Down far below, it had been a still black shadow, and then it moved. Steffens froze. And he knew, even at that distance, that it was a robot.
Tiny and black, a mass of hanging arms and legs, the thing went gliding down the slope of a hill. Steffens saw it clearly for a full second, saw the dull ball of its head tilt upward as the ship came over, and then the hill was past.
Quickly Steffens called for height. The ship bucked beneath him and blasted straight up; some of the crew went crashing to the deck. Steffens remained by the screen, increasing the magnification as the ship drew away. And he saw another, then two, then a black gliding group, all matched with bunches of hanging arms.
Nothing alive but robots, he thought, robots. He adjusted to full close up as quickly as he could and the picture focused on the screen. Behind him he heard a crewman grunt in amazement.
A band of clear, plasticlike stuff ran round the head—it would be the eye, a band of eye that saw all ways. On the top of the head was a single round spot of the plastic, and the rest was black metal, joined, he realized, with fantastic perfection. The angle of sight was now almost perpendicular. He could see very little of the branching arms of the trunk, but what had been on the screen was enough. They were the most perfect robots he had ever seen.
The ship leveled off. Steffens had no idea what to do; the sudden sight of the moving things had unnerved him. He had already sounded the alert, flicked out the defense screens. Now he had nothing to do. He tried to concentrate on what the League Law would have him do.