"Just to look over all the new improvements here."
"We're at your service, sir."
"I don't want any service!"
"But you must be escorted, sir.
Because our service exists to guard every man from every possible injury, at every instant."
Forester sidled away, speechless. The lingering bitter scent of the new walls caught his throat, so that he could scarcely breathe.
"You appear uneasy, sir," purred the attentive machine. "Do you feel unwell?"
"No!" He tried to swallow the sickness of his terror and control the frantic impulse to open flight or open battle, and he halted his slow retreat.
"A little tired, perhaps.
I only need to rest.
I suppose there's a room for me?"
"This way, sir."
He followed the machine into the east wing of the long villa.
Some unseen relay opened another sliding panel, to let them into an immense chamber where shining murals showed sun- browned figures of lean young men and long-limbed girls dancing on landscapes of flowers.
"Those are scenes of a village spring festival, in the barbaric age when the descendants of the first colonists here had almost forgotten their civilization," the humanoid explained.
"Your wife helped us plan the building, before she was given euphoride, and she selected the paintings for us to copy."
"Very nice," he stammered.
The mention of Ruth filled his eyes with tears of angry pain, and then he was shaken with a fear that the humanoids would perceive his dangerous emotions.
Sinking wearily into an enormous easy chair, trying to seem at ease, he took a cigar out of the engraved pocket case Ruth had given him on his last birthday, and snapped the built-in lighter.
"Where's all the staff?" he asked, as calmly as possible. "I'd like to talk - huh!"
Astonishment took his voice, for the humanoid had snatched the cigar from his lips. It took the case, put out the flame, and gave cigar and case to another mechanical which must have come just to carry them away.
He started up angrily.
"Sir, we cannot, allow you to smoke." The machine's voice was honey-sweet.
"Fire is too dangerous in your hands, and the excessive use of tobacco has become injurious to your health."
He subsided helplessly, trying to swallow his fury.
One cigar, he told himself, wasn't worth the risk of oblivion.
But this was more than one cigar.
When these meddling machines undertook to govern every such trivial detail of his life, that was more terrible than trivial.
"Maybe I have been smoking too much," he admitted uneasily.
"But I was asking about my old associates here. Where are they now?"
"The other astronomers and their families all left Starmont when we closed the observatory.
We have built new dwellings for them, wherever they chose to live.
One of them is composing a symphony, and one is painting water colors and the rest have already been given euphoride."
"And the civilian technicians?" Fear dried his throat. "The six young men who worked with me on Project Lookout? What has become of them?"
The bright steel eyes watched him blankly.
"Those six men all appeared unhappy about leaving the project," the machine murmured blandly.
"Therefore it was necessary for all of them to be given euphoride.
Now they have forgotten the project, and they're quite happy."
"I see." Forester nodded stiffly.
"So all the staff is gone."
"All except one man, sir."
"Eh?" He sat up straight.
"Who is that?"
"One Mr. Frank Ironsmith, sir.
He says he is quite happy in his old quarters here, and there was no reason for him to leave."
"Young Ironsmith, eh?" Forester tried to conceal his puzzlement with a manufactured grin.
"A good friend of mine.
A charming fellow!"
He peered uneasly at the tiny black machine. "I'd like to see him, right away."
"If you wish, sir."