A grunted oath brought Jay around on his heels. The larger of the two huge robots had Onin's skinny arm twisted up behind his back. "Start degraving," his deep voice was rumbling angrily. "How'd I get here and who are you? You keeping me doped?" Jay stepped across the heap of leaves to the giant animat's side. His heavy club of metal was poised ready. "Slip him free," he ordered sharply. "Blast me if I will," grunted the animat, giving the bony arm a sickening wrench. Onin Tufor screeched thinly. Jay swung the club along the blunt-featured animat's skull. The animat bellowed like a wild bull. He released Onin and clawed with dirt-caked fingers at his battered skull. Then he sprang at Jay. Jay Forsix backed away and slipped to one knee. The blow he had just delivered had dented the big brute's helmet along its base but had failed to down him. He caught the thick body across his hips and flipped the animat's six feet into the side of the cabin. The giant, Zee Fivotu, rumbled his primitive rage and rebounded from the wall to launch himself again at Jay. Jay swung his club across the brutal forehead and again above the ear. Zee Fivotu's helmet crunched in. Jay fell backward to escape as much of the blast as possible. But there was no explosion. The helmet with its carefully guarded control case had somehow been rendered harmless by his blows! He rolled over and to his feet--to see Zee Fivotu's back disappearing out the cabin door. He lunged after the animat but the giant android was out the lock before he could reach it. * * * * * He was conscious of another presence in the outer airlock as his shoulder brushed something yielding. "What?" demanded Thela Draper angrily. "Zee went blot," gasped Jay. "Tried to kill Onin. And me." The girl's small expoder snapped out of her wrist holster into her hand and she sent a stream of mosquito-sized explosive bullets after the animat. A second later the all-pervading sea of fog had swallowed the apelike shape and she released the button. She jammed the weapon against Jay's middle. "I knew we should have killed all of you animats," she said coldly. "Without controls you are unpredictable--less than beasts." Jay's muscles tensed for the miniature bomb blasts that the pellets' impact would bring. Then he relaxed, laughing quietly. "You know," he said, "you should be at least four feet away before you fire. And before you can get that far I'll have the gun." The muzzle dropped away. Thela started to inch backward. It was common knowledge that a biaton needle's explosion nearby was dangerous. The whole magazine _might_ explode in her hand--a blast as devastating as a case of ancient dynamite. Jay's hand chopped across the girl's wrist. Her cry of dismay choked off abruptly and her eyes sparked contempt. "Go ahead," she cried. "Kill me. That's all you animats know how to do. Work, eat and destroy."