Derec wondered what was so interesting all of a sudden about the wall. Adam didn’t seem inclined to clue him in, either; he merely stood there, hands clenching and unclenching.

Then Derec realized what was behind the wall. Just on the other side was the hospital where Avery was still undergoing surgery.

“Erase that pattern,” he commanded, and Adam relaxed. “What was it?”

Adam turned to face Derec and Janet again. “It was a potential like those I have come to associate with emotions,” he said. “However, I have not felt this one before. It was an unspecified negative bias on all thoughts concerning Dr. Avery.”

Derec glanced over at Janet, saw that she wore an expression of triumph.

Adam saw it, too. “How can you approve?” he asked. “I have never felt this emotion, but I know what it had to be. Lucius was angry. Considering the degree of bias and the ultimate influence it had upon his actions, I would say he was furious. “

“What’s one thing a human can do that a robot can’t?” Janet asked in return.

“You wish me to say, ‘feel emotion,’ “ said Adam, “but that is incorrect. Every robot experiences a degree of potential bias on various subjects. If you wish to call it emotion, you may, but it is merely the result of experience strengthening certain positronic pathways in the brain at the expense of others.”

“And everything you know comes from experience, doesn’t it?”

“Nearly everything, yes.”

“So?”

Derec could see where her argument was leading. “A tabula rasa!” he exclaimed. He saw instant comprehension written in Janet’s smile, but Adam remained unmoved. Derec said, “ ‘ Tabula rasa ’ means ‘blank slate.’ “ It’s a metaphor for the way the human mind supposedly starts out before experience begins carving a personality into it. That’s one side of the Nature-versus-Nurture argument for the development of consciousness. Dad told me about that just a couple weeks ago, but he was talking about erasing the city Central on the Kin’s planet, and I didn’t make the connection.” He looked back at his mother. “That’s what you were trying to prove with Adam and Eve and Lucius, wasn’t it? You were trying to prove that the tabula rasa argument is valid. “

“Guilty,” she said.

“You were trying to produce human minds?” Adam asked.

Janet looked as if she wouldn’t answer, but after a moment she sighed and said, “ Ah, what the heck. Looks like that aspect of the experiment’s over anyway. Yeah, that’s one of the things I was trying to do. I was trying to create intelligence. I gave you what I consider the bare minimum in a robot: curiosity and the Three Laws, and I turned you loose to see if any of you would become anything more. Of course I didn’t count on you all getting together, but that doesn’t seem to have hurt anything. You’ve all surpassed anything I expected. Welcome to the human race.” She held out her hand.

Adam reached out gingerly, as if after all this time spent searching for the truth, he was now unsure he wanted the honor she conveyed. He took her hand in his and shook it gently. and still holding on, he asked, “What about Basalom?”

Janet shook her head. “The jury’s still out on him. I think I gave him too much initial programming for him to develop a human personality. “

“But you’re not sure?”

“No, I’m not sure. Why?”

“Because if you ’ re not sure, then neither could Lucius be, and he was right in protecting Basalom’s life.”

Derec had to admit that Adam’ s argument made sense. So why were the hackles standing up on the back of his neck? He looked back to the monitor, saw the fuzzy yellow glow that Adam said indicated anger. That was why. With only five volts going to his brain, Lucius was effectively in suspended animation at the moment. He was still furious at Avery, and if they woke him up, he might very well continue to be furious. If they were going to reanimate Frankenstein’ s monster, Derec wanted to calm him down first, at least. If possible, he wanted to do even more.

“What can we do to make sure it doesn’t happen again?” he asked aloud.

“Treat him better,” Janet said. “Follow the Laws of Humanics they’ve set up for us.”

Derec couldn’t suppress a sardonic laugh. “That may be fine for us, but what about Dad? He’s not going to do anything he doesn’t want to.”

His mother tossed her head, flinging her blond hair back over her shoulders. “Leave your father to me,” she said.

Avery woke from the anesthetic with the impression that his tongue had swollen to twice its normal size. He tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry for that. His vision was blurry, too, and when he tried to raise his right hand to rub his eyes, it didn’t respond.

He was in bad shape, that much was clear. Damn that meddlesome robot! Damn him and damn Janet for building him.

He was evidently sitting up in bed, judging from the few somatic clues he could gather. He opened his mouth and used his swollen tongue and dry mouth to croak out the single word: “Water.”

He heard a soft clink of glassware, the blessed wet gurgle of liquid being poured, and then a dark shape leaned over him and held the glass to his lips. He sipped at it, blinking his eyes as he did in an effort to clear them so he could see his benefactor.

She spoke and saved him the effort of identification. “Well, Wendy, it looks like we have a lot to talk about, and finally plenty of time to do it in.”

Turning his head away from the glass, he said, “We have nothing to discuss.” It came out more like, “We a uthi oo ithcuth.”

She understood him anyway. “Ah, well, yes we do. There’s us, for instance. I can’t really believe it’s just coincidence that brought us back together after all this time. “

Avery blinked a few more times, and his vision finally began to clear. Janet was sitting on a stool beside his bed, wearing a soft, light blue bodysuit with a zippered neck, which she’d pulled strategically low. Watch yourself, he thought as his eyes immediately strayed to the target she’d provided.

She smiled, no doubt recognizing her slight victory.

“I don’ know wha’ you’re talking abou’, “ he said carefully.

Her smile never wavered. “I think you do.” She held the glass to his lips and let him drink again while she said, “Face it; this whole city project of yours seems almost designed to attract my attention. You didn’t really think I’d ignore it once I heard about it, did you?”

Avery, s tongue seemed to be returning to normal. When Janet removed the glass, he said, “I tried not to think about you at all.”

“Didn’t work, did it? I tried the same thing.”

Her question made him distinctly uncomfortable. “What do you want from me?” he demanded. “I’m not going to take you back, if that’s it.”

“I didn’t ask that,” she said, frowning.

“What, then?”

Janet set the glass down. “Ah, Wendy. Always business. All right, then, we’ll start with my learning machines. I want you to leave them alone.”

“I told you I would before you had Lucius attack me. I’ll be glad to be rid of them.”

“I didn’t have Lucius attack you. He decided to do it on his own. Considering the provocation, I think he showed admirable restraint. “

“He injured a human to protect a robot. You call that restraint?” Avery looked down to his right hand, found the reason why it didn’t respond. I1 was encased in a sleeve of dianite from his elbow to the ends of his fingers. Tiny points of light winked on and off along its length, each one above a recessed slide control. No doubt tiny robot cells were busy inside his arm as well, repairing the damage Lucius had done.

“He injured a human to protect another human,” Janet said. “Or so he thought. Evidently that’s a trick you taught him.”

“Another of my many mistakes.”