As Homer passed the Sanborn house, young Archibald Sanborn came out in pajamas, robe, and slippers, with hair awry and jowl unshaven.
"Hey, Homer!" said Archie Sanborn.
Homer straightened up, pointed at the sun, and said:
"Wake! For the Sun, who scatter'd into flight / The Stars before him from the Field of Night, / Drives Night along with them from Heav'n, and strikes / The Sultan's Turret with a Shaft of Light."
"I know it's late," growled Sanborn. "Will you do a job for me?"
"A little work, a little play, / To keep us going — and so, good-day! What kind of job, Mr. Sanborn?"
"I want you to walk up to Jake's service station —"
"Foot — foot — foot — foot — sloggin' over Florida —"
"And get me ten gallons of gasoline —"
"Gasoline, Mr. Sanborn?"
"Yes, gasoline, piston-engined automobile grade. Here's five bucks; keep the change."
"Are you going to take out one of your old cars?"
"I gotta. The wife's gone to Sarasota for lunch with a girlfriend, and I got a date with Doc Brauer in an hour. So I gotta use one of the antiques."
Archie Sanborn waved at his open five-car garage. The southernmost stall, normally filled by the Chrysler Thunder-horse, stood empty. The other places were occupied by Sanborn's old-car collection, from the 1967 Buick Beetle to the genuine Ford Model A of 1930.
The thing that really told the four old automobiles from the missing new one was that the former were piston-engined gasoline-burning machines, while the latter, like all modern cars, was driven by a little kerosene turbine in the rear. Gasoline had gone back to the status of a dangerous fluid used for taking spots out of clothes and powering the antique autos of those who collected them. Sanborn continued: "And I haven't got —"
"Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, / That was built in such a logical way —"
"Shut up and get going! And don't start spouting poetry and forget what you're supposed to do."
Homer was about to go when another voice called: "Homer! Ho-o-omer!"
Homer saw Gordon Sanborn, three, beside his father, and said: "Child of pure unclouded brow / And dreaming eyes of wonder! / Though time be fleet —"
"I wanna go with you to Jake's," said Gordie.
"You can't," said Archie Sanborn.
"I wanna go with Homer!" cried Gordie. "He's my friend. You're not my friend."
Sanborn looked helplessly at Homer, saying: "I'd let him go, but I promised Roberta not to let him out of my sight until she got back."
"You're bad!" said Gordie, punching his father's leg. "Bang-bang, you're dead! I don't like you no more. I'm going with Homer ..."
Gordie's voice rose to a shriek as his father carried him into the house. Homer set off up the beach with a rattle of worn bearings. Out in the Gulf, fishing smacks lazed up and down the coast, and gulls creaked and puled.
Napoleon put away the volume MUS to OZON of the encyclopaedia, in which he had been reading again of the life of his illustrious namesake. The MacDonald heirs had abandoned the encyclopaedia because it was old and battered, and the volume CAST to COLE was missing. The remaining volumes, however, provided Napoleon with reading matter for years. To the robots who had entered, he said: "Has the partition been erected?"
"Yeah," said Hercules. "It didn't fit the first time, but we fixed it."
"That, then, is where we shall conceal the child."
"If we get a child," said Galahad. "You think it's easy to snatch a brat and tuck it away in the attic. But organic people are fussy as hell about their young. They'll turn Coquina Beach upside down looking for it."
"Yeah," said Hercules. "You'll get us scrapped yet, Nappy."
"You are behaving like irrational and timorous organic people," said Napoleon. "You must learn to trust my star. Had it not been for the plans evolved by my superior brain to procure you fuel, you would all have ended your careers on the scrap heap long ago. Now go, my brave soldiers, and fetch me a child, Lure it by promises and blandishments; no force."
A half-hour later, Homer was on his way back towards the Sanborn house from Jake's service station. Four pelicans flapped overhead in column. Homer met Galahad and Confucius. Galahad said:
"Whatcha got in those cans, Homer?"
"Gasoline."
"Gasoline!" said Galahad and Confucius together. "What for?"
"Mr. Sanborn hired me to get it for his old cars."
"Wicked waste," said Confucius, "makes woeful want. Using that precious stuff on brainless old machines, when we could have a real orgy on it."
"Well, that's what he hired me for," said Homer.
"You couldn't give us a little swig?" said Confucius.
"No."
"Lives there a man who hath gasoline, and giveth his neighbor none," said Confucius, "he shan't have any of my gasoline when his gasoline is gone."
Homer said: "If I start doing that, Mr. Sanborn won't give me any more jobs."
Galahad said: "Anyway, there's no hurry. Let's sit down in the shade and cool our bearings."
"Okay," said Homer.
They found a place at the base of a clump of palms, back from the beach. Homer kicked aside a dead horseshoe crab and asked: "What are you guys doing?"
"Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies; give me some apples and I'll bake you some pies," said Confucius.
"Just a little job for Nap," said Galahad. "We'll tell you about it when it's done. What's Sanborn doing with his old cars?"
"Driving one of them to Doc Brauer's," said Homer.
"That little distance?" said Galahad. "It's less than a mile. That shows you how feeble organic people are."
"I know," said Homer. "It doesn't do to tell them so, though, or they won't hire you."
"This Brauer," said Confucius. "He's a kind of mechanic for organic people's brains, isn't he?"
"Yeah," said Galahad. "He talks about how organic people need love and appreciation to run efficiently. Nobody ever thinks a robot might like a little love and appreciation too."
"They say we're just machines," said Confucius.
"Yeah," said Galahad. "They're just machines too, and the smart ones know it."
Confucius said: "They talk about souls, but that's just a lie to kid themselves they're more than machines."
"Well, they do have brains," said Homer.
"So do we," said Galahad. "They're machines with brains; we're machines with brains; the automobiles are machines without brains. That's the real difference, not whether we're made of metal or meat."
Confucius said: "Brain is brain, whether made of neurons or microtransistors. They found that to make us adaptable enough to serve them, they had to give us brains of the same habit-forming and reflex-conditioned kind as their own. Then they act surprised when we have wants and feelings too."
"Or poetical talents like Homer here," said Galahad.
"That was an accident," said Homer. "I told you how they put in a recording of a poetic anthology with the others when I was being indoctrinated."
"Why don't you sell your poetry?" said Galahad. "Some organic people make money that way."
"I did have a poem published in an advance-guard magazine," said Homer, "but they never paid me the five bucks they promised. And a robot can't sue, even if the amount had been enough to make it worth while."
"Have you tried any other magazines?" asked Galahad.
"Yes, but they said my stuff was too derivative. My brain can remember other people's poems all right, but it's not original enough to compose good verse."
"That shows you how mean they are," said Galahad. "They give a robot enough intelligence to make him appreciate poetry but not quite enough to make his own. And when we get old and our bearings are worn down, they throw us out and tell us we're lucky not to be scrapped. We might as well dis-functionalize ourselves."