"Specimen," repeated Jadiver. "Yeah, I was a specimen to her." His head was heavy. "Why didn't you tell me this in the beginning?" "Would you have listened when I first contacted you?" asked the robot. "Later, perhaps. But once you put on the shield, I couldn't get in touch with you until you were with Doumya Filone." * * * * * Would Jadiver have listened? Not until it became a matter of raw survival. Even now he hated to leave Earth and what it meant for the unknown dangers and tedium of a planet circling an alien sun. It was more than that, of course. Just as he'd had a design for a perfect robot, he had in mind a perfect woman. He could recognize either when he saw it. "Doumya Filone was the assistant?" "She was." The robot was his now, Jadiver knew. Others had built it, but it belonged to him by virtue of a nervous system. It had as good a mind as his, but it wouldn't dispute his claim. "Like yourself," continued the robot, "in the Solar System she would never have been more than second rate, and she wanted to be first. Hardly anyone recognizes it, but the Solar System is not what it once was. It's like a nice neighborhood that decays so slowly that the people in it don't notice what it's become. There are some who can rise even in a slum, but they're the rare exceptions. "Others need greater opportunity than slums offer. They have to leave if they expect to develop freely. But the hold of a whole culture is strong and it's hard to persuade them that they have to go." The robot paused. "Take a last look at a blighted area." Outside planets glimmered in the distance. Jadiver was tired and his eyes were closing. Now he could sleep safely, but not in peace. "Don't regret it," advised the robot. "Where you're going, you'll have real designs to work on. No more pretty robot faces." "Where is it--Alpha Centauri?" Jadiver asked disinterestedly. "That ship left yesterday. They got their quota and left within the hour, before any of the passengers could change their minds. We're going farther, to Sirius." * * * * * Sirius. A mighty sun, with planets to match. It was a place to be big. Big and lonely. "I can't force you to do anything," said the robot. It sounded pleased. "But I have no inhibitions about others." The robot flipped up its cowl. There was a storage space and a woman in it. Except for her hands, she was bound tightly by tangle strands. "I don't think she likes you at the moment," said the robot. "She'll tell you that as soon as she's able to speak. She may relent later, when she realizes what it's really like on Sirius. You've got the whole voyage to convince her." The eye-stalks of the robot followed Jadiver interestedly. "Are you looking for the tongs? Remember that the tangle stuff is repelled by your skin." Jadiver willingly used his hands and the tangle strands fell off. As the robot had predicted, Doumya Filone was not silent--at first.