e, my
sense of being really at home was complete. For there, standing at the
head of the stairs that led down to the living room, was Rob O.

"Well," I said: "What are you doing here?"

He looked sheepish. "I just wondered how you were getting along
without me," he said.

I felt like grinning triumphantly, but I didn't. "Why, just fine,
Rob," I told him, "though you really should have given me notice that
you were leaving. I was worried about you."

He seemed perplexed. Apparently I wasn't acting like the bullying
creature the radio had told him to expect. When I went downstairs he
followed me, quietly, and I could feel his wide photoelectric
eye-cells upon my back.

I went over to the kitchen and lifted a bottle down off the shelf.
"Care for a drink, Rob?" I asked, and then added, "I guess not. It
would corrode you."

He nodded. Then, as I reached for a glass, his hand darted out, picked
it up and set it down in front of me. He was already reaching for the
bottle when he remembered.

"You're not supposed to wait on me any more," I said sternly.

"No," he said. "I'm not." He sounded regretful.

"There's one thing, though, that I wish you'd do. Tell me where you
used to keep my socks."

He gazed at me sadly. "I made a list," he said. "Everything is down. I
wrote your dentist appointment in also. You always forget those, you
know."

"Thanks, Rob." I lifted my glass. "Here's to your new duties, whatever
they are. I suppose you have to go back to the city now?"

Once again he nodded. "I'm an aide to one of the best androids in the
country," he told me, half proudly and half regretfully. "Jerry."

"Well, wish him luck from me," I said, and stood up. "Goodbye, Rob."

"Goodbye, Mr. Morrison."

For a moment he stood staring around the apartment; then he turned and
clanked out the door. I raised my glass again, grinning. If only the
Army didn't interfere. Then I remembered Rob's list, and a disturbing
thought hit me. Where had he, of all robots, ever learned to write?

That night I didn't go to bed. I sat listening to the radio, hoping.
And toward morning what I had expected to happen began to crop up in
the programs. The announcer's tone changed. The ring of triumph was
less obvious, less assured. There was more and more talk about acting
in good faith, the well being of all, the necessity for coming to
terms about working conditions. I smiled to myself in the darkness.
I'd built the 5's, brains and all, an