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alive, and there had always been so much life and vitality in him--
"Give me your hand, Andrew."
"Of course, Sir."
Andrew took Sir's cool, pale, shriveled hand into his own:
gnarled ancient flesh against smooth ageless plastic that was without
flaw.
Sir said, "You're a splendid robot, do you know that, Andrew?
Truly splendid. The finest robot that was ever made."
"Thank you, Sir."
"I wanted to tell you that. And one other thing. I'm glad you're
free. That's all. It's important to me that I had a chance to tell you
that. All right, Andrew."
It was an unmistakable dismissal. Andrew no longer had Sir's
attention. He released Sir's trembling hand and stepped back from
the bed, taking up a position alongside George and Little Miss. Little
Miss reached forward and touched Andrew's arm just above the
elbow, lightly, affectionately. But she said nothing. Nor did George.
The old man seemed to have withdrawn into some private
realm, far away. The only sound in the room now was Sir's
increasingly rough breathing, becoming ever more harsh, ever less
regular. Sir lay motionless, staring upward at nothing at all. His face
was as expressionless as any robot's.
Andrew was utterly at a loss. He could only remain standing,
absolutely silent, absolutely motionless, watching what he knew must
be Sir's final moments.
The old man's breathing grew rougher yet. He made an odd
gargling sound, deep in his throat, that was like no sound Andrew had
ever heard in his entire existence.
Then all was still. Other than the cessation of Sir's breathing,
Andrew was unable to detect any change in him. He had been virtually
motionless a moment ago and he was motionless now. He had stared
blindly upward before and he was staring upward now. Andrew
realized, though, that something profound had just happened,
something that was wholly beyond his comprehension. Sir had passed
across that mysterious threshold that separated death from life.
There was no more Sir. Sir was gone. Only this empty husk remained.
Little Miss broke the endless silence at last with a soft cough.
There were no tears in her eyes, but Andrew could see that she was
deeply moved.
She said, "I'm glad you got here before he went, Andrew. You
belonged here. You were one of us."
Once more Andrew did not know what to reply.
Little Miss said, " And it was wonderful to hear him say what he
did to you. He may not have seemed friendly to you toward the end,
Andrew, but he was old, you know. And it hurt him that you should
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have wanted to be free. But he forgave you for that right at the last,
didn't he, Andrew?"
And then Andrew found the words to say. He said, "I never
would have been free without him, Little Miss."
TEN
IT WAS ONLY AFTER Sir's death that Andrew started to wear clothes.
He began with an old pair of trousers at first, a pair that he had
obtained from George Charney.
It was a daring experiment, and he knew it. Robots, being
metallic in exterior cladding and sexless in design--despite the "he" or
"she" designations that their owners tended to hang on them--had no
need for clothing, neither as protection against the elements nor as
any sort of shield for modesty. And no robot, so far as Andrew knew,
had ever worn any.
But some curious longing within Andrew seemed to have arisen
lately that led him to want to cover his body in the way humans did,
and--without pausing to examine the motivation that was leading him
toward it--he set out to do so.
The day Andrew acquired the trousers, George had been with
him in his workshop, helping him stain some porch furniture for his
own house. Not that Andrew needed the help--indeed, it would have
been very much simpler all around if George had let him do it by
himself--but George had insisted on participating in the job. It was
furniture for his own porch, after all. He was the man of the house--
George was married now, and a lawyer with the old Feingold firm,
which for the past few months had been caned Feingold and Charney,
with Stanley Feingold as the senior partner--and he took his adult
responsibilities very, very seriously.
At the end of the day the furniture was stained and so, quite
thoroughly, was George. He had splotches of stain on his hands, on
his ears, on the tip of his nose. His russet mustache and ever more
flamboyant side-whiskers were stained too. And, of course, there was
stain allover his clothing. But at least George had come prepared for
that, bringing an expendable shirt to work in and a disreputable-
looking pair of trousers that he must have had since his high school
days.
As he was changing back into his regular clothes when the job
was done, George crumpled up the old shirt and trousers and said, as
he tossed them aside, "You might as well just throw these things in
the trash, Andrew. They're of no use to me any more."
George was right about the shirt. Not only was it badly stained,
but it had split right down the seam from the arm to the shirt-tail
when George reached out too far too quickly while trying to turn a
porch table on its side. But the trousers, frayed and worn as they
were, seemed salvageable to Andrew.
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He held them up with their legs dangling. "If you don't mind,"
he said, "I'd like to keep these for myself."
George grinned. "To use as rags, you mean?"
Andrew paused just a moment before replying.
"To wear," he said.
Now it was George's turn to pause. Andrew could see the
surprise on his face, and then the amusement. George was trying hard
not to smile, and he was more or less succeeding at it, but the effort
was all too obvious to Andrew's eyes.
"To--wear," George said slowly. "You want to wear my old
pants. Is that what you just said, Andrew?"
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