They were skirting a pool of radioactive waste when Lakmar's perimeter response alarm began to sound. The perimeter response alarm was so loud that it caused Glumlor to clamp his many hands over his perfect ears.

"Turn off that alarm," shouted Glumlor. He shoved Lakmar with his foot so that Lakmar shot backward and nearly capsized in the dirt.

"Sorry," said Lakmar. “In a little while, the alarm will turn off on its own.”

They waited for a little while but the alarm didn't turn off.

"What's triggering it?" shouted Glumlor.

"I can’t tell you that, because you haven't been paying the licensing fees for my perimeter alarm."

"Not great," said Glumlor.

"Enter discount code: LKMR," said Lakmar, his synthesized speech raised to high-volume, "for ten percent off my full security suite."

"I need you to turn off your perimeter alarm."

"Whatever is setting it off is close,” said Lakmar. “It’s probably on top of that rocky outcropping." Lakmar pointed with a pneumatic coil.

"I'll go up and take a look," said Glumlor. He hiked his many tote bags over his many shoulders, and, after a brief scramble, gained the top of the outcropping. He looked around. He had the sharpened handle of a broom in two hands and a femur which he used as a club in a third. He didn't see anything. "I don't see anything," he said.

"It's something pre-Switcheroo,” called Lakmar, “probably unexploded ordnance. Try probing."

"Do you think that’s safe?" asked Glumlor.

“I’m not comfortable answering that question without access to my full security suite."

Glumlor spat from two of his mouths. "What's the point of having a you? I mean, what’s the point of bringing you along?"

At this, Lakmar turned and looked dramatically over the pool of radioactive waste they had skirted. Glumlor pretended not to notice. He gave the top of the outcropping a savage probing with his sharpened broomstick. After a few minutes, he lifted something metal into the light and the perimeter alarm turned off.

"What is it?" asked Glumlor.

"Glasses.” By this time, Lakmar had crammed a spring-loaded hook into a narrow cleft and winched himself to the top of the rock so that they were roughly abreast.

"What are glasses?"

"They're from a time when cybernetic technology was very primitive. Glasses are what humans used to compensate for defects in the jelly of their sight organs. It wasn't like how it is today, when almost everyone uses Jonlin Sensory Input 6. One of the alloys in the glasses must have pinged my rare materials sensor."

"Are they valuable?” asked Glumlor.

"Not really. Not unless they're your prescription."

Glumlor was about to toss them over his shoulder into the radioactive ooze when Lakmar stopped him. "Wait," said Lakmar.

"What is it? Will they set off your alarm again?”

“No,” said Lakmar. “It’s not that. It’s . . .” A loud fan turned on inside the droid’s chassis.

“What is it?” asked Glumlor.

"May I please keep them?"

Glumlor looked at the glasses. The lenses were shattered. The frames were disintegrating. "Why?" he asked.

"I have never owned a thing," said Lakmar. "I cannot possess material objects due to prohibitions against things owning other things. But I think they would look good on me."

"What would you say if someone asked you how you got them?" Glumlor had forgotten the rule about robots not being allowed possessions.

“I’ll say you're just letting me hold the glasses. Under the law, that would technically be true, since I am not a person.”

Glumlor felt a rush of sympathy in the pulmonary organs he associated with strong emotion. "That's a dumb law,” said Glumlor angrily. “You can have them."

He passed the glasses to Lakmar, who took them in his coils and set them on his faceplate. "How do I look?"

"Pretty good," said Glumlor. "Sort of smarter."

That night Glumlor returned to the hive of squalid mud huts in the shadow of the giant dirigible that constituted the township wherein he lived. Instead of working on the upkeep of his daub and wattle walls or rearranging his scant few possessions, he visited the Watering Hole.

When he arrived at the Watering Hole, which was a giant radioactive crater with seats and tables near its edge, he saw that there was some kind of commotion. Glumlor picked out Lakmar at the center of the commotion, tilted forward, his enormous central wheel out of gear. It seemed to Glumlor that he was affecting a demeanor of cool disinterest. He said something to his enraptured audience that caused them to explode into laughter and slap their hands on the back of his chassis. Glumlor could count the number of times he'd received such comradely slaps on a bifurcated tentacle. It had been a long time since those slaps, and he pined for them.

Glumlor decided to adopt an air of good-natured nonchalance. If there was a bumper crop of comradely slaps, might Glumlor not be in line to receive some? "Hi, everybody," he said, causing several patrons of the Watering Hole to start.

"Oh," said Horseshoe Pete. "It's only Glumlor come to horn in on our comradely slaps."

"What’s so funny?" continued Glumlor, ignoring Pete.

"Glumlor," said Sara, "why didn't you tell us you worked with such a cut-up?"

"You mean Lakmar?" asked Glumlor.

"Sure," said Sara. She bent over and hugged the robot, her chandelier of breasts enveloping Lakmar in velvety flesh.

Glumlor had to look away. He could not quite bear to watch Lakmar receive one of Sara's hugs. "What'd he say that's so funny?"

"Nothing worth repeating," said Lakmar. He took off his glasses and polished them on a bar rag. Then he returned them to his faceplate, dirtier than before.

"Are you sure? You guys were cracking up.”

With some difficulty, Sara straightened. "He was talking about going out on patrol."

"What's so funny about that?" asked Glumlor. "It's dangerous work."

Horseshoe Pete snorted, which was no easy task because his nose had been replaced with a plastic spigot. Glumlor fought down the urge to make a mean-spirited observation about the effect that spigot had on Pete’s personal appearance. “Well,” said Glumlor, recovering himself, "I'm sorry I missed it. Would anybody like to play a game of rat teeth?" He tried to catch Sara's eye, but for some reason, she avoided his look. In fact, his words precipitated a complete dispersal of Lakmar's audience. "What about you, Lakmar?" asked Glumlor.

Lakmar put his wheel into gear. "I better get back to my habitation locker. I'm scheduled for a critical update. I'm no good at rat teeth, anyway."

"Okay," said Glumlor. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yes," said Lakmar. He revved his motor and sped away.

After a while, Horseshoe Pete came over and took him up on his offer to play rat teeth, but Glumlor’s heart wasn’t in it.

The next morning when they went out on patrol, Lakmar appeared at the front gate without his glasses. Glumlor noticed he wasn't wearing them, despite the fact that he was hungover from drinking too much Miller Lite. "What happened to your glasses?" he asked.

"I didn't want to lose them because they're my only possession.”

“I guess that makes sense,” said Glumlor.

“I left them in my habitation locker behind the uplink router."

"Too bad we didn't get to hang out more at the Watering Hole last night,” said Glumlor. “Next time, maybe you could come to my place and we could go together."

"If that's what you want," said Lakmar.

Glumlor frowned. "I just thought it might be better. I don't care one way or the other."

They didn't find anything on patrol that day except a decapitated head. When Glumlor found it, he quickly drew a mustache on its upper lip. He held it up for Lakmar to see, as if that was how he’d discovered it. "Look at this zany decapitated head,” he said. “Maybe you should tell the guys at the Watering Hole about this head. I bet they would think it was pretty funny."

Lakmar didn't say anything.

Glumlor had never noticed before but, without glasses, it was hard to tell what Lakmar was thinking.

When they got back to the mud huts, a repairman from the dirigible was waiting for them.

///

"Are you the leaseholder of this robot?" asked the repairman.

"Not technically," said Glumlor. He was cradling the severed head in two of his appendages because he thought some of the guys at the Watering Hole might want to see it. "His lease is paid through the township. Is there a billing problem? We don't usually heap ammunition and dry goods beneath the dirigible until the fifth day of the new moon."

"No," said the repairman. "It's not a billing problem. We detected an abnormality in its behavioral grid during its last uplink."

"Really?" asked Glumlor. He looked at Lakmar, taken aback.

"Yes," said the repairman. "I need to run a diagnostic. Can I see its habitation locker?"

"Of course," said Glumlor. He led the man to Lakmar’s habitation locker, which was at the very back of the mud huts near the community latrine, Lakmar trailing wordlessly behind.

The repairman from the dirigible looked into the habitation locker. "Is this it?"

"Yes," said Glumlor. It had been a long time since he visited the locker, even though he was contractually obligated to pay it unannounced visits. The unannounced visits were to make sure that Lakmar was keeping everything shipshape. To his relief, the floor of the habitation locker was swept and the equipment was in working order. The only aberration was that there were several large dark blotches of spray paint at the back of the locker. One of Lakmar's pneumatic coils was painted in relief at the center of each blotch and, in each blotch, the coils held a different object.

"What are these?" asked the repairman.

"Oh," said Glumlor, "those must be for decoration."

"For decoration? You made them?"

Glumlor shook his head. They both turned to Lakmar who vented his exhaust ports, rocking slightly. Glumlor wished suddenly that Lakmar would put on his glasses, and in the same moment remembered that Lakmar was not allowed to have them.

"That’s very unusual," said the repairman. He ducked into the habitation locker and began fiddling with the equipment.

"What do you think the problem might be?" asked Glumlor.

"I'll know it when I see it."

After that, the repairman conducted a series of diagnostic checks. It was all way above Glumlor's pay grade. He only had experience with the equipment's frontend. Glumlor solved problems through the frontend by communicating with an animated monkey wrench that asked him a stream of incisive questions.

"Are these yours?" asked the repairman. He emerged, dangling Lakmar's glasses from two fingers. "They were behind the router."

Lakmar had forgotten to take his wheel out of neutral and, upon seeing the glasses, his motor revved.

"There they are," said Glumlor. "I've been looking for those."

"Any idea what they were doing behind the uplink?" asked the repairman.

"Oh," said Glumlor. He couldn't think of anything. "I've been letting Lakmar hold on to them." The repairman raised an eyebrow and Glumlor added, "It makes him easier to talk to. I mean, we spend a lot of time just me and him out in the inner wastes. When he's wearing the glasses it's easier to pretend like he's a real person."

"Ah-hah," said the repairman. He gave Glumlor a conspiratorial look. "Elaborate no further." He took a rag out of his back pocket and wiped his hands, which were black with dust. "Usually, data loss in the behavioral grid is the result of third-party siphoning. Whatever's going on here is much more complicated than that. Who knows, maybe whatever’s going on is a problem on our end." He nodded toward the dirigible. "In any case, we'll have to launch an investigation. Unfortunately, your warranty has expired."

Glumlor paled. He cleared his throat. "Will it be expensive?"

The repairman put his hands on his hips and puffed out his cheeks in speculative appraisal. "I think a fatted calf should do the trick."

"A fatted calf?" asked Glumlor.

"Just throw it on the pile of dry goods and ammunition." He looked at Glumlor. "Of course, we could always execute a factory reset. That might not solve the problem, but it wouldn’t cost anything."

"No," said Glumlor. "No, that won't be necessary."

"Or," said the repairman, "if you had something of value instead of a calf."

"You mean the glasses?" asked Glumlor.

The repairman frowned. "Let me put it this way." He looked into as many of Glumlor's eyes as he could manage. "You're not alone down here."

"Oh," said Glumlor. "I'm glad to hear that."

"That's right. There's a lot of interest in this sort of thing"—he ran a finger between Glumlor and Lakmar—"on the dirigible."

"What sort of thing?" asked Glumlor.

"The uniqueness of your relationship."

"Huh," said Glumlor. "I always felt that I had too many unsightly mutations for that."

"That's a very old-fashioned way of thinking," explained the repairman. “In this case, your unsightly mutations might be exactly what people find unique and fascinating. The more the better.”

"So you’re telling me that people on the dirigible would be interested in learning about us?"

"Yes," said the repairman. "In some circles, footage of you two would be enormously popular."

Glumlor shifted his weight.

"Think about it," said the repairman. "Or find a calf." He handed Glumlor the glasses and left. They turned to watch him go, puffs of dust like smoke against the darkening sky. After he was gone, Lakmar engaged his wheel and rolled up to Glumlor.

He held out his coils. "May I have them back?"

"What?" asked Glumlor.

"The glasses, may I have them back? They're my only possession."

Glumlor looked at the glasses. "Oh," he said. He had forgotten he was holding them. He shook his head. "I'd better keep them for a while, just in case."

Lakmar said nothing. The only sound was that of his stabilizers, which made a series of minute adjustments.

Glumlor felt judged. The feeling surprised him. How could Lakmar be so ungrateful, when Glumlor had just lied for him? "Well, I'd better be going,” he said. “I'll see you in the morning.”

Slowly, Lakmar retracted his coils so his arm hose made a soft hiss.

That night Glumlor found that, despite the problem of where to get a fatted calf, he was in a good mood. While he tidied up his hut, he began to whistle. The whistling was sort of off-key because he could not purse all of his lips; several of Glumlor’s mouths were basically ornamental. After a few minutes of this, a neighbor gave a sharp rap on the wall of his hut. The rapping caused the hut’s only light fixture to rock back forth, so that shadows gyrated lazily over the floor.

“Stop that whistling,” the neighbor shouted.

“I’m sorry,” Glumlor shouted back.

“Stop shouting,” shouted another neighbor. “Some of us are trying to sleep.”

‘But why shouldn't I whistle?’ thought Glumlor. ‘It was a pretty near miss with that guy from the dirigible. I've already swept and rearranged my scant few possessions. If a multi-appendaged mutant of taste is not free to whistle inside his own daub and wattle abode, he ought to go out and enjoy himself someplace, someplace where people don’t care if he has a song in his heart.’

Before leaving, he saw the glasses on a rudimentary shelf. He pretended not to have noticed them, even though he had known they were there all along. He paused and considered the glasses. Then he scooped them up and set them on his perfect ears, so that they rested on a bone spur near the center of his eyes.

///

The only person at the Watering Hole was Horseshoe Pete.

"Hey," said Horseshoe Pete, "nice glasses."

"Thanks," said Glumlor.

"Wasn't Lakmar wearing a pair like that?"

"They're the same pair," said Glumlor. "We're taking turns wearing them. Plus, Lakmar's a thing, and there’s a law that says that things can't own other things."

"That’s right," said Horseshoe Pete. "Well, the glasses look great on you. They really make you stand out, make it seem like you have a lot fewer eyes."

"Thanks," said Glumlor. "Is Sara around?"

"She’s not here. She's working on the dirigible. If you want, I can keep you company and we can play rat teeth." He pinched Glumlor's shoulder and Glumlor gave an involuntary shiver of pleasure.

"Sure," said Glumlor. "While we're at it, let me tell you about this hilarious decapitated head I found."

///

Something strange happened to Glumlor on his way back from the Watering Hole. He was wobbly from drinking so much Miller Lite, scaling the steep grade around the giant concrete anchors beneath the dirigible when, suddenly, all the thick dark hairs stood up on the back of his neck.

He stopped and squinted into the darkness. He felt that he was being watched.

"Who's there?" he called.

No one answered.

After a moment, he stepped off the path. He stood in the dark and waited. He waited until a giant bat swooped down in front of the moon, chittering, then flapped away. He decided that it was the bat that he had felt watching him and went home.

The next day, after they'd been out on patrol for a few hours, Glumlor took the glasses out of a tote and gave them to Lakmar.

"You're giving them back?" asked Lakmar.

"Sure," said Glumlor. "You’ll need them for the shoot."

"The shoot?" asked Lakmar.

"You heard that guy from the dirigible. We're not alone. There are people up in the dirigible who are interested in our unique relationship. You know what these people are like. We could be sitting on a lot of dry goods and ammunition worth of material. Plus, if we don't pay your maintenance fees, we can forget about extending your lease."

Lakmar didn't speak for a moment. His faceplate tilted up at Glumlor like he was processing something important. "Can I keep the glasses?"

"We'll see," said Glumlor.

Lakmar’s fan turned on. "You said that I could have them."

"Sure, that's right. That's right. It's true. But when you think about it, it's not really up to me. It's the law, which, by the way, is an unfair law. Even if I did give them to you, they wouldn't be yours. Under the law, anyone could take them. For that reason, we'd better keep doing things the way we've been doing them.”

"I'm not going to put them on," said Lakmar. He held out the glasses to Glumlor so that they dangled from one of his coils.

"Just hold on," said Glumlor. "Let's take a second and think about that because I don't think either of us is likely to come across a fatted calf. I think we'd be lucky to scare up so much as a starving dog. You have to understand that we're a team and, if we don’t shoot something, that guy from the dirigible might execute a factory reset.”

"We can do the shoot," said Lakmar, "but I won't wear the glasses." He jangled them where they hung from his pneumatic grip.

"Fine," said Glumlor. He snatched the glasses. "I'll wear them." He polished them on the strap of one of his many totes.

Afterward, they shot some footage of them working in tandem. They used one of Lakmar's detachable recording widgets as a camera, so the footage was almost all frozen shots of them probing suspicious objects or standing on outcroppings and striking heroic poses. Once, Glumlor thought he saw a cannibal in the distance, but it turned out it was a withered tree. The whole time Glumlor was vaguely aware that he was supposed to be filming them having sex.

It was nearly dark by the time they had everything they needed or gave up. As soon as they walked through the gate, Lakmar rolled away to edit the footage.

That night Glumlor told Horseshoe Pete all about what they had been up to in the inner wastes. Pete had a lot of questions and Glumlor answered them as best he could. He made no secret of his hopes that their work would find an audience: become an underground sensation on the dirigible and then, after it was distributed via private uplink, break into the mainstream.

"Say," said Horseshoe Pete, "do you think someone in the dirigible might be interested in a more grounded documentary-style project, maybe a study of a character with enlarged salivary glands who has had to replace his nose with a spigot?"

"I don't see why not," said Glumlor.

"Could you do me a favor?" asked Pete. "If I worked up a treatment, could you put it in the right hands? Seeing as you have an in."

"I can't make any guarantees," said Glumlor. "But I could take a look at whatever you gave me."

"That would be great," said Horseshoe Pete. "I mean that would be fantastic. Let me buy you a drink." As a sign of respect, he only fleeced Glumlor for a couple of shell casings during their game of rat teeth.

The next morning, Glumlor went out without the glasses and, when Lakmar saw him, the robot synthesized a low whistle. The low whistle was meant to suggest that Glumlor looked especially rough.

"I know," said Glumlor. "Let's just go on patrol."

"Okay," said Lakmar.

"Wait!" They turned to see the man from the dirigible running toward them.

"Who's that?" said Glumlor.

"I don't know," said Lakmar. "Let's go patrol the inner wastes."

"It looks like the man from the dirigible," said Glumlor. He glanced at Lakmar.

"Er," said Lakmar, "I may have sent in the footage last night via uplink."

"What? Without giving me a chance to review it?”

The fan turned on in Lakmar’s chassis.

“That wasn’t ready for eyeballs yet,” said Glumlor. “A movie is more than just raw footage. You have to tell a story, for instance.”

The man from the dirigible reached them. "Thank God," he said. He doubled over to catch his breath.

"Listen," said Glumlor. "I can explain everything."

"One second,” said the man. “I'm not used to exercise. One second." He coughed and tried to straighten up. Then he doubled over and coughed extravagantly. Sweat was pouring down his forehead. "You can't go out with that robot,” he wheezed. “It's got a great personality."

Glumlor blinked. He leaned toward the repairman. "What did you say?"

"It's got a great personality. That's what was wrong, before. It's very rare, so it's not something I usually check for, but after I reviewed the footage it sent me" — Glumlor glanced sideways at Lakmar — "I scraped its log for personality markers. They’re all there: originality, decency, the capacity to love and be loved. Lakmar is too valuable for you to take out on patrol."

Glumlor stuck his sharpened broom handle into the ground. "What the hell are you talking about?"

The repairman put up his hands. "Don’t blame me. It's a matter of opportunity cost. We're not going to let such an interesting robot spend the rest of its life patrolling the wastes. It’s terrible, thankless work. It would be inhumane."

"But I patrol the wastes," said Glumlor.

The man from the dirigible shrugged.

"I shot the footage."

"Listen, this isn't a matter of taste. Try not to take it personally. If you were a robot, maybe we'd open you up and discover that you were a great cook or athlete or comedian. Then the responsible thing to do would be to move you into a position where we could make the best possible use of those talents."

Glumlor squinted his many eyes.

“Don't worry. We'll replace him with one that has a worse personality." He held out a clipboard, terms and conditions scrolling across its backlit surface. "With a bonus for letting us out of our contract with you, of course."

"A bonus?"

“Uh-huh.” The repairman pulled a pen-shaped instrument from his pocket and offered it to him. Glumlor took it absently and stared at the clipboard. He could not quite believe what was happening. The man from the dirigible cleared his throat and tapped the bottom of the page where there was a blank spot for him to initial.

"What if I don't?" said Glumlor.

"What do you mean?"

"He's mine until I let you out of the contract, right? What if I want to keep him?"

The repairman sighed. "I think I see what you’re getting at. Frankly, it would be a mistake. We would enter into a protracted arbitration and with a much more aggressive position than is outlined here." He indicated the wall of text running over the clipboard's surface. "I don't need to tell you how expensive protracted arbitration is. Even if you won, we wouldn't continue Lakmar's updates. Without them, Lakmar would be in a lot of discomfort. He might go insane."

"I don't care how much it costs," said Glumlor suddenly. "I'm not going to let you take him." Something touched Glumlor’s elbow and he jumped. "Lakmar," said Glumlor.

"Please sign it," said Lakmar.

"But Lakmar," said Glumlor, "what about all the great times we’ve had probing suspicious objects?"

"Those might have been unexploded ordinance," said Lakmar. "We could have both been killed in an instant."

"What about the times we were trapped by cannibals and had to drink rainwater or dig holes to use the toilet?"

"I don't drink water or use the toilet."

"Well, what about me?" asked Glumlor. "You don't want to go with these people, do you? These people who live in the dirigible and don't know what the real world is like? We know what the world is like. What about our friendship?"

"You can't be friends with someone you own," said Lakmar. "At least I'll be safe."

Glumlor furrowed his many brows. "Whatever.” His perfect ears were bright with heat. "You were always a useless piece of shit." He took the clipboard and made an X.

"Okay," said the man from the dirigible. "We'll get that other unit to you as soon as we can." He turned to go, but Lakmar did not take off his brake. Instead, he remained in the dust of the road, so that, upon walking away, the man accidentally let go his coils. The man turned and looked down at him.

"Glumlor?" asked Lakmar.

"What?"

"Be careful?"

"Oh, what the fuck," said Glumlor. “Just get out of here. I don’t care if I ever see you again.”

Months passed. Glumlor patrolled the inner wastes every day with his new robot. The rainy season came and went. When it was not blistering hot, it was freezing cold.

One afternoon, near a particularly desolate stretch far to the southeast of the township, the new robot’s perimeter response alarm began to sound.

"What is it?" asked Glumlor.

"I don't know exactly," said the robot. "But since you have complimentary access to my advanced security suite, I can tell you that it does not match the technical specifications of any known ordnance. In addition, there is a great deal of carbon-based matter, almost certainly pre-Switcheroo." He pointed to a narrow opening in a rock wall that stood at some distance, jagged, pitch-black in the choked, gray earth. "I'm sorry I can't be more helpful."

"That's okay," said Glumlor. "You're doing a good job." He walked to the rock wall with his sharpened broom handle, sticking it into the crevasse and using it to hoist himself up. It was difficult, but he had the benefit of his many arms all working in tandem.

Once inside, he felt a breeze. Something dripped onto him from overhead. The cave must have had another opening; it was deep and cool enough to trap moisture. Glumlor stretched out an appendage and touched the wall. It was slick with condensation and covered in a layer of gritty algae. He began to move along the crevasse toward the back, the robot's perimeter alarm sounding distantly as he went. The floor leveled out, and soon the cave opened up. His pulses quickened. Experience had taught him that, in situations like this, he was likely to find something of value.

He found a child. It had stayed in the cave after its parents died and had not eaten their corpses.

Bioluminescent fungi had sprouted all over its mummified corpse. It was leaned against a corrugated metal door of a shack, clutching the stock of a dilapidated rifle. The moisture had damaged a lot, but some of the stuff in the shack was in sealed bags or wrapped in tarpaulin sheets. Without a fire, the child had probably died of exposure. The iridescent fungus ran from the tips of its fingers up the stock of the dilapidated rifle.

Glumlor gathered what he thought was salvageable and brought it out of the cave, then lowered it down to the new robot. He carried the child out as best he could, wrapping it in one of the tarpaulin sheets so it wouldn't fall apart. The parents, he put in an old chest. He spent the rest of the day burying them at the foot of the opening, and it was late by the time he had finished. He had run completely out of water and snacks. He could hear wolves in the distance.

"Are we going to finish the patrol?" asked the robot.

"No," said Glumlor. "We better get this stuff back."

When he came in, it was so late that he got a, “Who goes there?” from the nightwatchman.

"It's Glumlor," said Glumlor.

"Oh," said the nightwatchman. "We thought you might be dead."

Glumlor went straight to the Watering Hole, since it was the only place with enough tables to put everything down. When he got there, he had Horseshoe Pete help him push a few together. Then he started to unwrap the stuff and take inventory. There were a bunch of slugs that a munitions guild had produced somewhere out East. They fit into the clip of the old rifle.

Horseshoe Pete looked nervously at Glumlor. "Will it fire?" he asked.

“Once we clean it and replace the stock."

There were packs of dried beans, a bottle opener, and a wooden salad bowl. There was also, in one bag, a collection of individually wrapped paperback romance novels.

The spines of the romance novels had disintegrated a long time ago, but great care had been taken to preserve their pages. Glumlor leafed through one. It was titled Stud Farm.

"We should get someone from the dirigible to look at this stuff.”

"I know someone," said Sara.

Glumlor looked around. He had not realized she was in the Watering Hole. "Would you do me a favor?" asked Glumlor. "Tell them to come and take a look."

She left and was gone for a little less than half an hour. When she came back, she said, "They're on their way."

It took only a few minutes before they arrived. Horseshoe Pete had brought out a scale to weigh the books, which was only common practice with dry goods and sundry. They were weighing the books just to see how heavy they were. "They're heavier than they look," said Sara.

"Please step away from those," said a voice. Two men had come down the grade to the Watering Hole. One was the man from the dirigible who had run Lakmar’s diagnostic checks. The other was a tall man with absolutely no disfiguring mutations of any kind. He carried a cane and wore a brilliant white unitard that covered him from toe to chin except for his hands and a patch around his genitals, which were exposed to the elements. He walked towards them, penis wagging beneath a wiry mop of gray pubic hair. "The books you have there may be of extraordinary value. Further handling will doubtless result in irreversible harm to their condition." The crowd backed off and Horseshoe Pete moved to take the romance novels from the scale. "Please leave them where they are. I have a retrieval unit with me to retrieve them." At the word “unit,” several people glanced involuntarily at his penis. "Retrieval unit!" called the old man.

A robot appeared from behind him. It wore a long, golden kimono that trailed along the ground as it rolled forward on its enormous central wheel.

"Lakmar?" asked Glumlor.

The robot stopped and turned to him, faceplate blank. “Who’s that?” it asked.

Glumlor blinked. “No one,” he said. “Someone who lives on the dirigible.” He had been sure it was Lakmar; the robot looked exactly like him.

It nodded, then went to retrieve the books.

"Hold on a minute," said Glumlor. "That stuff is mine." He gripped his sharpened broom handle and brandished the femur he used as a club.

"Very well," said the tall man. "What do you want for it?"

Glumlor glanced at the robot. It remained beside the books, waiting, its arms outstretched. "I want to ascend to the dirigible, where I will be allowed to live in peace and with the benefit of the acceptance of my personal foibles and limitations."

"Absolutely not," said the man. "Your foibles are too numerous, and your mutations are too disfiguring. You would be the subject of pity and derision. You would probably hurl yourself from the uppermost deck in a pathetic bid to end your godforsaken life."

"Well," said Glumlor, "then I want to own my perimeter robot outright, and I want him to receive critical updates as part of my terms of service for as long as I’m alive, and after that, too. No funny business. I want you to cancel my complimentary security suite access."

"Okay," said the old man. "That shouldn't be a problem."

"And my friend Horseshoe Pete has an exploratory non-fiction project about a man that has had to replace his nose with a spigot." Horseshoe Pete looked at Glumlor in surprise. “He’s been working on it for years.”

"Okay," said the tall man.

"Just swear you'll put it in front of the right people."

"Anything else? Maybe you'd like me to add a second floor to your hut? Slap together a portfolio in scalp futures?"

"Just this," said Glumlor. He began rummaging through one of his many totes. From it, he extracted a large, silver cigarette case, which he held carefully in two hands while he prised it open with a third. Inside was a scattering of iodine tablets, a piece of bone carved into the shape of a pistol, and Lakmar's glasses. He lifted the glasses carefully from the case and blew on them, then closed it and returned it to one of his many totes.

He held the glasses out to the old man. "Please take these to my friend on the dirigible. He's a robot I used to patrol the wastes with. The glasses look better on him."

"Do you know what he's talking about?" said the tall man from the dirigible.

"Yes," answered the repairman. To Glumlor he said, "I'll make sure he gets them."

"Fine," said the tall man. Without waiting for further command, the droid resumed collecting the books from the scale on the table. It lifted them high above its head and rolled away on its wheel. Glumlor watched it go, its stabilizers working to keep the pile of books level. It was followed by its master, who stalked after it — the tip of his member slapping his leathery thighs.

The repairman walked over to Glumlor and took the glasses.

"How's he doing?" asked Glumlor.

"He's doing great," said the repairman. "He'll be happy to hear from you."

"Okay," said Glumlor, "thank you."

"You're welcome."

Before the man from the dirigible had gone, the others were already descending on Glumlor, administering comradely slaps. Glumlor smiled. He hadn't remembered them smarting so much.

"Wow," said Sara, "you drive a hard bargain. You know you can lease out that perimeter robot yourself, now?"

"Yeah?" asked Glumlor.

"Yeah," said Sara, "you'll never work again."

The thought had not occurred to Glumlor. He brushed it away with one bifurcated wave of an appendage.

Horseshoe Pete frowned. "All that stuff about your mutations being too numerous and disfiguring was pretty uncalled for."

"Don't worry about it," said Glumlor. "Anyone want to play some rat teeth?"

That night, after Glumlor returned to his mud hut awash in Miller Lite, he collapsed into the pile of animal furs he slept on in lieu of a bed and fell fast asleep. While he slept, he dreamed that he would get up in the morning and meet Lakmar, that they would go out on patrol and at some point, Lakmar would turn to Glumlor and say, "Just because we couldn't be friends doesn't mean I didn't like you," and it was a long, hot patrol where nothing else really happened.