"No, January!" It was Paula's voice. My head jerked upright. She was standing in the doorway, the living image of anger. The doctor had turned toward her, irritation showing on his face. "Dad," she said, her eyes flashing blue fire at him, "if you don't stop I'll get the police." Alarm coursed through me. She was endangering my plan. I dropped my head back in the cradle of my arms to hide my expression. "Paula!" the doctor was saying in exasperation. "Leave us--" "I was afraid," I cut in, making my voice sound utterly listless and defeated, "of what I knew I would do unless I stopped my experiments and destroyed them. "I had transferred the mind of a dog into a robot duplicate of its own body. The dog was a pet. It didn't know it was no longer in its own body, the body that had died when the mind pattern in the brain was lifted out and transplanted into the colloidal dielectric brain. It didn't know what had happened, so although it was often puzzled by things, it didn't mind. "But I knew what the next step would be!" I lifted my head and stared at the doctor, avoiding Paula's eyes. They were standing there, holding their breath, waiting for my next words. I let my head drop into concealment in my arms again. "The next step would be a robot body for myself," I said mechanically, tonelessly. "I would build it and enter it. And I would never be able to re-enter my normal body, because it would die in the transfer. I would be immortal--but at an awful price. The price of normal life, loving, being loved, and someday getting married and having children--and a mother for those children. "And yet I knew that I would build that robot body and transfer my mind to it--if I kept on. So I destroyed my work, my reputation, my ability to earn the kind of money it would take to do what I didn't have the will not to do, if I could." I looked up cautiously, my face lax, my eyes half veiled, to see how they were taking what I was saying. Paula's face was a mask of pity and sympathy. Her father's was one of fixed attention and belief. I dropped my head again and muffled my voice. "Pepper--my dog--not comprehending what was wrong with him, grew more and more bewildered. He got run over a month later. It couldn't kill him, but it wrecked his robot frame. I smashed his colloid brain and buried him to put his immortal mind out of its bewildering confused--existence." "But--" It was Dr. Moriss' voice, full of growing, pleased conviction. "Then there was nothing you discovered other than what I've already discovered and tried?" "No," I lied. And he believed me. * * * * *