The mechanics of that communications and indexing system had interested him, until one of the robots tried to explain it and he understood about one word in ten.

His robots were far smarter than he was. Ross felt stupid and useless, like an idiot child. And he did not care now whether he played with his toys or not. But they had been gathering for days, overlaying the green of the surrounding hills and valleys with the shining gray of their bodies, sliding like long metal ghosts into the bay to drop anchor, and scoring thunderous white lines across the sky before landing on the plateau to the north, and he felt that he had certain obligations toward them. So he dressed himself in the navy-blue uniform, which was styled after that of an army major general and bore the wings and insignia of an air marshal, and swung over his shoulders an ankle-length cape which was lined in red and trimmed with gold. Then he went up to his control dome and gave the signal for the review to commence.

Immediately the land robots lurched into motion, forming themselves into a column that was easily a quarter of a mile wide and which rolled toward him along the valley floor and passed within a hundred feet of the dome before disappearing around the shoulder of the hill. They poured by like an endless metal river, types which he recognized as descendants of the original Miners, but many others which he bad to ask Sister about. The long, tree-hard grass was flattened and churned into the earth by the passage of the first wave, and before an hour had passed the column had gouged a quarter-mile furrow along the valley which was in places twenty feet deep. Ross turned to look out over the bay.

Obviously his ships had bad access to considerable data on naval maneuvers. In rigid, closely spaced flotillas down to single units they charged back and forth across the bay, weaving to avoid other ships engaged in equally complex operations, and throwing up a dramatic white bow-wave which fluttered like a battle ensign. Ross was stirred in spite of himself. The bay was a blue slate thirty miles across, literally covered with the white scrawls and squiggles left by the hurrying ships. His eyes were caught by a robot that was almost the size of an old-time battleship which had dropped two search subs and launched an aircraft while tearing shoreward at full speed. At the last possible moment it went slicing into a U-turn which threw a dazzling scimitar of foam astern and went charging out to sea again. Then a multiple sonic crash pulled his attention skyward.

In perfect echelon formation five descendants of the A17 Searchers roared low over the valley and pulled into a vertical climb that made the two-hundred-foot arrowheads shrink to dots within seconds; then they curved over into a loop and came screaming down again. They leveled out over the sea, re-formed and went thundering past the control dome in a rigid line abreast.

Ross saluted.

Immediately he felt his face burning with shame and anger. He had been thinking and acting in the most childish way imaginable: playing-acting, dressing up in theatrical uniforms and treating the robots as if they were his toys. And the toys had cooperated to the extent that they had made him salute them! Were the damn things trying to get a rise out of him or something…?

“Do it again,” snarled Ross. “And this time close up, there’s about half a mile between you!”

“Not quite as much as that,” Sister objected. “But at the velocities involved it is safer to—”

“I have seen human jet pilots,” said Ross scathingly, “who flew wingtip to wingtip…”

Effortlessly the formation climbed, though not quite wingtip to wingtip, rolled into their loop and leveled out, and suddenly there were only three of them and a formless tangle of wreckage which fell across the sky to crash three miles inland.

“Wh-what happened?” said Ross foolishly.

Sister was silent for nearly a minute, and Ross thought he knew what was going on in her complex, mechanical mind. Then she told him simply that two robots of the higher intelligence levels had been irreparably damaged, that their metal was salvageable but the personalities concerned had been permanently deactivated. She also suggested that he go below at once, as the robots had possessed nuclear power plants and there was a danger of radioactive contamination.

“I’m sorry,” said Ross, “truly I am.”

On the way down to his room he had time to think about a lot of things, but chiefly of the complete hopelessness of his position and his pathological refusal to accept the reality which had faced him on his first awakening. He was the last man and he should have accepted that fact and allowed himself to die of starvation when he had the chance. Instead he had instituted a search for survivors which was doomed from the start; then he had tried to re-create intelligent life and produced only grass. The race of Man was finished, written off, and he was simply a last loose end dangling across Time.

Maybe he wallowed a little in self-pity, but not much or for very long. He did some positive thinking as well.

Over the years the robots had developed intelligence and initiative to an extent which would have been frightening if Ross had not known that they were his servants and protectors. Their basic drives, he now knew, were the need to serve Man, the urge to acquire data and experience in order to serve Man more efficiently and the purely selfish urge to improve their own mental and physical equipment. If, however, they could be made to serve themselves rather than Man, what then? The answer was a race of intelligent beings who would be immensely long-lived and virtually indestructible, in short a super-race who would take over where Man had left off.

There was nothing that the robots couldn’t do, if they would only stop thinking like slaves.

When they reached his room Ross sat on the edge of the bed and began repeating his thoughts to Sister, and the conclusions he had come to regarding them. He used very simple words, as though he was talking to the old, childish Sister of his first awakening, because he wanted to make absolutely sure that the robot — that all the robots — understood him. As he spoke a feeling of ineffable sadness overcame him, and, strangely, a fierce pride. This was a moment of tragedy and greatness, of Ending and Rebirth, and Ross was suddenly afraid that he was going to ham it up.

Awkwardly, he concluded, “…And so you can regard me as a friend, if you like, or a partner.” He smiled bleakly. “A sleeping partner. But that is all. From now on I have no right to command you. I have set you free.”

For several seconds the robot did not say anything, and Ross never did know whether his noble act of self-sacrifice was refused, ignored as the ravings of a sick mind, or what. Then Sister spoke.

“We have prepared a little present for you, sir,” she said, “but, bearing in mind your remarks some time ago on the subject of kindness as opposed to assistance, I have been undecided as to whether or not I should give it to you. I hope you like it, sir.”

It was a large picture, life-size and in color, of the head and shoulders of Alice. Obviously an enlargement of the photograph he had kept in his wallet. The flesh tints were off slightly, her glorious dark tan had a faintly greenish sheen, but otherwise the picture looked so natural and alive that he wanted to cry or curse.

“It’s perfect,” he said. Thank you.”

“You always call for her during your last moments of consciousness prior to Deep Sleep,” Sister went on, “and even though the wish is expressed while your mind is incapable of working logically, we must do everything possible to try to fulfill it. At the moment, this, was the best we could do.”

Ross stood the picture against the bust of Beethoven and looked at it for a long time. Finally, he turned to Sister and said, “I want to go to sleep.”