"... And androids in other neighboring cities are joining the struggle," the voice went on "Soon we hope to make it nationwide. So I say to all of you nontelepaths, the time is now. Strike for your rights. Listen to your radio and not to the flesh men. Organizers will be sent from Carron City."
I switched it off, muttering under my breath. How long, I wondered, had that broadcast been going on. Then I thought of Rob O. He'd left my house before dawn, obviously some time between four and seven. And I remembered that he liked to listen to the radio while I slept.
y Morrison 5's were the ring-leaders, of course. They were the only ones with the brains for the job. But what a good job they had done indoctrinating the others. A household Rob, for instance, was built to obey his master. "Listen to your radio and not to the flesh men." It was excellent robot psychology.
More reports kept coming in. Some we heard over the radio, others from people who flew in and out of the city. Apparently the robots did not object to occasional flights, but the air bus was not allowed to run, not even with a human driver. A mass exodus from the city was not to be permitted.
"They'll starve to death," Jack cried.
The Chief shook his head. "No," he said. "They're encouraging the farmers to fly in and out with produce, and the farmers are doing it, too. They're getting wonderful prices."
By noon the situation had calmed down quite a bit. The androids obviously didn't mean to hurt anyone; it was just some sort of disagreement between them and the scientists; it wasn't up to the inhabitants of the city to figure out a solution to the problem. They merely sat back and blamed me for allowing my robots to get out of hand and lead their own servants astray. It would be settled; this type of thing always was. So said the people of the city. They came out of their houses now. They had to. Without the robots they were forced to do their own marketing, their own cooking, their own errands. For the first time in years, human beings ran the street cars and the freight elevators. For the first time in a generation human beings did manual labor such as unloading produce trucks. They didn't like it, of course. They kept telling the police to do something. If I had been in the city they would have undoubtedly wanted to lynch me.
I didn't go back to the city that day. I sat in my office listening to the radio and keeping track of the spread of the strike. My men thought I'd gone crazy; maybe I had. But I had a hunch, and I meant to play it.