He plummeted down into the City's heart. Somehow, he knew there was still a form of life in the City. The smooth, soft walls of plastic stretched away and disappeared in a mauve green distance. Amco stood humbled, sensing something of magnitude beyond his ken in the scene. Down the endless hall, growing smaller and smaller with distance, bodies lay outstretched on slabs. Monochromatic harmonies of light oscillated soothingly and dreamily. Their forms were nude and their noble heads were enmeshed in mechanical contrivances that eluded Amco's technical genius. As in a dream, he began walking down between the rows of corpses. Or were they alive? He couldn't tell. Perhaps some elaborate form of burial with perfect preservation. But the emotion reflected by every face differed. Differed in all the basic emotions of pain, joy, fear, pleasure, enlightenment, imbecility, perplexity, ecstasy, defeat, shame, grandeur--and all the endless shades of the intermingling of these and the gradations. Their hands lay open at their sides, and their eyes were closed. Yet the expressions on their faces were unmistakable. The hall was sufficiently weird, bizzare and alien so that he was hardly surprised when he was accosted by the Robot. The teleo-electronic man walked up and stopped in front of Amco. There was something unfriendly, almost inimical in his attitude. The emanations from the electronic brain seemed coldly unemotional: "I suppose you must be destroyed," the thought from the electronic brain impinged sharply on Amco's consciousness. "Why?" said Amco. "I have been commanded to do so." "By them?" Amco motioned toward the rows of corpse like beings. "Yes," radiated the teleo-electronic man. "I was told to destroy anything that might intrude on the dreams of the sleepers. It's very doubtful that they anticipated intrusion from something already dead. Why are you here?" The thought penetrated Amco's mind that no thought processes he might have could be given up to the robot according to Amco's desires. His mind was completely open to the robot. He wanted to have a few thoughts to himself, but-- "Only the dead have that privilege," said the robot. And then the logical, the only realization Amco could maintain, flooded his brain: "But you cannot kill me. I am already dead." "My mind isn't dialectical," radiated the robot. "My mind lacks that human characteristic. You say you are from two million years in the past, and because of that, you are already dead and that I cannot kill you again. Such reasoning means nothing to my type of thinking apparatus. It couldn't become an obsession with me. My orders are to destroy you. I will carry out that order. If you are already dead, it won't matter. If you aren't then--well--you soon will be." * * * * * Amco, analyzing his emotions, found only a mild excitement. As an example of the world he had left, he proved its great need for change.