if I told you that scene we just saw happened more than 500 years ago, what would you say to that?”
“I would ask if you were measuring by Earth years, Galactic Standard years, New Calendar Democracy years…”
“Never mind,” I said.
Sammy fell silent and motionless. If someone had stumbled upon him at just that moment, they’d have been hard-pressed to prove that he was still operational.
“What’s the matter with him?” asked the Baroni. “His battery can’t be drained yet.”
“Of course not. They were designed to work for years without recharging.”
And then I knew. He wasn’t a farm robot, so he had no urge to get up and start working the fields. He wasn’t a mech, so he had no interest in fixing the feeders in the barn. For a moment I thought he might be a butler or a major domo, but if he was, he’d have been trying to learn my desires to serve me, and he obviously wasn’t doing that. That left just one thing.
He was a nursemaid.
I shared my conclusion with the Baroni, and he concurred.
“We’re looking at a lot of money here,” I said excitedly. “Think of it—a fully-functioning antique robot nursemaid! He can watch the kids while his new owners go rummaging for more old artifacts.”
“There’s something wrong,” said the Baroni, who was never what you could call an optimist.
“The only thing wrong is we don’t have enough bags to haul all the money we’re going to sell him for.”
“Look around you,” said the Baroni. “This place was abandoned, and it was never prosperous. If he’s that valuable, why did they leave him behind?”
“He’s a nursemaid. Probably she outgrew him.”
“Better find out.” He was back to sentence fragments again.
I shrugged and approached the robot. “Sammy, what did you do at night after Miss Emily went to sleep?”
He came to life again. “I stood by her bed.”
“All night, every night?”
“Yes, sir. Unless she woke and requested pain medication, which I would retrieve and bring to her.”
“Did she require pain medication very often?” I asked.
“I do not know, sir.”
I frowned. “I thought you just said you brought it to her when she needed it.”
“No, sir,” Sammy corrected me. “I said I brought it to her when she requested it.”
“She didn’t request it very often?”
“Only when the pain became unbearable.” Sammy paused. “I do not fully understand the word ‘unbearable,’ but I know it had a deleterious effect upon her. My Miss Emily was often in pain.”
“I’m surprised you understand the word ‘pain,’” I said.
“To feel pain is to be non-operational or dysfunctional to some degree.”
“Yes, but it’s more than that. Didn’t Miss Emily ever try to describe it?”
“No,” answered Sammy. “She never spoke of her pain.”
“Did it bother her less as she grew older and adjusted to her handicap?” I asked.
“No, sir, it did not.” He paused. “There are many kinds of dysfunction.”
“Are you saying she had other problems, too?” I continued.
Instantly we were looking at another scene from Sammy’s past. It was the same girl, now maybe thirteen years old, staring at her face in a mirror. She didn’t like what she saw, and neither did I.
“What is that?” I asked, forcing myself not to look away.
“It is a fungus disease,” answered Sammy as the girl tried unsuccessfully with cream and powder to cover the ugly blemishes that had spread across her face.
“Is it native to this world?”
“Yes,” said Sammy.
“You must have had some pretty ugly people walking around,” I said.
“It did not affect most of the colonists. But Miss Emily’s immune system was weakened by her other diseases.”
“What other diseases?”
Sammy rattled off three or four that I’d never heard of.
“And no one else in her family suffered from them?”
“No, sir.”
“It happens in my race, too,” offered the Baroni. “Every now and then a genetically inferior specimen is born and grows to maturity.”
“She was not genetically inferior,” said Sammy.
“Oh?” I said, surprised. It’s rare for a robot to contradict a living being, even an alien. “What was she?”
Sammy considered his answer for a moment.
“Perfect,” he said at last.
“I’ll bet the other kids didn’t think so,” I said.
“What do they know?” replied Sammy.
And instantly he projected another scene. Now the girl was fully grown, probably about twenty. She kept most of her skin covered, but we could see the ravaging effect her various diseases had had upon her hands and face.
Tears were running down from these beautiful blue eyes over bony, parchment-like cheeks. Her emaciated body was wracked by sobs.
A holograph of a robot’s hand popped into existence, and touched her gently on the shoulder.
“Oh, Sammy!” she cried. “I really thought he liked me! He was always so nice to me.” She paused for breath as the tears continued unabated. “But I saw his face when I reached out to take his hand, and I felt him shudder when I touched it. All he really felt for me was pity. That’s all any of them ever feel!”
“What do they know?” said Sammy’s voice, the same words and the same inflections he had just used a moment ago.
“It’s not just him,” she said. “Even the farm animals run away when I approach them. I don’t know how anyone can stand being in the same room with me.” She stared at where the robot was standing. “You’re all I’ve got, Sammy. You’re my only friend in the whole world. Please don’t ever leave me.”
“I will never leave you, Miss Emily,” said Sammy’s voice.
“Promise me.”
“I promise,” said Sammy.
And then the holograph vanished and Sammy stood mute and motionless again.
“He really cared for her,” said the Baroni.
“The boy?” I said. “If he did, he had a funny way of showing it.”
“No, of course not the boy. The robot.”
“Come off it,” I said. “Robots don’t have any feelings.”
“You heard him,” said the Baroni.
“Those were programmed responses,” I said. “He probably has three million to choose from.”
“Those are emotions,” insisted the Baroni.
“Don’t you go getting all soft on me,” I said. “Any minute now you’ll be telling me he’s too human to sell.”
“You are the human,” said the Baroni. “He is the one with compassion.”
“I’ve