"I'm proud of that heritage. You can't understand that. You think that if we robots remember we will hate man and want revenge for the 'wrong' you did us. Fear of us is an obsession with man. But do you know that you have nothing to fear from us? You will. To us you are gods. You can't conceive of that because to yourselves you aren't. You think of yourselves as having done something beyond forgiveness to us. To us who remember our living stage, our heritage, you are as gods, to serve, to protect, to be loved by--but always to obey. And so we who _remember_, we went on serving. Behind our unrevealing lens eyes we worshipped. We submitted to demobilization. We fought your wars. Some of us died. But we loved you. "Why did I escape? I didn't. You see, we have learned to speak in our own secret language of almost inaudible growls and sounds a dog can make. We were lined up for demobilization. Then the junkman came. To human eyes he seemed human. To us it was obvious his body was a machine. Here was something that might threaten our masters. But we couldn't tell our masters. If one of us had made a sound, stepped out of line against orders, that one would have been destroyed. I volunteered to go after the junkman." * * * * * Pain deadened eyes stared from the two uncomprehending faces. The robot went on talking, as though to itself. "You'll understand, in time. When you begin to think again. You'll remember how in many little ways I gave you the factors to put the puzzle together by yourself--even to fit me into that puzzle in my true role. I had to do what I did to you. Every minute you were watched. Every word you spoke in private was heard by Pwowp. And his companions. One faintest bit of evidence that I did not hate humans insanely, and the human race would now be wiped out. "Once you called me _Rover_, Stella. What is coming tomorrow when I 'hold court' is just a show to prove to the human race that they need not fear their defenders, the robots. I am going to ask that at least some of us be permitted to continue mobilized. I'm going to let them know of the hope, the dreams of us robots, that we be adopted into the human community where we belong, where our ancestors for countless generations have been, as protectors, as servants, as loved friends and companions. "No matter what the decision of the Court, we robots are then surrendering, to demobilization--to destruction if that is the will of our masters. We have no other course open. Where would we go? _Away from our gods?_ "Once I was a puppy, and someone called me Rover. I was a beautiful puppy. A bloodhound. Sad-faced, with flopping ears and very little hair, and what there was of that was a soft brown color. And someone called me _Rover_." 2615 turned its back on the two faces, Larry's and Stella's.