 What would've happened if Alan had not made it to the switch?
Frowning, worrying about the sounds, Alan momentarily forgot to watch his step until his foot suddenly plunged into an ant hill, throwing him to the jungle floor. Then, through the trees he saw the clearing of the camp site, the temporary home for the scout ship and the eleven men who, with Alan, were the only humans on the jungle planet, Waiamea. Without pausing to think, Alan leaped back, and fell sprawling over a bush just as one of the robots rolled silently up from the right, lowering its blaster barrel to aim directly at his head. But the back pressure of the cat's body overloaded the discharge circuits. The robot started to shake, then clicked sharply as an overload relay snapped and shorted the blaster cells. If I can just hold out until morning, when the big ship arrives ... The metal killers, tuned to blast any living flesh, would murder them the instant they stepped from the ship! A pretty girl, Peggy, the girl he'd married just three weeks ago. In the movement, his elbow struck the top of a small earthy mound and he was instantly engulfed in a swarm of locust-like insects that beat disgustingly against his eyes and mouth. The planet's double moon had risen and he could see a robot rolling slowly across the clearing in his general direction, blasting indiscriminately at whatever mind impulses came within its pickup range, birds, insects, anything. Apparently the robot hadn't sensed him yet, but Alan didn't know what the effective range of its pickup devices was. Minutes later, looking back he saw that the machine, though several hundred yards away, had altered its course and was now headed directly for him. He thought of a brown-haired girl crowding with the others to the gangway, eager to embrace the new planet, and the next instant a charred nothing, unrecognizable, the victim of a design error or a misplaced wire in a machine. The twin moons cast pale, deceptive shadows that wavered and danced across the jungle floor, hiding debris that tripped him and often sent him sprawling into the dark. Behind, the robot crashed imperturbably after him, lighting the night with fitful blaster flashes as some winged or legged life came within its range. Patches of black scraped off onto branches and vines, but the rest spread slowly over his arm as agonizing as hot acid, or as flesh being ripped away layer by layer. Almost blinded by pain, whimpering, Alan stumbled forward.
 The next group of people would have been caught by surprise and killed.
 The robots would have gone on living unnoticed by people, doing as they wished with the planet.  The next group of people would have been caught by surprise and killed.  Pete would have been the last hope of the people on the planet's surface.  Peggy would have had to build new radio transmitters after the old ones were destroyed.