I have described Larry's hand-to-hand encounter with the cripple; mine was much the same; I was a child in his grip. But with his weapon useless, and Larry rushing into the room, Tugh must have felt that for all his strength and fighting skill he would be worsted in this encounter. He blocked a jab of my fist, flung me headlong away and sprang to his feet just as Larry leaped at him. I stood erect, to see that he had sent Larry crashing to the floor. I heard his sardonic laugh as he hurled a metal stool at Tina, who was trying to throw something at him. Then, turning, he sprang through the open window casement and disappeared. * * * * * It was twenty feet down to the roof. We reached the window to see Tugh picking himself up unhurt. Then, with his awkward gait but at amazing speed, he ran across the roof to a small entrance in the face of the dam where an interior staircase gave access to the roadway on top. He was escaping us. The electrical gate was open to him. It was only a few hundred feet along the dam roadway to that gate; and beyond it the roadway was open into the city, where now we could see the distant flashing lights of the Robots advancing along the dam. Larry and I would have rushed to the roof to follow Tugh, but Tina checked us. She said: "No--he has too great a start. He's on top by now, and it's only a short distance to the gate. There's a better way here: I can electrify the gate again--trap him inside."[5] [Footnote 5: There was a similar gate and wall-barrier at the Jersey entrance to the dam, and both gates operated together. The nearby Jersey section was, is still, an agricultural district save for a few landing stages for the great airliners. The robots had spread into Jersey; but since few humans were there, with only Robot agriculturists working the section, the unimportant Jersey events have not figured in my narrative.] Tina found the gate controls. But they would not operate! Those precious lost seconds, with Tugh running along the top of the dam and his Robots advancing to join him! "Tina, hurry!" I cried. Larry and I bent anxiously over her, but the levers meant nothing to us. There were lost seconds while she desperately fumbled, and Larry pleaded: "Tina, dear, what's the matter?" "He must have ripped out a wire to make sure of getting away. I--I must find it. Everything seems all right." A minute gone. Surely Tugh would have reached the gate by now. Or, worse, the Robots would have come through, and would assail us here. "Tina!" pleaded Larry, "don't get excited. Take it calmly: you can find the trouble." * * * * *