"Miss!" squawked the clerk, triggered alive by the noise. "Don't...."
She was outside by then and running through the crazy half-light thrown by Mars's nearer and farther moons. Wind howled and tugged at her. Cold turned the breath from her helmet vent into snow.
When no pursuit developed she stopped, gasping, before one of the open-air shops she had toured that afternoon. Five "Martians" bent stiffly over lathes and other machines, just where they had stopped after the last visitor departed. Hoarfrost mottled their leather harness, their downy red skins and the scars on their shoulders where atrophied wings had supposedly been amputated. No breath came from their nostrils. How cold and small they looked!
On impulse, she approached briskly.
"Yes, Miss?" The robot proprietor unkinked as its automatic relays turned it on. It came forward with a grimace meant to represent a smile. "You're out very late. What may I show you?" Its voice was like a rusted bird song.
"Tell me," said she, "what the Martians really made here."
"Why, we design jewelry, Miss. I have some nice...."
"No, no!" she interrupted. "What did the real Martians make here? Surely not junk jewelry for tasteless tourists. Something beautiful, it must have been. Wind bells? Dreams? Snowflakes? Please tell me."
The robot twittered and flinched like a badly made toy.