The crimson planes resembled raging infernos. The indigo planes reminded him of a shifting representation of waters from a hundred worlds, from a thousand seas. The magenta was both fire and water, merged into the contradictory texture of the petals of an easily bruised rose, composed of hardy fibers. And the ochre was the combined colors of wheat reflecting the blazing setting sun, of lava rippling down a scorched mountainside, and of solar flares spitting out in great plumes from the surface of a fluctuating nova. And all those things and more were ambushed and trapped there, in a space possessing two separate and distinct masses: the marble-like mass of the building itself, and the airy mass of eternity itself, seen from the point of view of an eye at the edge of the universe.

Ultimately, the intent was unclear, even enigmatic. Derec could not be sure what the form of the structure meant, but now that he was seeing it up close, he was convinced more than ever that every inch represented the purposeful activity of a single mind striving to piece together a particular puzzle in a particular way. An independently conceived puzzle.

Derec had to learn how the actual construction job was accomplished. Obviously, the builder had learned how to reprogram a sector of individual metallic cells in Robot City's central computer. Perhaps he had introduced a kind of metallic virus into the system, a virus that performed to preconceived specifications. Derec didn't even know how to begin doing either task. That meant that not only had a robot conceived the building, it had also performed a few scientific breakthroughs in the software department.

Meaning the robot-if indeed a robot was responsible-had achieved two levels of superior thinking, theoretically beyond the mental scope of positronic science. How many more levels could the robot-no, make that had the robot already achieved?

He realized that, without having been aware of it, he had been walking beneath the building itself, watching it turn overhead. Right now a sargasso blue was shining down on him. He looked behind to see Mandelbrot, whose metal surface rippled with the reflection of a hundred currents.

Again he was surprised that, even this close, there was no heat to be felt. And when he reached up to touch the building, the surface was cold, like the thorax of a lightning bug.

"Master, is this what humans call beauty?" asked Mandelbrot with a curious hesitation between syllables.

"It's a form of it," said Derec after thinking about it for a moment. He glanced at Mandelbrot and sensed the robot had more questions on his mind. "The viewer can always find beauty, provided he searches for it."

"Will this building always be so beautiful?”

“Well, it depends on your point of view. The robots here will probably get completely used to it, provided it remains long enough. It will become increasingly difficult to perceive it freshly, though, if that's what you mean."

"Forgive me, master. I am not sure exactly what I mean."

"That's all right. It's to be expected in circumstances like this."

"So I was correct earlier: newness is an important factor in the human response to beauty."

"Yes, but there are no rules as to what constitutes beauty, only guidelines. It's probably one reason why you robots might sometimes find us humans so frustrating."

"That, robots are incapable of doing. We simply accept you, regardless of how illogical you may seem at the moment." Mandelbrot again turned his optical sensors toward the building. "I think I shall always be similarly impressed by this building. Surely, if it is beautiful once, it shall be beautiful for as long as it exists."

"Perhaps. It's beautiful to me, too; though, for all we know, your positronic pathways might be dealing with it in an entirely different manner."

"Master, I detect a shift in your earlier position."

"Not at all. I'm just accepting that tomorrow we might sit down and agree perfectly on what it looks like, what colors it has and how they shift, and even what architectural guidelines it subscribes to, and still we might be perceiving the whole thing differently. Cultural conditioning also has much to do with our response. An alien as intelligent as you or I might think this structure the ugliest in the universe."

"At the moment I can only categorize that concept as farfetched," said Mandelbrot, "but I can see an element of logic behind it. "

Derec nodded. He wondered if he was trying too hard to intellectualize this experience. At the moment it was difficult for him, too, to conceive of an intelligent organism who did not believe this structure the very essence of sublimity, but there he was talking about such an eventuality, just for the sake of making a point. Well, he had to admit he had a point, even if he wasn't very sympathetic with it.

Nor could he help but wonder if all the city's robots of sufficient intelligence would perceive the building as beautiful. Robots, though constructed in accordance with the same positronic principles, had in actual practice widely varying levels of perspicacities-that is, keenness in mental penetration, dependent upon the complexity of the integrals. Similarly intelligent robots had similar personalities, and tended to filter experience in identical ways. Different robots, with no contact between them, tended to respond to problems in like ways, drawing similar conclusions.

But here, now, the robots in the square were being confronted with something they could only assimilate into their world-view through subjective means, which could not help but lead to divergent opinions.

Even if they were all fashioned from the same minimalist resources…

Especially if none of them had ever before encountered aesthetic beauty in the first place.

It was no wonder that this building's unannounced appearance had created such a stir. The intense inner awakening and deeper appreciation for the potentials of existence gripping Mandelbrot at this moment was doubtlessly occurring in some fashion within every single robot in the vicinity.

Derec glanced about to see M334, Benny, and Harry making their way through the crowd, joining the throng directly below the building.

"Pardon me!" said Harry in an almost perfunctory tone as it bumped into a chromium-plated bruiser that, if it were so inclined, could have twisted the little robot into scrap metal in five-point-four centads, with barely an erg's expense. Instead, the bruiser shrugged and returned his attention to the building. So did Harry, but after a decad he turned his head in the bruiser's direction and clearly, distinctly enunciated, "Pardon me if I am inadvertently directing my integrals outside their parameters, but there is certainly sufficient evidence to indicate that your sensors are maladjusted. You should have them tuned."

Harry held its gaze on the big robot until it finally deigned to notice and replied, "It seems logical to assume that you are correct, and are directing your integrals outside their parameters. Nothing about you indicates the slightest degree of diagnostic capacity. I suggest you confine yourself to your own sphere."

"Reasonable…" Harry replied flatly. He looked away.

Derec watched them both stare at the building. He replayed the scene of Harry bumping into the bruiser in his mind. Had there been something almost deliberate about the way Harry had committed the deed? And about the way it had apologized for it? The utterance of the single idiom-"Pardon me"-was in retrospect almost perfunctory, as if Harry's politeness had been nakedly derived from mere social custom, rather than from compulsion dictated through programming.

No-I've got to be imagining things, reading too much into what's just an ordinary incident,Derec thought.

Then, as Derec watched in amazement, Harry leaned over to the bruiser and asked, in tones that stayed just within the bounds of politeness, "My curiosity integral has been invigorated. What is your designation? Either your real one or the one you go by. They both achieve parity in my cognizance."