Toughness was their chief trait. Continually knocking against each other and starting fights, playing games that usually ended in fierce brawling, executing odd practical jokes, or banding together into groups and staging small battles that contained more strategy than one would expect, they had some resemblance to frontier people on the Settler planets and in Earth’s history.

In contrast to the roughness of their natures, they had organized themselves into a fairly intricate society, including a government laden with bribery and graft. The Watchful Eye had been quite taken with this group, but had had to reject it because it exhibited too many weaknesses, and outside of their corrupt politics and a tendency toward lively song, they had displayed minimal intelligence.

Most of its experiments were failures because they turned out to be too limited, even though each group displayed different characteristics. It had wanted to discover more about the Laws of Humanics (which stated, more or less, that human beings must not harm themselves or allow others to come to harm, must not give robots dangerous orders, and must not harm robots unless the action could save other human beings), but its experimental creations generally became too independent, forming their own societies and proving nothing about the ethics that were the foundation of the Laws.

On one side of the room, a large group was singing a raucous song, while a wild melee ensued near the Watchful Eye’s feet. Stepping carefully into spaces the tiny creatures tended to create when one of the larger entities came into the room that was their world, it managed to get about one-third of the way across the room before Mandelbrot and Timestep came through the open doorway. The Watchful Eye looked back for a moment and saw what it had expected. The two robots had come to a standstill. Uncertain of how to wind their way across the overpopulated room, they further wondered if their actions here should be governed by the First Law of Robotics. They were not sure if the law even applied to this situation. It walked on, knowing that even if there were creatures under its foot as it came down, they were used to visitors and adept enough to scamper out of the way. It easily reached the other side of the room, where some of the male citizens performed odd mating rituals with the females. (There had been no actual mating in any of the experimental creatures’ societies, although pairing off and flirtation were not uncommon.)

Before Mandelbrot and Timestep could work their way cautiously across the room, the Watchful Eye was on a new street and making its way toward its tunnel escape route. In its mind, coolly analytical in spite of the danger around it, it continued to formulate its plan for the destruction of Robot City.

Adam found Eve standing at the entrance to a small park set in the middle of one of several Robot City building clusters. This cluster included a small art museum, a library, an auditorium meant for music performance, and one of those plazas with customerless commercial shops that dotted the city. The park itself was a circle of trees just inside a small metallic picket fence, with attractive groupings of benches, bushes, and flower beds throughout.

Although Eve stood still and looked into the park, it was clear to Adam that she was not studying its landscape or evaluating its function. She was staring at a particular comer, assuring herself that the activity she had just completed there had left no trace.

He stood by her side for a long while before speaking. She continued to resemble Ariel, while Adam had changed from Avery back to Derec. An outside observer might have judged them to be as romantically involved as the two humans were, the way they stood together silently against the park’s romantic setting. But that was only another facet of their mimicry, and romance was not a part of their repertoire, unless their creator had some later surprise to spring upon them.

“This is where the dancers are?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“You have buried all of them someplace in this park?”

“Some of them. Others are elsewhere.”

“Do you know why you have performed this ritual?”

“It seemed appropriate. When we encountered the first group in that lot, they were burying their dead. I finished that job, so it seemed to me balanced that I do the same task for the dancers. I thought that, whatever they were, someone should perform the rites that appeared to be appropriate to their society. Am I wrong?”

“I would have no way of knowing that. Right and wrong seem to be the kind of polarity to which beings like Derec and Ariel and Or. Avery give importance. They are concerned with moral values. We do not have to be, except as they apply to us.”

“I thought we were moral beings, too.”

“We are. But we do not have to fret in the way that they do about values. And ours are less complicated, governed only by the distinctions of set codes of behavior. You have seen how they cannot even agree among themselves on an issue.”

“Yes. Dr. Avery seems almost like an enemy of Derec and Ariel, while Derec and Ariel do not always get along with each other. Why cannot they agree on proper rules of conduct, Adam?”

“I do not know. We must observe them further.”

“They differed in their attitudes about the dancers. Ariel seemed genuinely sorrowful about their deaths, while Avery appeared to be indifferent.”

“He was fearful of his own death. He admitted that.”

“Yes. I have no real idea what death is. It seems to be an operational being becoming nonoperational.”

“I believe that is somewhat accurate. Did you have feelings about the dancers when they became nonoperational?”

“I cannot answer you. Something was in my head but I do not know what. I thought perhaps it was a positronic disturbance, but I am not sure. All I know was that as I carried each dancer away from the medical facility, I sensed that there was an injustice in their lives, but I could not yet discern what. If that is feelings, then I may be a robot with feelings.”

“The evidence is inconclusive at best. Will you bury more of these people if we discover their corpses?”

“Yes, if it is possible.”

“Should you wish it, I will help you.”

They stood a while longer, then Adam said, “When I was helping Dr. Avery, he told me a story. He said I should know it because of our names. It went like this: Adam and Eve and Pinch Me went out to take a swim. Adam and Eve got drowned, and who got saved?”

Eve waited for Adam to continue. When he did not, she said, “That is incomprehensible as a story, Adam.”

“No, you’re supposed to answer the question. Perhaps it is a riddle. Try again; Adam and Eve got drowned, and who got saved?”

“Logic seems to indicate Pinch Me.”

“That’s right. And then I am supposed to do this.”

Adam put his hand against her arm, finger and thumb spread. Gradually he brought the two digits together and pressed against her skin in an approximation of a human pinch.

Adam dropped his hand away. Eve watched the gesture and said, “And…?”

“And what?”

“What is the point?”

“I do not know. I didn’t know when Dr. Avery did it either, but he seemed to think it was worth smiling about. When I asked him to explain it, he became angry.”

“Do you think it is an allegory? You see, Adam and Eve die and then Pinch Me is the survivor. Therefore, the teller touches the listener in a shared satisfaction that life goes on when other people die. Do you think that was what Dr. Avery was trying to convey?”

“Perhaps. He appears to want to live on very much, so this could have been his way of explaining life to me. These people can be like that, telling stories laced with obscurity when data is required.”