The captain hurried to the gauges and glanced at them. He stared back at the machine.
"Captain," purred the machine, "you have a little daughter. By the time you get back, she will be grown and will have children of her own. The sooner you leave, the sooner you will see her again. I will regard it as a personal favor if you see that we take off immediately."
The captain looked at the machine. Tentacles and eye stalks rose up out of the tip as he watched. It was a big machine, well put together, and it appeared quite capable of handling a roomful of armed men. As a matter of fact, it just had.
The captain shrugged and gave the order to lift ship.
It was none too soon. Out of the visionport, Jadiver could see uniformed men edging up from the underground shelters. They backed out of sight when the rockets began to flame.
Faster the ship rose and higher. They were in the dense clouds and then through them, out in the clear black of space, away from Venus.
Jadiver looked down at the machine. It wasn't a vehicle. It was a robot, and it was familiar.
"It ought to be familiar," said the robot softly. That voice was for him alone, directly on the auditory nerve. "You designed most of it back on Earth, remember?"
He remembered. It was not a pretty imitation of a human—it was his perfect robot. And it was also, his unknown friend, the one who had watched over him.