"Gil, I'm scared. It could even be listening to us now! It's down there in the foyer, and I heard Miss Babs say once that when it's on guard-command it can hear better than any dog." The voices softened a little. Toory's eye-beams swung idly around the foyer as he listened to the human voices, and the baying dog down the hill and the creaking weathercock. It was very simple being on guard-command. There was no danger here. Miss Babs was safe. He could remember how the Instructor had given him the permanent-order to guard Miss Babs. The human voices went on droning. "So it's listenin' to us now? So what? A machine can't say, or do anything on its own. You have to give it an order. And I tell you I got everything figured out. Nobody's going to question a machine to find out what's on its memory-tapes. I'm not that much of a fool." "Gil! What you going to do?" "Smash it, that's what. I'm going to take it out tomorrow night and smash it to smithereens." "Gil! You're crazy. You wouldn't dare go near it. It's got the strength of fifty men--" "That's how much you know. I'll take it outdoors, in the night. You know that little catwalk swing-bridge over the gorge? It's only about a mile from here. Well, it's been condemned. A sign on it says you don't dare cross it now, it ain't safe, and might collapse." "I know. I saw the sign. But Gil--" "So I take that blarsted machine out there and I order it to walk across the bridge. A machine that weighs a couple of tons will crash, won't it? Two hundred feet down to the rocks! Smash, Mary--the memory-tape of what it saw and heard gone forever. See what I mean? Simple, eh?" "But Gil, how can you take it out for a walk? It won't take orders from you. It won't, will it?" "No, maybe it wouldn't, right now. But I'll fix that tomorrow afternoon. And tomorrow night I'll take it out. What difference what anybody suspects if they can't prove anything? A piece of damn machinery goes wrong, wanders out in the middle of the night and gets itself smashed, ruined. Who can prove different?" "But Gil--suppose it turned on you? Suppose, while you're orderin' it out--" "Don't you see I have no choice? If that thing blabbed it saw me take the diamond-string I'd be done for. A machine can't lie, Mary. It's got a memory-record nobody could get away from. Go to sleep now. Let me do the worrying." The human voices went silent. The big foyer clock was sonorously chiming. Toory could remember that Erg's reception room at the factory had a chiming clock too. Now as the hours passed, and the new day began, Toory stood in his hall niche with his eye-beams fixed on their usual resting place across the foyer. Soon it would be time to shift automatically from guard-command to wait-command. It was nice to know that he never made any mistakes. Most of all, that was what he prided himself on.