos. It was why we had survived. The old ones had given us something special which the new metal people did not have. Moreover, MS-33 had his weakness. He was larger, stronger, faster than me, but I doubted that he could be devious.
“You are right,” I said, pretending resignation. “This is my distillery. It is where I make the fluid which is called Moon Glow by the metal people of Phobos. Doubtless you are interested in learning how it works.”
“Not even remotely interested,” he said. “I am interested only in taking you back and turning you over to the authorities.”
“It works much like the conventional distilling plants of Earth,” I said, “except that the basic ingredient, a silicon compound, is irradiated as it passes through zirconium tubes to the heating pile, where it is activated and broken down into the droplets of the elixir called Moon Glow. You see the golden drops falling there.
“It has the excellent flavor of fine petroleum, as I make it. Perhaps you’d care to taste it. Then you could understand that it is not really bad at all. Perhaps you could persuade yourself to be more lenient with me.”
“Certainly not,” said MS-33.