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thoughts were heading,
     but possibly Mito had surprised someone who was trying to interfere with the robot. That person then wiped the control log
     after Mito died. If so, it was police business, not the company’s, and she could file her report.
    The trouble was, she’d found a different clue that might indicate Tomita was responsible—an unknown signature in the robot’s
     recognition file. All commercially manufactured robots, whether mobile home helpers or fixed factory manipulators, had their
     own identity codes, which were theoretically impossible to copy. They consisted of the maker’s electronic signature, the type
     of robot, the series, the date of manufacture, and the number of the individual machine. In the Kawanishi robot, the robot’s
     individual number didn’t match the number on record at Kawanishi and Tomita. Until she checked it with the Industrial Lab
     at Tomita on Monday, she wouldn’t know if it was deliberate or a mistake in registering the ID code. She didn’t see how it
     could affect the robot’s behavior with Mito, but it was a discrepancy that must be cleared up.
    The train stopped at Tachibana station. Home. No climbing down stairs and into the sticky night air, into the dark streets
     echoing with her own footfalls, like in the old days. All she had to do was walk along the brightly lit corridor to her own
     Betta.
    The corridors were always bright. No dark corners, no ambiguities. This particular corridor was rounded and tunnel-like, with
     walls sloping outward up to a domed ceiling. Smaller corridors branched off at regular intervals. Along the ceiling, holos
     advertised products made by the business conglomerates that sponsored the Bettas. Their jingles were muted at that time of
     night. Along the walls notices to residents shimmered between text and graphic directions for newcomers or those who lost
     their way easily. Eleanor never lost her way. It was the same sense that woke her when the train reached her station.
    The corridors were safe, one of the great selling points of the Bettas. Security cameras watched all corridors and were programmed
     to alert human security guards at any sign of trouble. She remembered without regret the days when she had to take a taxi
     home if she worked late, or had to call Masao from the station to come and meet her because he didn’t like her to walk home
     alone through ill-lit streets. She didn’t like it, either. The accident so many years ago that left her with her stammer had
     happened on a dark street. A car hit her bicycle, they said.
    The damn stammer. That long string bean of a man, the detective, Ishihara, noticed although he didn’t say anything. All it
     meant was that she was overtired, but he wasn’t to know that. It made her sound like such a fool. And she didn’t want to appear
     a fool before that man, who obviously didn’t believe a woman could do her job. He didn’t look like her image of a detective,
     which was based on the young, dashing actors of popular vid shows. Ishihara’s stoop, his crumpled short-sleeved shirt and
     shiny-kneed trousers, and lined, dour face could have been that of many aging engineers she knew, passed over for promotion
     and relegated to administrative tasks. He’d looked at home in the dingy factory.
    She shrugged off the memory. The Kawanishi incident was closed as far as the police were concerned, and it was unlikely she’d
     meet Assistant Inspector Ishihara again.
    Cleanbots scuttled out of her way on wheels and jointed legs as their infrared and movement sensors told them she was approaching.
     Then they returned to their tasks, skimming the corridor for rubbish like the insects they were modeled upon. Anticockroaches,
     she thought sleepily, admiring their clustering behavior. Tomita produced a smaller, down-market version of Spick and Scram,
     as the cleanbots were properly known, although she hadn’t been directly involved in its development.
    She turned right where the