LITMIR.BIZ

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had been, but it must have been very close. She knew that Dr. Mansard had invented the surgiscope.

      This was an instrument with a three-dimensional screen as its heart. The screen was a cubical frame in which an apparently solid image was built up of an object under an electron microscope.

      * * * * *

      The actual cutting instrument of the surgiscope was an ion stream. By operating a tool in the three-dimensional screen, corresponding movements were made by the ion stream on the object under the microscope. The principle was the same as that used in operation of remote control "hands" in atomic laboratories to handle hot material, and with the surgiscope very delicate operations could be performed at the cellular level.

      Dr. Mansard and his wife had disappeared into the turbulent atmosphere of Jupiter just after his invention of the surgiscope, and it had been developed by Dom Blessing. Its success had built Spaceway Instruments, Incorporated, which Blessing headed.

      Through all these years since Dr. Mansard's disappearance, Blessing had been searching the Jovian moons for a second, hidden laboratory of Dr. Mansard. When it was found at last, he sent Trella, his most trusted secretary, to Ganymede to bring back to him the notebooks found there.

      Blessing would, of course, be happy to learn that a son of Dr. Mansard lived, and would see that he received his rightful share of the inheritance. Because of this, Trella was tempted to tell Quest the good news herself; but she decided against it. It was Blessing's privilege to do this his own way, and he might not appreciate her meddling.

      * * * * *

      At midtrip, Trella made a rueful confession to Jakdane.

      "It seems I was taking unnecessary precautions when I asked you to be a chaperon," she said. "I kept waiting for Quest to do something, and when he didn't I told him I loved him."

      "What did he say?"

      "It's very peculiar," she said unhappily. "He said he _can't_ love me. He said he wants to love me and he feels that he should, but there's something in him that refuses to permit it."

      She expected Jakdane to salve her wounded feelings with a sympathetic pleasantry, but he did not. Instead, he just looked at her very thoughtfully and said no more about the matter.

      He explained his attitude after Asrange ran amuck.

      Asrange was the third passenger. He was a lean, saturnine individual who said little and kept to himself as much as possible. He was distantly polite in his relations with both crew and other passengers, and never showed the slightest spark of emotion ... until the day Quest squirted coffee on him.

      It was one of those accidents that can occur easily in space. The passengers and the two crewmen on that particular waking shift (including Jakdane) were eating lunch on the center-deck. Quest picked up his bulb of coffee, but inadvertently pressed it before he got it to his lips. The coffee squirted all over the front of Asrange's clean white tunic.

      "I'm sorry!" exclaimed Quest in distress.

      The man's eyes went wide and he snarled. So quickly it seemed impossible, he had unbuckled himself from his seat and hurled himself backward from the table with an incoherent cry. He seized the first object his hand touched--it happened to be a heavy wooden cane leaning against Jakdane's bunk--propelled himself like a projectile at Quest.

      Quest rose from the table in a sudden uncoiling of movement. He did not unbuckle his safety belt--he rose and it snapped like a string.

      For a moment Trella thought he was going to meet Asrange's assault. But he fled in a long leap toward the companionway leading to the astrogation deck above. Landing feet-first in the middle of the table and rebounding, Asrange pursued with the stick upraised.

      In his haste, Quest missed the companionway in his leap and was cornered against one of the bunks. Asrange descended on him like an avenging angel and, holding onto the bunk with one hand, rained savage blows on his head and shoulders with the heavy stick.

      Quest made no effort to retaliate. He cowered under the attack, holding his hands in front of him as if to ward it off. In a moment, Jakdane and the other crewman had reached Asrange and pulled him off.

      * * * * *

      When they had Asrange in irons, Jakdane turned to Quest, who was now sitting unhappily at the table.

      "Take it easy," he advised. "I'll wake the psychosurgeon and have him look you over. Just stay there."

      Quest shook his head.

      "Don't bother him," he said. "It's nothing but a few bruises."

      "Bruises? Man, that club could have broken your skull! Or a couple of ribs, at the very least."

      "I'm all right," insisted Quest; and when the skeptical Jakdane insisted on examining him carefully, he had to admit it. There was hardly a mark on him from the blows.

      "If it didn't hurt you any more than that, why didn't you take that stick away from him?" demanded Jakdane. "You could have, easily."

      "I couldn't," said Quest miserably, and turned his face away.

      Later, alone with Trella on the control deck, Jakdane gave her some sober advice.

      "If you think you're in love with Quest, forget it," he said.

      "Why? Because he's a coward? I know that ought to make me despise him, but it doesn't any more."

      "Not because he's a coward. Because he's an android!"

      "What? Jakdane, you can't be serious!"

      "I am. I say he's an android, an artificial imitation of a man. It all figures.

      "Look, Trella, he said he was born on Jupiter. A human could stand the gravity of Jupiter, inside a dome or a ship, but what human could stand the rocket acceleration necessary to break free of Jupiter? Here's a man strong enough to break a spaceship safety belt just by getting up out of his chair against it, tough enough to take a beating with a heavy stick without being injured. How can you believe he's really human?"

      Trella remembered the thug Kregg striking Quest in the face and then crying that he had injured his hand on the bar.

      "But he said Dr. Mansard was his father," protested Trella.

      "Robots and androids frequently look on their makers as their parents," said Jakdane. "Quest may not even know he's artificial. Do you know how Mansard died?"

      "The oxygen equipment failed, Quest said."

      "Yes. Do you know when?"

      "No. Quest never did tell me, that I remember."

      "He told me: a year before Quest made his rocket flight to Ganymede! If the oxygen equipment failed, how do you think _Quest_ lived in the poisonous atmosphere of Jupiter, if he's human?"

      Trella was silent.

      "For the protection of humans, there are two psychological traits built into every robot and android," said Jakdane gently. "The first is that they can never, under any circumstances, attack a human being, even in self defense. The second is that, while they may understand sexual desire objectively, they can never experience it themselves.

      "Those characteristics fit your man Quest to a T, Trella. There is no other explanation for him: he must be an android."

      * * * * *

      Trella did not want to believe Jakdane was right, but his reasoning was unassailable. Looking upon Quest as an android, many things were explained: his great strength, his short, broad build, his immunity to injury, his refusal to defend himself against a human, his inability to return Trella's love for him.

      It

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