stairs, _if
only to see what it's like with another person about_.

At about noon of the second day after that, he remembered that thought
with regret.

The ancient roads, seldom used and never repaired, were rough and
bumpy. Having no flying robots, Robert was compelled to transport
himself and a few mechanical servants in ground vehicles. He
had--idiotically, he now realized--started with the dawn, and was
already tired.

Consequently, he was perhaps unduly annoyed when two tiny spy-eyes
flew down from the hills to hover above his caravan on whirring little
propellers. He tried to glance up pleasantly while their lenses
televised pictures to their base, but he feared that his smile was
strained.

The spy-eyes retired after a few minutes. Robert's vehicle, at his
voiced order, turned onto a road leading between two forested hills.

_Right there_, he thought four hours later, _was where I made my
mistake. I should have turned back and gone home!_

He stood in the doorway of a small cottage of pale blue trimmed with
yellow, watching his robots unload baggage. They were supervised by
Blue Two, the spare for Blue One.

* * * * *

Also watching, as silently as Robert, was a pink-and-blue striped
robot which had guided the caravan from the entrance gate to the
cottage. After one confused protest in a curiously high voice, it had
not spoken.

_Maybe we shouldn't have driven through that flower bed_, thought
Robert. _Still, the thing ought to be versatile enough to say so. I
wouldn't have such a gimcrack contraption!_

He looked up as another humanoid robot in similar colors approached
along the line of shrubs separating the main lawns from that
surrounding the cottage.

"Marcia-Joan has finished her nap. You may come to the house now."

Robert's jaw hung slack as he sought for a reply. His face flushed at
the idea of a robot's offering _him_ permission to enter the house.

Nevertheless, he followed it across the wide lawn and between banks of
gaily blossoming flowers to the main house. Robert was not sure which
color scheme he disliked more, that of the robot or the unemphatic
pastel tints of the house.

The robot led the way inside and along a hall. It pulled back a
curtain near the other end, revealing a room with furniture for human
use. Robert stared at the girl who sat in an armchair, clad in a long
robe of soft, pink material.

She looked a few years younger than he. H