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page 156

Why can't they let us alone?

You're a nasty little - human being', the newly-formed Z type robot shrilled peevishly.

Donnie flushed and slunk away. It was true. He was a human being a human child. And there was nothing science could do. He was stuck with it. A human being in a robot's world.

He wished he were dead. He wished he lay under the grass and the worms were eating him up and crawling throught him and devouring his brain, his poor miserable human brain. The Z-236r, his robot companion, wouldn't have anybody to play with and it would be sorry.

Where are you going? Z demanded.

Home.

Sissy.

Donnie didn't reply. He gathered up his set of fourth dimensional chess, stuffed it in his pocket, and walked oof between the rows of ecarda trees, toward the human quarter. Behind him, Z stood gleaming in the late afternoon sun, a pale tower of metal and plastic.

See if I care, Z shouted sullenly. Who wants to play with a human being, anyhow? Go on home. You - you smell.

Donnie said nothing. But he hunched over a little more. And his chin sank lower against his chest.

Well, it happened, Edgard Parks said gloomily to his wife, across the kitchen table.

Grace looked quickly up. It?

Donnie learned his place today. He told me while I was changng my clothes. One of the new robots he was playing with. Called him a human being. Poor kid. Why the hell do they have to rub it in? Why can't they let us alone?

So that's why he didn't want any dinner. He's in his room. I knew something had happened. Grace touched her husband's hand. He'll get over it. We all have to learn the hard way. he's strong. he'll snap back.

Edgar Parks got up from the table and moved into the living-room of his modest five-room dwelling unit, located in the section of the city set aside for humans. He didn't fell like eating

Robots. He clenched his fists futilely. I would like to get hold of one of them. Just once. Get my hands into their guts. Rip out handfuls of wires and parts. Just once before I die.

Maybe you'll get your chance.

No, it will never come to that. Anyhow, humans wouldn't be able to run things without robots. It's true, honey. Humans haven't got the integration to maintain a society. The Lists prove that twice a year. Let's face it. Humans are inferior to robots. But it's their damn holding it up to us! Like today with Donnie. Holding it up to our faces. I don't mind being a robot's body servant. It's a good job. Pays well and the work is light. but when my kid gets told he's -.

Edgar broke off. Donnie had come out of his room slowly into the living-room. Hi, dad.

Hi, son? Ed thumped the boy gently on the back. How you doing? Want to take in a show tonight?

Humans entertained nightly on the vidscreens. Humans made good entertainers. That was one area the robots couldn't compete in. Humans being painted and wrote and danced and sang and acted for the amusement of robots. They cooked better, too, but robots didn't eat. Human beings had their place. They were understood and wanted: as body servants, entertainers, clerks, gardeners, construction workers, repairmen, odd-jobbers and factory workers.

But when it came to something like civic control coordinator or traffic supervisoir for the usone tapes that fed energy into the plent's twelve hydrosystems...