Hen opened his eyes, said in a pained voice, "I'm thinking," and closed them again.
"Which end do you use?"
Hen allowed his feet to clomp to the floor, sat up. He said grimly, "The robots have run off."
Sofi's blue eyes widened. "Wait a minute," she said breathlessly and flashed from the room.
Hen kept his eyes studiously on the deck.
The sprawling sun-drenched hives of Terra, he was beginning to realize, insured an impersonal attitude by the multitude of their citizenry. That same impersonalness was disconcertingly hard to maintain when a man and a girl were cooped together on an uninhabited asteroid. The pre-plastic emotions were only too apt to assert themselves.
It distracted him when he felt he needed his full powers of concentration.
Sofi returned in belted coveralls. She took a seat, asking him, "What does it mean?"
"The disappearance of the robots? I don't know. I didn't think they were sufficiently integrated yet to mutiny."
"But what can they do?"