admit it. You are very pretty--even by
Pluralist standards. You are--"
This time she did not stumble against me. It wasn't necessary. I drew
her to me, and I kissed her a long kiss. Then I told her I loved her,
and women, I suppose, will always be women, because she said she knew
it.
I will take Nari back to our village in the Sunset Land, where we will
be married by the laws of my people. And if ever there is to be peace
between the Pluralists and the Onists, it may, after all, come on these
grounds. The Onists have their beliefs, and so I hate them for their
impious thoughts. But the love of a man for a maid exists apart from
that.
It won't be easy. Our arguing continued all the way back to the Sunset
Land, and Nari is as stubborn as I am firm.
"There is one Maker," she said.
And I told her, "No, there are many."
Or later, as we neared the Sunset Land, we picked up the thread of our
thoughts again. Pluralist or Onist, we androids are dogmatic creatures.
"One Robot created us all before he went to the stars," said Nari.
"Robots," I said. "Many Robots." But I kissed her.
THE END
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _If Worlds of Science Fiction_ July
1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
typographical errors have been corrected without note.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The One and the Many, by Milton Lesser
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ONE AND THE MANY ***
***** This file should be named 30386.txt or 30386.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/3/8/30386/
Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may
|