“Me-o-w-w,” went the cat.

One of the arms creaked, reached out, and laid its metal fingertips down to form a sloping ramp; instantly the cat sprinted up the arm and onto the shoulder of the hunched-over figure.

“Hey, you!” Pirx cried out, not sure himself whether he meant to address the cat or that other creature. The arm had begun to retract slowly, as if having to overcome a powerful resistance, when Pirx’s barking cry paralyzed it, causing its fingers to clank against the concrete.

“Who—is—there?” came a voice that sounded as if it were being filtered through a metal tube.

“What are you doing here?” asked Pirx.

“Terminus… free-freezing in he-here… ca-can’t see…” the robot stuttered in a husky voice.

“Are you in charge of the reactor?” asked Pirx, who was beginning to despair of learning anything from the robot, whose condition seemed as run-down and dilapidated as the ship itself. But something—the green eyes?—urged him on.

“Terminus… re-reactor…” it stammered from its concrete refuge. “Terminus in charge… reactor,” it repeated with something like moronic self-complacency.

“Get up!” Pirx shouted for lack of anything better to say. He heard a crunching of metal, stepped back a little, and watched as two iron gauntlets with splayed fingers came out of the dark, swiveled around, clamped hold of the rim, and began hoisting the rest of its creaking torso. A metal hulk, half doubled up, soon emerged and, with a lot of grinding and screeching in the joints, drew itself up straight. Oil leaks in the couplings had combined with the dust to form a dark sludge. The robot rocked back and forth, more like a knight in armor than an automaton.