"Yes," Ketrik replied. "That's probably what saved my life. I crashed right through the roof!"
They saw Ketrik's spacer on the floor below them, its nose and forward tubes crumpled beyond recognition.
"I'll show you my body." He strode to one of the alcoves, and the men stepped from his shoulders onto a stone ledge. Before them was a thick glass coffin. Resting in it was the material Ketrik!
It was a large body, as large as Janus, but clean shaven. The blue eyes were open and staring, and even in this suspended state there seemed to be a quality of recklessness, even amusement, about them.
"How do you get the mental self into the robot?" Brownell asked.
"Damned if I know how it works," there was almost a shrug in Ketrik's robot voice. "I just experimented with the thing."
He just experimented! Mark marvelled at this man.
"Don't touch it," Ketrik warned, "but you'll notice there are two cathodes attached to the temples of my earth body. See how the wires lead out, and up to that panelled board on the wall? There are all kinds of coils and things behind that board. Those other cathodes, that you see dangling, were attached to the brain plate of the robot. I suppose the molecules of your mental self flow through the wires. When the transference is complete, you merely detach the cathodes and start walking about, a full-fledged robot! I tell you it's wonderful!"
"Ketrik," Brownell said, as they went back through the forest, "we should be returning to Earth as soon as we complete the new weapon for Man's people. Don't you want to return with us?"