"Tundra?" A faint spark of alertness lightened Harper's dull rage. "You mean you work out here on the tundra?" "That's right. How'd you think I got in such a helluva shape? I'm superintendent of one of the fungus plants. I'm Jake Ellis of Hagerty's Enzymes. There's good money in it, but man, what a job! No air worth mentionin'. Temperature always freezin' or below. Pressure suits. Huts. Factory. Processed food. Nothin' else. Just nothin'. That's where they could use some robots. It sure ain't no job for a real live man. And in fact, there ain't many men left there. If old man Hagerty only knew it, he's about out of business." Harper sat up as if he'd been needled. He opened his mouth to speak. But just then the door opened briskly and two robots entered. With a horrified stare, Harper clutched his maltreated stomach. He saw a third robot enter, wheeling a chair. "A wheel chair!" squeaked the victim. "I tell you, there's nothing wrong with me! Take it away! I'm only here for a rest-cure! Believe me! Take it away!" The robots ignored him. For the first time in his spectacular and ruthless career Harper was up against creatures that he could neither bribe, persuade nor browbeat, inveigle nor ignore. It shattered his ebbing self-confidence. He began waving his hands helplessly. The robots not only ignored Harper. They paid no attention at all to Jake Ellis, who was plucking at their metallic arms pleading, "Take me, boys. I need the treatment bad, whatever it is. I need all the treatment I can get. Take me! I'm just a wreck, fellers--" Stolidly they picked Harper up, plunked him into the chair, strapped him down and marched out with him. Dejectedly Ellis returned to his own room. Again he lifted the receiver of the room phone; but as usual a robot voice answered sweetly, mechanically, and meaninglessly. He hung up and went miserably to bed. * * * * * There was something nagging at Harper's mind. Something he should do. Something that concerned robots. But he was too exhausted to think it out. For five days now his pet robots had put him through an ordeal that made him flinch every time he thought about it. Which wasn't often, since he was almost past thinking. They plunked him into stinking mud-baths and held him there until he was well-done to the bone, he was sure. They soaked him in foul, steaming irradiated waters until he gagged. They brought him weird concoctions to eat and drink and then stood over him until he consumed them. They purged and massaged and exercised him. Whenever they let him alone, he simply collapsed into bed and slept. There was nothing else to do anyway. They'd taken his clothes; and the phone, after an announcement that he would have no more service for two weeks, gave him nothing but a busy signal.