space-flier, jailed on Mars and hunted on Venus, but I've never seen or dreamed the like of this. Talk up, right in front of these tin babies."
She looked at the three silent robots. "Oh, they can't hear. Can't move, even, unless Dad blows that flute thing of his—he made them himself, he can run them himself—"
"They're fine specimens," acknowledged Harpe. "Flute-notes for brains, eh? Talk about music having charms. . . . Look here, you agree and I agree that I'm not the man your father hoped to trap here. So unwire me."
Vannie Conniston pondered, hand to cheek—very pretty. "You gave Dad a cruel beating," she reminded. "I saw the marks. If I let you go, will you give him another?"
"Not unless he starts on me," vowed Harpe. "All I want is to get away."
"That's not very complimentary," replied the girl, but she knelt and fiddled with the knotted wire. After a moment she gave up.
"Too tight," she told him. "A robot did that, with steel claws like pliers. It'll take a robot to undo them." She stepped back from him. "Well, all we can do is talk, Captain Harpe. How did you get here into my father's hands?"
He shook his head. "Not much to tell. Your hero, Plessner, caught me off guard and booted me into space. I drifted here, by using the cut oxygen-hose for a blast. Now tell me something. What's behind all this heavy-father stuff that's scorching both of us?"
"My grandfather's behind it," she informed him, and drew a long breath, as if for many words. He waited, and she continued:
"Dad married a rich girl. Her father—my grandfather—brought pressure and made her leave him. She died—broken-hearted—when I was too little to remember."
"And your father became a hermit?" prompted Harpe, trying to ease his bonds.
"He did. He'd been a mechanical engineer of promise—the robots prove that—but he dropped his career. My grandfather was scheming to take me away from him by law; and so, fourteen years ago, Dad applied for this job. We've been here ever since, hiding from my grandfather. Nothing but the radio, and refueling and servicing chores, and the robots Dad makes." She stared mournfully at nothing. "Do you blame Dad for being rather warped and harsh? Or me for being lonely and wretched—and glad when your Mr. Plessner noticed me?"
Harpe thought about Plessner—the mate always handled the refueling detail at the Space-Station while he, Harpe, caught up on routine paper work in his cabin. That was why Harpe had never seen Jan Conniston, or his daughter, or the robots or anything. Plessner, sleek and curious, had caught a glimpse of the lovely, lonely girl. He'd made himself known to her, wooed her . . . Vannie Conniston elaborated those surmises for him:
"WE AGREED to radio each other for long QSO's whenever he was hereabout. It was fun. Something to do. But just now—Dad was listening in, it seems—he said he'd come and get me and take me away. That frightened me, I'll admit. Slowed me up."
"It ought to frighten Plessner, too," contributed Harpe. "Spaceways puts its rocket-officers under contract not to get married until they reach the rank of captain."
He saw more light. Plessner, by getting rid of him, would become Skipper. Did Plessner truly plan to marry this
