Part 2

The redhead said, "It's really over, isn't it? They're stopped." She looked at the still figures, the dummy electrodes in her neck quivering in a shiver. "They can't kill any more?"

I said, "It's over."

"They can't destroy or move?"

"Without the Master Machine, they have no power supply--nothing. And they can't kill or destroy."

She walked over to look at the figures. "What went wrong? What happened to them?"

I shrugged. "You can't blame them any more than you can blame a boiler that explodes or a dam that breaks. It was the human race itself that was responsible for what happened. We became lazy, careless. We built too many time saving gimmicks to do too many jobs for us."

* * * * *

"But the machines were designed to help us," she said. "To make life better and more pleasant."

"At the beginning," I agreed, "but we didn't know where to stop. We started with labor-saving devices. We replaced ourselves in factories, offices, restaurants, stores. Still it wasn't enough. We designed robots to serve as traffic policemen, to drive cars, and to handle thinking tasks. Then we designed humanoid robots, mechanical replicas of man and woman, controlled by the computing sections of the Master Machine, activated by its power supply, able to move and talk and think. We used them as servants. We had the means to replace ourselves completely--everywhere."

"Why did they turn on the human race?" she asked.

I pointed to the smoldering wreck of the Master Machine in the center of the room. "Perhaps there was a weak circuit, or a tape was garbled, or a relay didn't close properly. The scientific colony on the Moon helped some of us to escape. The rest of mankind was destroyed by the robots--systematically and ruthlessly."

The redhead shivered again and walked over to the door leading from the building. She stood there, looking up at the thin curve of the Moon showing in the blue of the afternoon sky.

Finally she said, "Up there, by now, they will know that we have accomplished our mission. In a few hours, they will be filing out of the underground caverns and loading onto the giant rockets. They'll be coming back. But only the very oldest will have been on Earth before. Like us, thousands of them will be coming to a new world for the first time. A world of beauty and opportunity--if they want it that way. What will they decide?"

What _would_ they decide?

I looked down at the redhead. Deep in her eyes, I saw the emotions which no humanoid robot could ever know. I saw them, and suddenly the tension eased out of my muscles.

The answer to her question was in her own eyes.