They dropped their cones and stood with lowered eyes, waiting his pleasure with a deference that made his lip curl. He left the room without a backward look, knowing they would warn the Council but having no need now for secrecy. He went down a wide-arched corridor, striding with sure step to the city's heart. He found the power source at ground level, in a vast dim cavern full of soft-purring machines. He singled out the great operations board with its master switch that controlled the city's life--and in his path he found the Leader and his council, shielding the control from him with the massed crescent of their bodies. "Stand back," Heric commanded. The Council stirred uneasily, but did not break. "Hear us out, Arnol Heric," the Leader begged. "Remember that we, being not-human, yet have human emotions. We are the end result of the robot race men created to serve them in ages past, and you are right when you suppose that we may not defy you because we are your property. But there is a thing which you do not know, hidden from you even in your dreams for your own safety. Stay your hand, Master." The sound of Heric's laughter echoed emptily through the vast room. "Stay my hand and let you adjust me into submission again? Let you send me back to planting wheat, drowning my identity in ignorance? I know the human race is almost dead--I know that you hide the truth from the few of us who remain because you think us doomed to extinction. You would bury us in ignorance and rule in our stead as if you were men and we your servants." "_We_ are the servants," the Leader said. "Yet you would immobilize us. Why?" "Because I would rather know my fate and meet it without your meddling," Heric answered. "Because I do not believe that my race can ever die completely. I shall stop you in your tracks like the mechanical things you are, and I shall find the others of my people who are left and start life over with them. And this time we shall know better than to build machines!" * * * * * "We have no desire to perpetuate ourselves," the Leader said. "We were created to serve humanity, and to insure our obedience to the love of men was made our strongest instinct. Without men our life would be an endless torture of loneliness, for we can be happy only in your happiness. We hid the truth from you, and kept you busy outside Nyark the first city, to protect your sanity." Heric took a forward step. "Back, all of you!" They drew aside to let him pass. The Leader knelt as Heric brushed by him, and the Council knelt with averted faces behind him. Their sigh whispered through the great room. "Wait, Arnol Heric. Do you know that we have made you immortal?" [Illustration: "Wait, Arnol Heric. Do you know that we have made you immortal?"] He paused with his hands upon the master control, disturbed by a resurgence of that indescribable extension he had felt on waking from his dream. Angrily he shook it off, bracing himself.