The robot Erasmus maintained a complete record of every conversation he ever had. Omnius kept his own files, including conversations between the two of them, but Erasmus suspected the records would not match in every detail.

The autonomous robot preferred to let his own thoughts grow and evolve, rather than receive a steady stream of updates from Omnius. Like the evermind, he was an evolving thinking machine— and like Omnius, he had his own agenda.

At the moment Erasmus sat in warm red sunshine on the terrace of his Corrin villa, admiring a panoramic view of rugged, barren mountains in the distance. From earlier explorations, centuries ago, he recalled the craggy profiles, sheer dropoffs, abrupt canyons. In the early years of his machine life he had been trapped there, imprisoned in a crevasse, and that ordeal had led to the development of his independent character.

Now the robot had no need to climb mountains and engage in wilderness exploration. Instead, he was charting the unknown, confusing landscape of the human psyche. With so many possibilities for enlightenment, Erasmus had to set priorities, especially now that Omnius had instructed him to focus on the phenomenon of religious zealotry, an apparent form of madness.

A house slave appeared carrying an armful of rags and bottles. Well fed, she was a dark woman with brilliant green eyes. Rising to his feet, Erasmus removed his plush carmine robe and let it drop to the slate tiles beneath his feet. “I am ready.”

The servant set to work, polishing the robot’s shimmering platinum skin. Noting how the ruddy red-giant sunlight gleamed on his body like the reflection of a bonfire, the robot was pleased. His flowmetal face formed a broad smile.

His expression shifted when the voice of Omnius thrummed overhead. “I have found you.” One of the portable watcheye units drifted down for a closer view. “You look as if you are relaxing. Are you emulating a decadent human from the Old Empire? The fallen Emperor, perhaps?”

“Only to better study their species, Omnius. Only to serve you. During this maintenance procedure I was assessing data I had gathered about religions.”

“Tell me what you have learned, now that you are an authority on such information.”

Erasmus lifted one arm so that the slave could better polish it. She used nonabrasive chemicals and soft berissi chamoix. The woman concentrated on her work, and seemed surprisingly unruffled, considering that his last polisher slave had accidentally scraped his flowmetal skin with a fingernail, and Erasmus had cracked open her skull with a flowerpot. The woman’s head had contained a surprising quantity of blood, and in fascination he had watched it drain out of her until she stopped twitching and squirming….

“I do not yet consider myself an authority on human religions. To attain that goal, I need firsthand experience with their rituals. Perhaps there is some intangible quality that was not recorded in the data I reviewed, for I found no answers there. I need to speak with genuine priests, mullahs, and rabbis. The written history is inadequate for such subtle, but necessary, understanding.”

“You have learned nothing from millennia of documented events?”

“An accumulation of facts does not always lead to comprehension. I know that humans frequently fight over religion. They are particularly resistant to compromise on this issue.”

“Humans are combative creatures by nature. Though they claim to worship peace and prosperity, they actually like to fight.”

“An impressive analysis,” Erasmus said.

“Since we are not capable of arguing with humans over matters of religion, do you think they concocted this supposedly holy quarrel, this Jihad?”

The slave finished polishing her master, then stood to one side, awaiting further instructions. Erasmus waved her off, and the woman departed hastily.

“Interesting. But you must realize that our lack of religion is in itself anathema to the minds of zealots. They refer to us as atheists, godless demons. Humans love to engage in name-calling, since it enables them to categorize an adversary… which invariably involves dehumanizing an opponent. In our case, dear Omnius, the dehumanization was accomplished from the outset.”

“The hrethgir have resisted us for centuries, but the nature of their struggle changed dramatically after they packaged it in the trappings of religion. They have become even more irrational than before— and hypocritical. They revile us for enslaving humans, yet they themselves keep humans in bondage.”

Erasmus nodded to the watcheye, a human gesture he had learned. “Though we are not flesh-bearers, Omnius, we must in a sense fight like them. We must become unpredictable ourselves, or at least able to predict their fighting methods.”

“Intriguing ideas.”

“Patterns without patterns,” Erasmus said. “It seems to me that our enemies are insane on a massive scale. The religious zeal that fuels their Jihad is like a disease that runs through their midst, infecting their collective mind.”

“They have achieved so many unexpected victories,” Omnius lamented. “The destruction of Earth and the defenses of Peridot Colony, Tyndall, IV Anbus, and the shipyards on Poritrin are of great concern to me.”

“The endless rebellion on Ix is proving problematical as well,” Erasmus said. “Despite the deaths of millions of humans there, Jihad infiltrators continue to pour in, as if they calculate neither the cost nor the benefit. When will they realize that one world is not worth the deaths of so many fighters?”

Omnius said, “Humans are animals. Just look at them in your pens.”

Erasmus strolled to the edge of his terrace, which afforded him a view of the squalid slave pens. A few skeletal, filthy humans milled about within the high-fenced enclosures, crowding toward a long wooden table set up on muddy ground. It was feeding time, and they stood with bovine expressions on their faces. Automatic mechanisms opened internal gates in the pens, and food pellets rattled out, like brown gravel.

Such pathetic lives they lead, Erasmus thought, without formal education or awareness. But even the lowliest of them might possess the tremendous potential to be a great human genius. Lack of opportunities did not necessarily make an individual stupid, but only shifted his intelligence to a form suited to survival rather than creativity.

“You do not fully appreciate the situation, Omnius. Begin with any healthy human. If taken at a formative age, when its mental systems remain pliable, any one of those poor humans can be trained. Given the opportunity, even the most bedraggled child could become brilliant, nearly our equal.”

Hovering near Erasmus, the watcheye magnified its viewing mechanism for a closer look at the pens. “Any of them? That is doubtful.”

“Nevertheless, I have found it to be true.”

Additional watcheyes converged above the crowded pens where the feeding humans jostled each other. An image appeared on the watcheye lens by Erasmus, and Omnius said, “Observe that boy closest to the fence— the one with straggly hair and ragged pants. He appears to be the wildest and most unkempt of all. See what you can do with that creature. I will wager that he remains an animal despite your best efforts.”

Remembering his bet with the now-destroyed Earth-Omnius, a wager that had unexpectedly sparked the initial rebellion among the slaves, Erasmus said nothing. Because the last evermind update had been destroyed in the atomic annihilation of Earth, the Corrin-Omnius did not know the details of the abortive wager. Erasmus’s secret was safe.

“I do not wish to gamble with the great evermind,” Erasmus said. “But I accept your challenge nonetheless. I shall make that boy civilized, educated, and insightful— far superior to any of our other trustees.”

“A challenge it is, then,” Omnius said.

Previously, Erasmus had noticed this wild boy because of his primitive tendency toward obstinacy. Such a feral, potentially violent organism. According to records, the child was nine years old, young enough to remain pliable. The robot recalled how even the cultured, educated, and exhilarating Serena Butler had been a challenge, and how his own relationship with that woman and her child had led to unforeseen, disastrous events.

He resolved to produce better results from this effort.