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    The Velvet Glove
    The Velvet Glove
    The Velvet Glove
    Ebook49 pages38 minutes

    The Velvet Glove

    By Harry Harrison

    ()

    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateJun 1, 2011
    The Velvet Glove
    Author

    Harry Harrison

    HARRY HARRISON (1925-2012) was the Hugo Award-nominated, Nebula Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of the Stainless Steel Rat, Deathworld, and West of Eden series, as well as Make Room! Make Room! which was turned into the cult classic movie, Soylent Green starring Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson. In 2009 Harrison was awarded the Damon Knight SF Grand Master Award by the Science Fiction Writers of America.

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      Book preview

      The Velvet Glove - Harry Harrison

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Velvet Glove, by Harry Harrison

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

      Title: The Velvet Glove

      Author: Harry Harrison

      Release Date: July 21, 2009 [EBook #29471]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VELVET GLOVE ***

      Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online

      Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

      SF writer and editor Harry Harrison explores a not too distant future where robots—particularly specialist robots who don't know their place—have quite a rough time of it. True, the Robot Equality Act had been passed—but so what?

      the

      velvet

      glove

      by ... Harry Harrison

      New York was a bad town for robots this year. In fact, all over the country it was bad for robots....

      Jon Venex fitted the key into the hotel room door. He had asked for a large room, the largest in the hotel, and paid the desk clerk extra for it. All he could do now was pray that he hadn't been cheated. He didn't dare complain or try to get his money back. He heaved a sigh of relief as the door swung open, it was bigger than he had expected—fully three feet wide by five feet long. There was more than enough room to work in. He would have his leg off in a jiffy and by morning his limp would be gone.

      There was the usual adjustable hook on the back wall. He slipped it through the recessed ring in the back of his neck and kicked himself up until his feet hung free of the floor. His legs relaxed with a rattle as he cut off all power from his waist down.

      The overworked leg motor would have to cool down before he could work on it, plenty of time to skim through the newspaper. With the chronic worry of the unemployed, he snapped it open at the want-ads and ran his eye down the Help Wanted—Robot column. There was nothing for him under the Specialist heading, even the Unskilled Labor listings were bare and unpromising. New York was a bad town for robots this year.

      The want-ads were just as depressing as usual but he could always get a lift from the comic section. He even had a favorite strip, a fact that he scarcely dared mention to himself. Rattly Robot, a dull-witted mechanical clod who was continually falling over himself and getting into trouble. It was a repellent caricature, but could still be very funny. Jon was just starting to read it when the ceiling light went out.

      It was ten P.M., curfew hour for robots. Lights out and lock yourself in until six in the morning, eight hours of boredom and darkness for all except the few night workers. But there were ways of getting around the letter of a law that didn't concern itself with a definition of visible light. Sliding aside some of the shielding around his atomic generator, Jon turned up the gain. As it began to run a little

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