He leaned forward with a hoarse confidential whisper, “If you want to know the truth, I had a sixty-carat diamond stuck behind the eye lens. I sold it here on earth for two hundred credits, gave me six months of easy living. It’s all gone now, so I’m on my way to the employment exchange.” His voice boomed loud again, “And how about you ?”

Jon Venex chuckled at his friend’s frank approach to life. “It’s just been the old routine with me, a run of odd jobs until I got sideswiped by a bus⁠—it fractured my knee bearing. The only job I could get with a bad leg was feeding slops to pigs. Earned enough to fix the knee⁠—and here I am.”

Alec jerked his thumb at a rust-colored, three-foot-tall robot that had come up quietly beside him. “If you think you’ve got trouble take a look at Dik here, that’s no coat of paint on him. Dik Dryer, meet Jon Venex an old buddy of mine.”

Jon bent over to shake the little mech’s hand. His eye shutters dilated as he realized what he had thought was a coat of paint was a thin layer of rust that coated Dik’s metal body. Alec scratched a shiny path in the rust with his fingertip. His voice was suddenly serious.

“Dik was designed for operation in the Martian desert. It’s as dry as a fossil bone there so his skinflint company cut corners on the stainless steel.

“When they went bankrupt he was sold to a firm here in the city. After a while the rust started to eat in and slow him down, they gave Dik his contract and threw him out.”

The small robot spoke for the first time, his voice grated and scratched. “Nobody will hire me like this, but I can’t get repaired until I get a job.” His arms squeaked and grated as he moved them. “I’m going by the Robot Free Clinic again today, they said they might be able to do something.”