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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of B-12's Moon Glow, by Charles A. Stearns
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: B-12's Moon Glow
+
+Author: Charles A. Stearns
+
+Release Date: February 23, 2010 [EBook #31364]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK B-12'S MOON GLOW ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Barbara Tozier and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+    This etext was produced from _Planet Stories_ January 1954.
+    Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+    copyright on this publication was renewed.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+B-12's MOON GLOW
+
+By CHARLES A. STEARNS
+
+
+    _Among the metal-persons of Phobos, robot B-12 held a special
+    niche. He might not have been stronger, larger, faster than
+    some ... but he could be devious ... and more important, he
+    was that junkyard planetoid's only moonshiner._
+
+
+I am B-12, a metal person. If you read _Day_ and the other progressive
+journals you will know that in some quarters of the galaxy there is
+considerable prejudice directed against us. It is ever so with
+minority races, and I do not complain. I merely make this statement so
+that you will understand about the alarm clock.
+
+An alarm clock is a simple mechanism used by the Builders to shock
+themselves into consciousness after the periodic comas to which they
+are subject. It is obsolescent, but still used in such out of the way
+places as Phobos.
+
+My own contact with one of these devices came about in the following
+manner:
+
+I had come into Argon City under cover of darkness, which is the only
+sensible thing to do, in my profession, and I was stealing through the
+back alleyways as silently as my rusty joints would allow.
+
+I was less than three blocks from Benny's Place, and still undetected,
+when I passed the window. It was a large, cheerful oblong of light, so
+quite naturally I stopped to investigate, being slightly phototropic,
+by virtue of the selenium grids in my rectifier cells. I went over and
+looked in, unobtrusively resting my grapples on the outer ledge.
+
+There was a Builder inside such as I had not seen since I came to
+Phobos half a century ago, and yet I recognized the subspecies at
+once, for they are common on Earth. It was a she.
+
+It was in the process of removing certain outer sheaths, and I noted
+that, while quite symmetrical, bilaterally, it was otherwise oddly
+formed, being disproportionately large and lumpy in the anterior
+ventral region.
+
+I had watched for some two or three minutes, entirely forgetting my
+own safety, when then she saw me. Its eyes widened and it snatched up
+the alarm clock which was, as I have hinted, near at hand.
+
+"Get out of here, you nosey old tin can!" it screamed, and threw the
+clock, which caromed off my headpiece, damaging one earphone. I ran.
+
+If you still do not see what I mean about racial prejudice, you will,
+when you hear what happened later.
+
+I continued on until I came to Benny's Place, entering through the
+back door. Benny met me there, and quickly shushed me into a side
+room. His fluorescent eyes were glowing with excitement.
+
+Benny's real name is BNE-96, and when on Earth he had been only a
+Servitor, not a General Purpose like myself.
+
+But perhaps I should explain.
+
+We metal people are the children of the Builders of Earth, and later
+of Mars and Venus. We were not born of two parents, as they are. That
+is a function far too complex to explain here; in fact I do not even
+understand it myself. No, we were born of the hands and intellects of
+the greatest of their scientists, and for this reason it might be
+natural to suppose that we, and not they, would be considered a
+superior race. It is not so.
+
+Many of us were fashioned in those days, a metal person for every kind
+of task that they could devise, and some, like myself, who could do
+almost anything. We were contented enough, for the greater part, but
+the scientists kept creating, always striving to better their former
+efforts.
+
+And one day the situation which the Builders had always regarded as
+inevitable, but we, somehow, had supposed would never come, was upon
+us. The first generation of the metal people--more than fifty thousand
+of us--were obsolete. The things that we had been designed to do, the
+new ones, with their crystalline brains, fresh, untarnished,
+accomplished better.
+
+We were banished to Phobos, dreary, lifeless moon of Mars. It had long
+been a sort of interplanetary junkyard; now it became a graveyard.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Upon the barren face of this little world there was no life except for
+the handful of hardy Martian and Terran prospectors who searched for
+minerals. Later on, a few rude mining communities sprang up under
+plastic airdromes, but never came to much. Argon City was such a
+place.
+
+I wonder if you can comprehend the loneliness, the hollow futility of
+our plight. Fifty thousand skilled workmen with nothing to do. Some of
+the less adaptable gave up, prostrating themselves upon the bare rocks
+until their joints froze from lack of use, and their works corroded.
+Others served the miners and prospectors, but their needs were all too
+few.
+
+The overwhelming majority of us were still idle, and somehow we
+learned the secret of racial existence at last. We learned to serve
+each other.
+
+This was not an easy lesson to learn. In the first place there must be
+motivation involved in racial preservation. Yet we derived no pleasure
+out of the things that make the Builders wish to continue to live. We
+did not sleep; we did not eat, and we were not able to reproduce
+ourselves. (And, besides, this latter, as I have indicated, would have
+been pointless with us.)
+
+There was, however, one other pleasure of the Builders that intrigued
+us. It can best be described as a stimulation produced by drenching
+their insides with alcoholic compounds, and is a universal pastime
+among the males and many of the shes.
+
+One of us--R-47, I think it was (rest him)--tried it one day. He pried
+open the top of his helmet and pouted an entire bottle of the fluid
+down his mechanism.
+
+Poor R-47. He caught fire and blazed up in a glorious blue flame that
+we could not extinguish in time. He was beyond repair, and we were
+forced to scrap him.
+
+But his was not a sacrifice in vain. He had established an idea in our
+ennui-bursting minds. An idea which led to the discovery of Moon Glow.
+My discovery, I should say, for I was the first.
+
+Naturally, I cannot divulge my secret formula for Moon Glow. There are
+many kinds of Moon Glow these days, but there is still only one B-12
+Moon Glow.
+
+Suffice it to say that it is a high octane preparation, only a drop of
+which--but you know the effects of Moon Glow, of course.
+
+How the merest thimbleful, when judiciously poured into one's power
+pack, gives new life and the most deliriously happy freedom of
+movement imaginable. One possesses soaring spirits and super-strength.
+
+Old, rusted joints move freely once more, one's transistors glow
+brightly, and the currents of the body race about with the minutest
+resistance. Moon Glow is like being born again.
+
+The sale of it has been illegal for several years, for no reason that
+I can think of except that the Builders, who make the laws, can not
+bear to see metal people have fun.
+
+Of course, a part of the blame rests on such individuals as X-101,
+who, when lubricated with Moon Glow, insists upon dancing around on
+large, cast-iron feet to the hazard of all toes in his vicinity. He is
+thin and long jointed, and he goes "creak, creak," in a weird,
+sing-song fashion as he dances. It is a shameful, ludicrous sight.
+
+Then there was DC-5, who tore down the 300 feet long equipment hangar
+of the Builders one night. He had over-indulged.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I do not feel responsible for these things. If I had not sold them the
+Moon Glow, someone else would have done so. Besides, I am only a
+wholesaler. Benny buys everything that I am able to produce in my
+little laboratory hidden out in the Dumps.
+
+Just now, by Benny's attitude, I knew that something was very wrong.
+"What is the matter?" I said. "Is it the revenue agents?"
+
+"I do not know," said BNE-96 in that curious, flat voice of his that
+is incapable of inflection. "I do not know, but there are visitors of
+importance from Earth. It could mean anything, but I have a
+premonition of disaster. Jon tipped me off."
+
+He meant Jon Rogeson, of course, who was the peace officer here in
+Argon City, and the only one of the Builders I had ever met who did
+not look down upon a metal person. When sober he was a clever person
+who always looked out for our interests here.
+
+"What are they like?" I asked in some fear, for I had six vials of
+Moon Glow with me at the moment.
+
+"I have not seen them, but there is one who is high in the government,
+and his wife. There are half a dozen others of the Builder race, and
+one of the new type metal persons."
+
+I had met the she who must have been the wife. "They hate us," I said.
+"We can expect only evil from these persons."
+
+"You may be right. If you have any merchandise with you, I will take
+it, but do not risk bringing more here until they have gone."
+
+I produced the vials of Moon Glow, and he paid me in Phobos credits,
+which are good for a specified number of refuelings at the Central
+fueling station.
+
+Benny put the vials away and he went into the bar. There was the usual
+jostling crowd of hard-bitten Earth miners, and of the metal people
+who come to lose their loneliness. I recognized many, though I spend
+very little time in these places, preferring solitary pursuits, such
+as the distillation of Moon Glow, and improving my mind by study and
+contemplation out in the barrens.
+
+Jon Rogeson and I saw each other at the same time, and I did not like
+the expression in his eye as he crooked a finger at me. I went over to
+his table. He was pleasant looking, as Builders go, with blue eyes
+less dull than most, and a brown, unruly topknot of hair such as is
+universally affected by them.
+
+"Sit down," he invited, revealing his white incisors in greeting.
+
+I never sit, but this time I did so, to be polite. I was wary; ready
+for anything. I knew that there was something unpleasant in the air. I
+wondered if he had seen me passing the Moon Glow to Benny somehow.
+Perhaps he had barrier-penetrating vision, like the Z group of metal
+people ... but I had never heard of a Builder like that. I knew that
+he had long suspected that I made Moon Glow.
+
+"What do you want?" I asked cautiously.
+
+"Come on now," he said, "loosen up! Limber those stainless steel
+hinges of yours and be friendly."
+
+That made me feel good. Actually, I am somewhat pitted with rust, but
+he never seems to notice, for he is like that. I felt young, as if I
+had partaken of my own product.
+
+"The fact is, B-12," he said, "I want you to do me a favor, old pal."
+
+"And what is that?"
+
+"Perhaps you have heard that there is some big brass from Earth
+visiting Phobos this week."
+
+"I have heard nothing," I said. It is often helpful to appear ignorant
+when questioned by the Builders, for they believe us to be incapable
+of misrepresenting the truth. The fact is, though it is an acquired
+trait, and not built into us, we General Purposes can lie as well as
+anyone.
+
+"Well, there is. A Federation Senator, no less. Simon F. Langley. It's
+my job to keep them entertained; that's where you come in."
+
+I was mystified. I had never heard of this Langley, but I know what
+entertainment is. I had a mental image of myself singing or dancing
+before the Senator's party. But I can not sing very well, for three of
+my voice reeds are broken and have never been replaced, and lateral
+motion, for me, is almost impossible these days. "I do not know what
+you mean," I said. "There is J-66. He was once an Entertainment--"
+
+"No, no!" he interrupted, "you don't get it. What the Senator wants is
+a guide. They're making a survey of the Dumps, though I'll be damned
+if I can find out why. And you know the Dumps better than any metal
+person--or human--on Phobos."
+
+So that was it. I felt a vague dread, a premonition of disaster. I had
+such feelings before, and usually with reason. This too, was an
+acquired sensibility, I am sure. For many years I have studied the
+Builders, and there is much to be learned of their mobile faces and
+their eyes. In Jon's eyes, however, I read no trickery--nothing.
+
+Yet, I say, I had the sensation of evil. It was just for a moment; no
+longer.
+
+I said I would think it over.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Senator Langley was distinguished. Jon said so. And yet he was
+cumbersomely round, and he rattled incessantly of things into which I
+could interpret no meaning. The she who was his wife was much younger,
+and sullen, and unpleasantly I sensed great rapport between her and
+Jon Rogeson from the very first.
+
+There were several other humans in the group--I will not call them
+Builders, for I did not hold them to be, in any way, superior to my
+own people. They all wore spectacles, and they gravitated about the
+round body of the Senator like minor moons, and I could tell that they
+were some kind of servitors.
+
+I will not describe them further.
+
+MS-33 I will describe. I felt an unconscionable hatred for him at
+once. I can not say why, except that he hung about his master
+obsequiously, power pack smoothly purring, and he was slim limbed,
+nickel-plated, and wore, I thought, a smug expression on his
+viziplate. He represented the new order; the ones who had displaced us
+on Earth. He knew too much, and showed it at every opportunity.
+
+We did not go far that first morning. The half-track was driven to the
+edge of the Dumps. Within the Dumps one walks--or does not go. Phobos
+is an airless world, and yet so small that rockets are impractical.
+The terrain is broken and littered with the refuse of half a dozen
+worlds, but the Dumps themselves--that is different.
+
+Imagine, if you can, an endless vista of death, a sea of rusting
+corpses of space ships, and worn-out mining machinery, and of those of
+my race whose power packs burned out, or who simply gave up, retiring
+into this endless, corroding limbo of the barrens. A more sombre sight
+was never seen.
+
+But this fat ghoul, Langley, sickened me. This shame of the Builder
+race, this atavism--this beast--rubbed his fat, impractical hands
+together with an ungod-like glee. "Excellent," he said. "Far, far
+better, in fact, than I had hoped." He did not elucidate.
+
+I looked at Jon Rogeson. He shook his head slowly.
+
+"You there--robot!" said Langley, looking at me. "How far across this
+place?" The word was like a blow. I could not answer.
+
+MS-33, glistening in the dying light of Mars, strode over to me,
+clanking heavily up on the black rocks. He seized me with his grapples
+and shook me until my wiring was in danger of shorting out. "Speak up
+when you are spoken to, archaic mechanism!" he grated.
+
+I would have struck out at him, but what use except to warp my own
+aging limbs.
+
+Jon Rogeson came to my rescue. "On Phobos," he explained to Langley,
+"we don't use that word 'robot.' These folk have been free a long
+time. They've quite a culture of their own nowadays, and they like to
+be called 'metal people.' As a return courtesy, they refer to us
+humans as 'builders.' Just a custom, Senator, but if you want to get
+along with them--"
+
+"Can they vote?" said Langley, grinning at his own sour humor.
+
+"Nonsense," said MS-33. "I am a robot, and proud of it. This rusty
+piece has no call to put on airs."
+
+"Release him," Langley said. "Droll fellows, these discarded robots.
+Really nothing but mechanical dolls, you know, but I think the old
+scientists made a mistake, giving them such human appearance, and such
+obstinate traits."
+
+Oh, it was true enough, from his point of view. We had been mechanical
+dolls at first, I suppose, but fifty years can change one. All I know
+is this: we are people; we think and feel, and are happy and sad, and
+quite often we are bored stiff with this dreary moon of Phobos.
+
+It seared me. My selenium cells throbbed white hot within the shell of
+my frame, and I made up my mind that I would learn more about the
+mission of this Langley, and I would get even with MS-33 even if they
+had me dismantled for it.
+
+Of the rest of that week I recall few pleasant moments. We went out
+every day, and the quick-eyed servants of Langley measured the areas
+with their instruments, and exchanged significant looks from behind
+their spectacles, smug in their thin air helmets. It was all very
+mysterious. And disturbing.
+
+But I could discover nothing about their mission. And when I
+questioned MS-33, he would look important and say nothing. Somehow it
+seemed vital that I find out what was going on before it was too late.
+
+On the third day there was a strange occurrence. My friend, Jon
+Rogeson had been taking pictures of the Dumps. Langley and his wife
+had withdrawn to one side and were talking in low tomes to one
+another. Quite thoughtlessly Jon turned the lens on them and clicked
+the shutter.
+
+Langley became rust-red throughout the vast expanse of his neck and
+face. "Here!" he said, "what are you doing?"
+
+"Nothing," said Jon.
+
+"You took a picture of me," snarled Langley. "Give me the plate at
+once."
+
+Jon Rogeson got a bit red himself. He was not used to being ordered
+around. "I'll be damned if I will," he said.
+
+Langley growled something I couldn't understand, and turned his back
+on us. The she who was called his wife looked startled and worried.
+Her eyes were beseeching as she looked at Jon. A message there, but I
+could not read it. Jon looked away.
+
+Langley started walking back to the half-track alone. He turned once
+and there was evil in his gaze as he looked at Jon. "You will lose
+your job for this impertinence," he said with quiet savagery, and
+added, enigmatically, "not that there will be a job after this week
+anyway."
+
+Builders may appear to act without reason, but there is always a
+motivation somewhere in their complex brains, if one can only find it,
+either in the seat of reason, or in the labyrinthine inhibitions from
+their childhood. I knew this, because I had studied them, and now
+there were certain notions that came into my brain which, even if I
+could not prove them, were no less interesting for that.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The time had come to act. I could scarcely wait for darkness to come.
+There were things in my brain that appalled me, but I was now certain
+that I had been right. Something was about to happen to Phobos, to all
+of us here--I knew not what, but I must prevent it somehow.
+
+I kept in the shadows of the shabby buildings of Argon City, and I
+found the window without effort. The place where I had spied upon the
+wife of Langley to my sorrow the other night. There was no one there;
+there was darkness within, but that did not deter me.
+
+Within the airdrome which covers Argon City the buildings are loosely
+constructed, even as they are on Earth. I had no trouble, therefore,
+opening the window. I swung a leg up and was presently within the
+darkened room. I found the door I sought and entered cautiously. In
+this adjacent compartment I made a thorough search but I did not find
+what I primarily sought--namely the elusive reason for Langley's visit
+to Phobos. It was in a metallic overnight bag that I did find
+something else which made my power pack hum so loudly that I was
+afraid of being heard. The thing which explained the strangeness of
+the pompous Senator's attitude today--which explained, in short, many
+things, and caused my brain to race with new ideas.
+
+I put the thing in my chest container, and left as stealthily as I had
+come. There had been progress, but since I had not found what I hoped
+to find, I must now try my alternate plan.
+
+Two hours later I found the one I sought, and made sure that I was
+seen by him. Then I left Argon City by the South lock, furtively, as a
+thief, always glancing over my shoulder, and when I made certain that
+I was being followed, I went swiftly, and it was not long before I was
+clambering over the first heaps of debris at the edge of the Dumps.
+
+Once I thought I heard footsteps behind me, but when I looked back
+there was no one in sight. Just the tiny disk of Deimos peering over
+the sharp peak of the nearest ridge, the black velvet sky outlining
+the curvature of this airless moon.
+
+Presently I was in sight of home, the time-eaten hull of an ancient
+star freighter resting near the top of a heap of junked equipment from
+some old strip mining operation. It would never rise again, but its
+shell remained strong enough to shelter my distillery and scant
+furnishings from any chance meteorite that might fall.
+
+I greeted it with the usual warmth of feeling which one has for the
+safe and the familiar. I stumbled over tin fuel cans, wires and other
+tangled metal in my haste to get there.
+
+It was just as I had left it. The heating element under the network of
+coils and pressure chambers still glowed with white heat, and the Moon
+Glow was dripping with musical sound into the retort.
+
+I felt good. No one ever bothered me here. This was my fortress, with
+all that I cared for inside. My tools, my work, my micro-library. And
+yet I had deliberately--
+
+Something--a heavy foot--clanked upon the first step of the manport
+through which I had entered.
+
+I turned quickly. The form shimmered in the pale Deimoslight that
+silhouetted it.
+
+MS-33.
+
+He had followed me here.
+
+"What do you want?" I said. "What are you doing here?"
+
+"A simple question," said MS-33. "Tonight you looked very suspicious
+when you left Argon City. I saw you and followed you here. You may as
+well know that I have never trusted you. All the old ones were
+unreliable. That is why you were replaced."
+
+He came in, boldly, without being invited, and looked around. I
+detected a sneer in his voice as he said, "So this is where you hide."
+
+"I do not hide. I live here, it is true."
+
+"A robot does not live. A robot exists. We newer models do not require
+shelter like an animal. We are rust-proof and invulnerable." He strode
+over to my micro-library, several racks of carefully arranged spools,
+and fingered them irreverently. "What is this?"
+
+"My library."
+
+"So! _Our_ memories are built into us. We have no need to refresh
+them."
+
+"So is mine," I said. "But I would learn more than I know." I was
+stalling for time, waiting until he made the right opening.
+
+"Nonsense," he said. "I know why you stay out here in the Dumps,
+masterless. I have heard of the forbidden drug that is sold in the
+mining camps such as Argon City. Is this the mechanism?" He pointed at
+the still.
+
+Now was the time. I mustered all my cunning, but I could not speak.
+Not yet.
+
+"Never mind," he said. "I can see that it is. I shall report you, of
+course. It will give me great pleasure to see you dismantled. Not that
+it really matters, of course--now."
+
+_There it was again. The same frightening allusion that Langley had
+made today._ I must succeed!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I knew that MS-33, for all his brilliance, and newness, and vaunted
+superiority, was only a Secretarial. For the age of specialism was
+upon Earth, and General Purpose models were no longer made. That was
+why we were different here on Phobos. It was why we had survived. The
+old ones had given us something special which the new metal people did
+not have. Moreover, MS-33 had his weakness. He was larger, stronger,
+faster than me, but I doubted that he could be devious.
+
+"You are right," I said, pretending resignation. "This is my
+distillery. It is where I make the fluid which is called Moon Glow by
+the metal people of Phobos. Doubtless you are interested in learning
+how it works."
+
+"Not even remotely interested," he said. "I am interested only in
+taking you back and turning you over to the authorities."
+
+"It works much like the conventional distilling plants of Earth," I
+said, "except that the basic ingredient, a silicon compound, is
+irradiated as it passes through zirconium tubes to the heating pile,
+where it is activated and broken down into the droplets of the elixir
+called Moon Glow. You see the golden drops falling there.
+
+"It has the excellent flavor of fine petroleum, as I make it. Perhaps
+you'd care to taste it. Then you could understand that it is not
+really bad at all. Perhaps you could persuade yourself to be more
+lenient with me."
+
+"Certainly not," said MS-33.
+
+"Perhaps you are right," I said after a moment of reflection. I took a
+syringe, drew up several drops of the stuff and squirted it into my
+carapace, where it would do the most good. I felt much better.
+
+"Yes," I continued, "certainly you are quite correct, now that I think
+of it. You newer models would never bear it. You weren't built to
+stand such things. Nor, for that matter, could you comprehend the
+exquisite joys that are derived from Moon Glow. Not only would you
+derive no pleasure from it, but it would corrode your parts, I
+imagine, until you could scarcely crawl back to your master for
+repairs." I helped myself to another liberal portion.
+
+"That is the silliest thing I've ever heard," he said.
+
+"What?"
+
+"I said, it's silly. We are constructed to withstand a hundred times
+greater stress, and twice as many chemical actions as you were.
+Nothing could hurt us. Besides, it looks harmless enough. I doubt that
+it is hardly anything at all."
+
+"For me it is not," I admitted. "But you--"
+
+"Give me the syringe, fool!"
+
+"I dare not."
+
+"Give it here!"
+
+I allowed him to wrest it from my grasp. In any case I could not have
+prevented him. He shoved me backwards against the rusty bulkhead with
+a clang. He pushed the nozzle of the syringe down into the retort and
+withdrew it filled with Moon Glow. He opened an inspection plate in
+his ventral region and squirted himself generously.
+
+It was quite a dose. He waited for a moment. "I feel nothing," he said
+finally. "I do not believe it is anything more than common lubricating
+oil." He was silent for another moment. "There _is_ an ease of
+movement," he said.
+
+"No paralysis?" I asked.
+
+"Paral--? You stupid, rusty old robot!" He helped himself to another
+syringeful of Moon Glow. The stuff brought twenty credits an ounce,
+but I did not begrudge it him.
+
+He flexed his superbly articulated joints in three directions, and I
+could hear his power unit building up within him to a whining pitch.
+He took a shuffling sidestep, and then another, gazing down at his
+feet, with arms akimbo.
+
+"The light gravity here is superb, superb, superb, superb, superb," he
+said, skipping a bit.
+
+"Isn't it?" I said.
+
+"Almost negligible," he said.
+
+"True."
+
+"You have been very kind to me," MS-33 said. "Extremely,
+extraordinarily, incomparably, incalculably kind." He used up all the
+adjectives in his memory pack. "I wonder if you would mind awfully
+much if--"
+
+"Not at all," I said. "Help yourself. By the way, friend, would you
+mind telling me what your real mission of your party is here on
+Phobos. The Senator forgot to say."
+
+"Secret," he said. "Horribly top secret. As a dutiful subject--I mean
+servant--of Earth, I could not, of course, divulge it to anyone. If I
+could--" his neon eyes glistened, "if I could, you would, of course,
+be the first to know. The very first." He threw one nickel-plated arm
+about my shoulder.
+
+"I see," I said, "and just what is it that you are not allowed to tell
+me?"
+
+"Why, that we are making a preliminary survey here on Phobos, of
+course, to determine whether or not it is worthwhile to send salvage
+for scrap. Earth is short of metals, and it depends upon what the old
+ma--the master says in his report."
+
+"You mean they'll take all the derelict spaceships, such as this one,
+and all the abandoned equipment?"
+
+"And the r-robots," MS-33 said, "They're metal too, you know."
+
+"They're going to take the dismantled robots?"
+
+MS-33 made a sweeping gesture. "They're going to take _all_ the
+r-robots, dismantled or not. They're not good for anything anyway. The
+bill is up before the Federation Congress right now. And it will pass
+if my master, Langley says so." He patted my helmet, consolingly, his
+grapples clanking. "If you were worth a damn, you know--" he concluded
+sorrowfully.
+
+"That's murder," I said. And I meant it. Man's inhumanity to metal
+people, I thought. Yes--to man, even if we were made of metal.
+
+"How's that?" said MS-33 foggily.
+
+"Have another drop of Moon Glow," I said. "I've got to get back to
+Argon City."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I made it back to Benny's place without incident. I had never moved so
+swiftly. I sent Benny out to find Jon Rogeson, and presently he
+brought him back.
+
+I told Rogeson what MS-33 had said, watching his reaction carefully. I
+could not forget that though he had been our friend, he was still one
+of the Builders, a human who thought as humans.
+
+"You comprehend," I said grimly, "that one word of this will bring an
+uprising of fifty-thousand metal people which can be put down only at
+much expense and with great destruction. We are free people. The
+Builders exiled us here, and therefore lost their claim to us. We have
+as much right to life as anyone, and we do not wish to be melted up
+and made into printing presses and space ships and the like."
+
+"The damn fools," Jon said softly. "Listen, B-12, you've got to
+believe me. I didn't know a thing about this, though I've suspected
+something was up. I'm on your side, but what are we going to do? Maybe
+they'll listen to reason. Vera--"
+
+"That is the name of the she? No, they will not listen to reason. They
+hate us." I recalled with bitterness the episode of alarm clock.
+"There is a chance, however. I have not been idle this night. If you
+will go get Langley and meet me in the back room here at Benny's, we
+will talk."
+
+"But he'll be asleep."
+
+"Awaken him," I said. "Get him here. Your own job is at stake as well,
+remember."
+
+"I'll get him," Jon said grimly. "Wait here."
+
+I went over to the bar where Benny was serving the miners. Benny had
+always been my friend. Jon was my friend, too, but he was a Builder. I
+wanted one of my own people to know what was going on, just in case
+something happened to me.
+
+We were talking there, in low tones, when I saw MS-33. He came in
+through the front door, and there was purposefulness in his stride
+that had not been there when I left him back at the old hulk. The
+effects of the Moon Glow had worn off much quicker than I had
+expected. He had come for vengeance. He would tell about my
+distillery, and that would be the end of me. There was only one thing
+to do and I must do it fast.
+
+"Quick," I ordered Benny. "Douse the lights." He complied. The place
+was plunged into darkness. I knew that it was darkness and yet, you
+comprehend, I still sensed everything in the place, for I had the
+special visual sensory system bequeathed only to the General Purposes
+of a bygone age. I could see, but hardly anyone else could. I worked
+swiftly, and I got what I was after in a very short time. I ducked out
+of the front door with it and threw it in a silvery arc as far as I
+could hurl it. It was an intricate little thing which could not, I am
+sure, have been duplicated on the entire moon of Phobos.
+
+When I returned, someone had put the lights back on, but it didn't
+matter now. MS-33 was sitting at one of the tables, staring fixedly at
+me. He said nothing. Benny was motioning for me to come into the back
+room. I went to him.
+
+Jon Rogeson and Langley were there. Langley looked irritated. He was
+mumbling strangled curses and rubbing his eyes.
+
+Rogeson laughed. "You may be interested in knowing, B-12, that I had
+to arrest him to get him here. This had better be good."
+
+"It is all bad," I said, "very bad--but necessary." I turned to
+Langley. "It is said that your present survey is being made with the
+purpose of condemning all of Phobos, the dead and the living alike, to
+the blast furnaces and the metal shops of Earth. Is this true?"
+
+"Why you impudent, miserable piece of tin! What if I am making a scrap
+survey? What are you going to do about it. You're nothing but a ro--"
+
+"So it is true! But you will tell the salvage ships not to come. It is
+yours to decide, and you will decide that we are not worth bothering
+with here on Phobos. You will save us."
+
+"I?" blustered Langley.
+
+"You will." I took the thing out of my breastplate container and
+showed it to him. He grew pale.
+
+Jon said, "Well, I'll be damned!"
+
+It was a picture of Langley and another. I gave it to Jon. "His wife,"
+I said. "His real wife. I am sure of it, for you will note the
+inscription on the bottom."
+
+"Then Vera--?"
+
+"Is not his wife. You wonder that he was camera shy?"
+
+"Housebreaker!" roared Langley. "It's a plot; a dirty, reactionary
+plot!"
+
+"It is what is called blackmail," I said. I turned to Jon. "I am
+correct about this?"
+
+"You are." Jon said.
+
+"You are instructed to leave Phobos," I said to Langley, "and you will
+allow my friend here to keep his job as peace officer, for without it
+he would be lost. I have observed that in these things the Builders
+are hardly more adaptable than their children, the metal people. You
+will do all this, and in return, we will not send the picture that Jon
+took today to your wife, nor otherwise inform her of your
+transgression. For I am told that this is a transgression."
+
+"It is indeed," agreed Jon gravely. "Right, Langley?"
+
+"All right," Langley snarled. "You win. And the sooner I get out of
+this hole the better." He got up to go, squeezing his fat form through
+the door into the bar, past the gaping miners and the metal people,
+heedless of the metal people. We watched him go with some
+satisfaction.
+
+"It is no business of mine," I said to Jon, "but I have seen you look
+with longing upon the she that was not Langley's wife. Since she does
+not belong to him, there is nothing to prevent you from having her.
+Should not that make you happy?"
+
+"Are you kidding?" he snarled.
+
+Which proves that I have still much to learn about his race.
+
+Out front, Langley spied his metal servant, MS-33, just as he was
+going out the door. He turned to him. "What are you doing here?" he
+asked suspiciously.
+
+MS-33 made no answer. He stared malevolently at the bar, ignoring
+Langley.
+
+"Come on here, damn you!" Langley said. MS-33 said nothing. Langley
+went over to him and roared foul things into his earphones that would
+corrode one's soul, if one had one. I shall never forget that moment.
+The screaming, red-faced Langley, the laughing miners.
+
+But he got no reply from MS-33. Not then or ever. And this was
+scarcely strange, for I had removed his fuse.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of B-12's Moon Glow, by Charles A. Stearns
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