at piracy. Bledsoe walked to the window. Don Slade already stood there, watching port activity. The two men were nearly of a size, but the tanker had a physical hardness which the other lacked. Muscles meant very little in modern, civilized warfare, however. Slade did not remember having seen a more heavily-defended spaceport on any world which was not in the midst of open warfare.
"We certainly expect you to test our merchandise as closely as we test yours, gentlemen," Bledsoe said. "There's a necessary programming period, of course, to interface the Trek with your system. About three days, I would judge, though there may be idiosyncrasies. After that, you can expect to have one of your control stations occupied at all times by a flawless, sleepless living machine. We'll modify your synthesizers to turn out a protein supplement that won't cause allergic reactions in a Trek; that won't be a problem. You'll find your purchase well worth the expense, I assure you."
"I don't wholly understand," said Slade. "How does what would be a six month cram-course for a human with top of the line hypnocubes turn out to be three days for a, a Trek?" He turned away from the bustle of planetary and intra-system traffic outside to pin the local man with his eyes.
Bledsoe shrugged. "There are advantages to being inhuman, Mister Slade," he said. "To being unintelligent in human terms. Your Trek will act within the parameters which it deduces from the equipment it operates and the task to which it is set. As I said, three days is generally enough time for the programming to be completed."
"Well, what I'd like," snapped Captain Levine, "is to have a look at one of these things. What are they, rocks with arms?"
"We'll have your unit delivered at once," the local man said with a narrowing of his eyes. "But surely you must have seen Treks working outside?"
Bledsoe motioned