"Don't touch it," Carstairs said. "It's probably a button Headless here
is supposed to thumb every so often to show he's on guard. Whoever
broke in ahead of us knows their business. Once more, clown, who were
they?"
"Yeah, talk," Buck said, coming up beside Carstairs. "I figure you're
responsible for my Otie gettin' killed."
"Indeed, do," Llewellyn said, at the same moment letting go of the stub
arm which contracted toward the wall until it was like a wrinkled scar,
while at the same time, as though internal injuries were now showing
up in the thing, a broken clockworks version of Moe Brimstine's voice
wheezed, "That's right, Mack. Go away and stay away."
In the moment while that eerie and ominous admonition held everyone
else stock-still, Phil walked with drugged aplomb past Llewellyn and
through the arch.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I imagine you would like to inspect the treasure
house."
He faced a room that was not extremely high ceilinged, but so wide
and long that the only clearly visible wall was the one against which
they were standing. The room was not brightly lit, yet it seemed so
because of the brightness of the two sorts of ranked objects on which
the light fell. To the left were row on endless row of sales-robots,
shiny high turtle shapes with a smaller dome set on the main one, the
same efficient metal hucksters that daily and eveningly roamed the
streets, guiding themselves and spotting customers by hypersonic radar
and visual scanner. Only now their fascinating windows for displaying
samples were closed, their money collecting and commodity bestowing
arms were neatly folded, the restless wheels under their metal skirts
were still, and their dulcet voices rich with a restrained sex appeal
suitable to robots (male voices for females, female for males,
sprightly and wise-cracking for children) were likewise silent.
To the right, marshaled with equal precision, were a host of
dress-display robots, arrayed in everything from high collared
sable evening cloaks to bathing jewelry. Their hair gleamed with
a hundred tints, their suede-rubber skins glowed with a creamy
seductiveness, they held themselves with the poise of princesses, but
like the sales-robots they were still. No slinky parading, no cute
individualized gestures, no mysterious or haughty smiles, no soft lips
opening to recite the qualities and prices of the garments they were
modeling. They all stared straight ahead like Egyptian mummies not yet
wrapped and indeed one, appropriately crowned and clad in a filmy
sheath, was a precise copy of Nefertiti.
It occurred to Phil that the ranked sales-robots and dress-display
robots really were a military display, that he was looking at the armed
might--the money army and the glamor army--of Fun Incorporated.