THE COSMIC COMPUTER

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the roof, one clockwise and the other counterclockwise, dodging
obstructions and getting politely out of each other's way. At lower
altitude, a dozen assorted worker-robots were moving about, and more
were emerging from cells at the end of the building. Sweepers, with
rotary brooms and rakes, crablike all-purpose handling robots, a couple
of vacuum-cleaning robots, each with a flexible funnel-tipped proboscis
and a bulging dust-sack. One tiling, a sort of special job designed to
get into otherwise inaccessible places, had a twenty-foot, many-jointed,
claw-tipped arm in front. It passed by and slightly over the tower, saw
Clyde Nichols, and swooped toward him. With a howl, Nichols dived under
one of the large[Pg 121] machines between two production lines. A pistol
went off a couple of times. That would be Jerry Rivas. Nobody else
bothered with a gun on Koshchei, but he carried one as some people carry
umbrellas, whether he expected to need it or not and because he would
feel lost without it.

That he took in at one glance. Then he was looking at the control