Anyway, the slack season came and went and before long we were doing the spring cleaning again and wondering how heavy the Jovian Moons trade was going to be. I remember I'd been making some repairs outside and was just hanging up my spacesuit in the Renting Office when I heard the radar announcing a ship.
It was the biggest Marvin 990 I'd ever seen that finally suctioned up to the boom and secured. I couldn't take my eyes off the ship. She was pretty near the last word in rockets and loaded with accessories. It took me a minute or two before I noticed all the faces looking out of the viewports.
"Min!" I whispered. "There's something funny about those faces. They look like—"
"Robots!" Min answered. "Bill, that 990 is full of mechs!"
Just as she said it a bulky figure in white space fatigues swung out of the hatch and hurried up the gangplank. Seconds later it burst through the airlock.
"Frank Nineteen!" we gasped together.
"Please, where is Elizabeth?" he hummed anxiously. "Is she all right? I have to know."
Frank stood perfectly still when I told him about Elizabeth's self-deactivation; then a pitiful shudder went through him and he covered his face with his big Neoprene hands.
"I was afraid of that," he said barely audibly. "Where—you haven't—?"
"No," I said. "She's where you always kept her."