Raised as the daughter of the League Viceroy, Serena Butler was accustomed to working hard to serve humanity, looking toward a bright future even against the backdrop of constant war. She had never imagined laboring as a slave inside the household of an enemy robot.

From her first glance at Erasmus in the broad entry plaza of the villa, Serena disliked him intensely. Conversely, the thinking machine was intrigued by her. She suspected that his interest was probably a dangerous thing.

He chose to wear fine clothes, loose robes and fluffy, ornate furs that made his robot body look absurd. His mirrored face made him appear alien, and his demeanor made her flesh crawl. His relentless curiosity about mankind seemed perverse and unnatural. When he strutted across the plaza toward Serena, his pliable metal mask shifted into a delighted grin.

“You are Serena Butler,” he said. “Have you been informed that Giedi Prime was recaptured by the feral humans? Such a disappointment. Why are humans willing to sacrifice so much to maintain their inefficient chaos?”

Serena’s heart lifted at news of the liberation, in part because of her own efforts. Xavier had brought the Armada after all, and Brigit Paterson’s engineers must have succeeded in activating the secondary shield transmitters. Serena, however, remained enslaved— and pregnant with Xavier’s child. No one even knew where she was or what had happened to her. Xavier and her father must be insane with grief, convinced that the machines had killed her.

“Perhaps it’s not surprising that you don’t comprehend or value the human concept of freedom,” she replied. “For all your convoluted gelcircuitry, you’re still just a machine. The understanding wasn’t programmed into you.”

Her eyes stung at the thought of how much more she wanted to achieve to help other people. On Salusa, she had never taken her family’s wealth for granted, feeling a need to earn the blessings bestowed upon her.

She asked, “So, are you inquisitive, or inquisitor?”

“Perhaps both.” The robot leaned close to examine her, noting the proud lift of her chin. “I expect you to offer me many insights.” He touched her cheek with a cool, flexible finger. “Lovely skin.”

She forced herself not to pull away. Resistance must count for something more than a captive’s pride, her mother had once told her. If Serena struggled, Erasmus could hold her with his powerful robotic grasp, or summon mechanized torturing devices. “My skin is no more lovely than yours,” she said, “except mine is not synthetic. My skin was designed by nature, not by the mind of a machine.”

The robot chuckled, a tinny cachination. “You see, I expect to learn much from you.” He led her into his lush greenhouses, which she observed with reluctant delight.

At the age of ten she had become fascinated with gardening, and had delivered plants, herbs, and sweet exotic fruits to medical centers, refugee complexes, and veteran homes, where she also volunteered her services. Around Zimia, Serena had been renowned for her ability to cultivate beautiful flowers. Under her loving attention, exquisite little Immian roses bloomed, as did Poritrin hibiscus and even the delicate morning violets of distant Kaitain.

“I will have you tend my prized plaza gardens,” Erasmus said.

“Why can’t machines perform such tasks? I’m sure they’d be much more efficient— or do you just revel in making your ‘creators’ do the work?”

“Do you not feel up to the task?”

“I will do as you command— for the sake of the plants.” Pointedly ignoring him, she touched a strangely shaped red and orange flower. “This looks like a bird of paradise, a pure strain from an ancient stock. According to legend, these plants were favored by the sea kings of Old Earth.” With a look of defiance, Serena turned back to the robot. “There, now I have taught you something.”

Erasmus chuckled again, as if replaying a recording. “Excellent. Now tell me what you were truly thinking.”

She remembered words her father had spoken—Fear invites aggression; do not show it to a predator— and felt emboldened. “While I was telling you about a beautiful flower, I was thinking that I despise you and all of your kind. I was a free and independent being, until you took it all away from me. Machines stole my home, my life, and the man I love.”

The sentient robot was not at all offended. “Ah, your lover! Is he the one who impregnated you?”

Serena glared at Erasmus, then made up her mind. Perhaps she could find a way to use this machine’s curiosity, turning it against him somehow. “You will learn the most from me if I cooperate, if I talk freely. I can teach you things you would never learn for yourself.”

“Excellent.” The robot seemed genuinely pleased.

Serena’s eyes grew hard. “But I expect something from you in return. Guarantee the safety of my unborn baby. Allow me to raise the child here in your household.”

Erasmus knew it was a standard parental imperative for her to be worried about her offspring, and that gave him leverage. “You have either arrogance or ambition. But I shall consider your request, depending on how much I enjoy our discussions and debates.”

Spotting a fat beetle at the base of a terra cotta planter, Erasmus nudged it with one foot. The insect had a black shell with an intricate red design. His smooth face mask shifted, flowed, until the shaping film displayed an amused expression. Erasmus let the beetle nearly escape, then moved his smooth foot to block it again. Persistent, it scuttled in another direction.

“You and I have a great deal in common, Serena Butler,” he said. Remotely, he activated a contraband Chusuk music cube, hoping the melody would draw out her internal emotions. “Each of us has an independent mind. I respect that in you, because it is such an integral part of my own personality.”

Serena resented any such comparison, but held her tongue.

Erasmus scooped the beetle onto one hand, but his primary interest dwelled on Serena— he was intrigued at how humans tried to keep so much of themselves veiled. Perhaps, by applying various pressures, he could see through to her inner core.

With the music playing in the background, Erasmus continued, “Some robots keep their own personalities rather than simply uploading a portion of the evermind. I began as a thinking machine on Corrin, but I chose not to accept regular Omnius updates that would synchronize me with the evermind.”

Serena saw that the beetle was immobile on his metallic palm. She wondered if he had killed it.

“But a singular event changed me forever,” Erasmus said, his voice pleasant, as if telling a story about a quaint forest outing. “I had set out across Corrin’s unsettled territories on a private scouting mission. Because I was inquisitive and did not wish to accept the standard analyses compiled by Omnius, I ventured into the landscape on my own. It was rugged, rocky, and wild. I had never seen vegetation except for in the areas where Old Empire terraformers had planted new ecosystems. Corrin was never a living world, you see, except where humans had made it so. Unfortunately, tending fertile fields and beautifying the land was no longer a priority of my kind.” He looked at Serena to see if she was enjoying his story.

“Unexpectedly, far from the city grid and robot support systems, I was unprotected from a severe solar storm. Corrin’s red-giant sun is in turmoil and unstable, with frequent flare activity, sudden hurricanes of radiation. Such an onslaught is hazardous to biological life-forms, but the original human settlers were resilient.

“My delicate neurelectric circuitry, however, was rather more sensitive. I should have dispatched scout scanners to keep watch on the star-storms, but I was too engrossed in my own investigations. I found myself exposed and damaged from the radiation flux, disoriented and far from the central complex run by the Corrin-Omnius.” Erasmus actually sounded embarrassed. “I wandered away and I . . . tumbled into a narrow crevasse.”

Serena looked at him in surprise.

“Despite dropping deep into the crack, my body was only slightly damaged.” He lifted an arm, looked at his flexible fiber-wrapped limb, the organic-polymer skin, the flowmetal coating. “I was trapped, out of transmission range, and basically immobilized. I could not move for an entire Corrin year . . . twenty Terran standard years.

“The crevasse’s deep shadow shielded me from solar radiation, and soon enough, my mental processors recovered. I was awake, but I could go nowhere. I could not move . . . only think, for a long, long time. I spent a seemingly endless blazing summer there, wedged in the rocks, and then I endured the ensuing long winter locked in heavy, compacted ice. During all that time, two decades, I had nothing to do but contemplate.”

“No one to talk to but yourself,” she said. “Poor, lonely robot.”

Ignoring the remark, Erasmus said, “Such an ordeal altered my fundamental nature in ways I could never have foreseen. In fact, Omnius still does not understand me.”

By the time he’d finally been discovered and rescued by other robots, Erasmus had developed an individual personality. After his restoration and reintegration into the cooperative machine society, Omnius had asked Erasmus if he wished to be upgraded with standardized character traits.

“Upgraded, he called it,” Erasmus said with some amusement. “But I declined the offer. After reaching such . . . enlightenment, I was reluctant to delete my impulses and ideas, my thoughts and memories. It seemed too great a loss to bear. And the Corrin-Omnius soon discovered how much he enjoyed sparring with me verbally.”

Now, peering at the motionless beetle on his artificial hand, Erasmus said matter-of-factly, “I am a celebrity among the widespread everminds. They look forward to receiving updates containing my actions and assertions, like a serial publication. These are known as the ‘Erasmus Dialogues.’”

With a guarded look, she nodded toward the motionless insect. “And will you include a discussion of that beetle? How can you understand something you have killed?”

“It is not dead,” Erasmus assured her. “I detect a faint but unmistakable throb of life. The creature wants me to believe it is deceased, so that I will discard it. Despite its small size, it has a powerful will to survive.”

Kneeling, he set the beetle on a flagstone with a surprisingly gentle touch, then stepped back. Moments later, the bug stirred and scampered to safety under the planter. “See? I wish to understand all living things— including you.”

Serena glowered. The robot had managed to surprise her.

“Omnius does not think I can ever attain his intellectual level,” Erasmus said. “But he remains intrigued by my mental agility— the way my mind continually evolves in new and impulsive directions. Like that beetle, I am capable of springing to life and persevering.”

“Do you really expect to become more than a machine?”

Taking no offense, Erasmus replied, “It is a human trait to better oneself, is it not? That is all I am trying to do.”