"Didn't you make a cat?" Bowen asked sharply.
Joe gulped nervously. Yes, he had! And he'd changed the cat back into new shoes—
"You mustn't deny the danger for a minute, Joe," Bowen went on, gravely. "If ever the wrong people hear about that robot and get their hands on it, you're as good as dead! And the rest of the world will shortly be under the killer's thumb—"
"Father—" Barbara blurted impulsively. "Father, can't we—help him, somehow?"
Bowen raised his brows and grinned at his daughter. "Maybe for your sake, we'd better!" he exclaimed, chuckling.
Barbara fidgeted with embarrassment.
"I've been wondering about the people who sent the robot to you," Bowen resumed seriously. "But it seems that they weren't interested so much in what the robot might do to our world as they were in getting their experiment done. So this seems to be left entirely in your hands, Joe." He glanced up, his gray eyes boring into Joe's face. "Do you want to make your own decision about it, or do you want us to make a suggestion?"
Joe ran his fingers through his hair, nervously. "I'd—I'd appreciate anything you say, Mr. Bowen! Anything!"
But in the back of his mind—even as Bowen began speaking again—Joe felt the beginnings of an idea, a decision that formed and grew and flooded into his whole being with the exhilaration of a drug! Even as Bowen began speaking, Joe knew what he was going to do—what he had to do—