"Yes," came the sarcastic reply, "it would be a most tender sacrifice - except that a person would be in no condition to give orders before he ever reached the pool, and I don't think the robots would ever turn back to the cliff without orders. Figure it out! We're two or three miles from the pool - call it two - the robot travels at four miles an hour; and we can last twenty minutes in our suits. It isn't only the heat, remember. Solar radiation out here in the ultraviolet and below is poison."
"Um-m-m," said Donovan, "ten minutes short."
"As good as an eternity. And another thing. In order for Rule 3 potential to have stopped Speedy where it did, there must be an appreciable amount of carbon monoxide in the metal-vapor atmosphere - and there must be an appreciable corrosive action therefore. He's been out hours now - and how do we know when a knee joint, for instance, won't be thrown out of kilter and keel him over. It's not only a question of thinking - we've got to think fast!"
Deep, dark, dank, dismal silence!
Donovan broke it, voice trembling in an effort to keep itself emotionless. He said: "As long as we can't increase Rule 2 potential by giving further orders, how about working the other way? If we increase the danger, we increase Rule 3 potential and drive him backward."
Powell's visiplate had turned toward him in a silent question.
"You see," came the cautious explanation, "all we need to do to drive him out of his rut is to increase the concentration of carbon monoxide in his vicinity. Well, back at the Station there's a complete analytical laboratory."
"Naturally," assented Powell. "It's a Mining Station."
"All right. There must be pounds of oxalic acid for calcium precipitations."
"Holy space! Mike, you're a genius."
"So-so," admitted Donovan, modestly. "It's just a case of remembering that oxalic acid on heating decomposes into carbon dioxide, water, and good old carbon monoxide. College chem, you know."
Powell was on his feet and had attracted the attention of one of the monster robots by the simple expedient of pounding the machine's thigh.
"Hey," he shouted, "can you throw?"
"Master?"
"Never mind." Powell damned the robot's molasses-slow brain. He scrabbled up a jagged brick-size rock. "take this," he said, "and hit the patch of bluish crystals just across the crooked fissure. You see it?"
Donovan pulled at his shoulder. "Too far, Greg. It's almost half a mile off."
"Quiet," replied Powell. "It's a case of Mercurian gravity and a steel throwing arm. Watch, will you?"
The robot's eyes were measuring the distance with machinely accurate stereoscopy. His arm adjusted itself to the weight of the missile and drew back. In the darkness, the robot's motions went unseen, but there was a sudden thumping sound as he shifted his weight, and seconds later the rock flew blackly into the sunlight. There was no air resistance to slow it down, nor wind to turn it aside - and when it hit the ground it threw up crystals precisely in the center of the "blue patch."
Powell yelled happily and shouted, "Let's go back after the oxalic acid, Mike."
And as they plunged into the ruined substation on the way back to the tunnels, Donovan said grimly: "Speedy's been hanging about on this side of the selenium pool, ever since we chased after him. Did you see him?"
"Yes."
"I guess he wants to play games. Well, we'll play him games!"
They were back hours later, with three-liter jars of the white chemical and a pair of long faces. The photo-cell banks were deteriorating more rapidly than had seemed likely. The two steered their robots into the sunlight and toward the waiting Speedy in silence and with grim purpose.
Speedy galloped slowly toward them. "Here we are again. Whee! I've made a little list, the piano organist; all people who eat peppermint and puff it in your face."
"We'll puff something in your face," muttered Donovan. "He's limping, Greg."
"I noticed that," came the low, worried response. "The monoxide'll get him yet, if we don't hurry."
They were approaching cautiously now, almost sidling, to refrain from setting off the thoroughly irrational robot. Powell was too far off to tell, of course, but even already he could have sworn the crack-brained Speedy was setting himself for a spring.
"Let her go," he gasped. "Count three! One- two-"
Two steel arms drew back and snapped forward simultaneously and two glass jars whirled forward in towering parallel arcs, gleaming like diamonds in the impossible sun. And in a pair of soundless puffs, they hit the ground behind Speedy in crashes that sent the oxalic acid flying like dust.
In the full heat of Mercury's sun, Powell knew it was fizzing like soda water.
Speedy turned to stare, then backed away from it slowly - and as slowly gathered speed. In fifteen seconds, he was leaping directly toward the two humans in an unsteady canter.
Powell did not get Speedy's words just then, though he heard something that resembled, "Lover's professions when uttered in Hessians."
He turned away. "Back to the cliff, Mike. He's out of the rut and he'll be taking orders now. I'm getting hot."
They jogged toward the shadow at the slow monotonous pace of their mounts, and it was not until they had entered it and felt the sudden coolness settle softly about them that Donovan looked back. "Greg!"
Powell looked and almost shrieked. Speedy was moving slowly now -so slowly- and in the wrong direction. He was drifting; drifting back into his rut; and he was picking up speed. He looked dreadfully close, and dreadfully unreachable, in the binoculars.