Planch stood with hands folded before him, head lowered, and said nothing.

Sinter glared at him. “You’re not happy at this news? You should be delighted. It means you’ll have an official pardon for your transgressions. You have proved invaluable.”

“But we have not found Lodovik Trema,” Liso whispered, barely audible.

“Give us time!” Sinter crowed. “We’ll find all of them. Now-let’s bring in the machine!”

“You should not drain its energies,” Liso said, almost as if she felt pity for it.

“It’s lasted thousands of years,” Sinter said lightly, unperturbed. “It will last a few weeks more, and that’s all I need.”

Planch stiffened and stood to one side as the broad door opened again. Another guard entered, followed by four more, surrounding a shabbily dressed figure about Planch’s height, slim but not thin, hair ragged and face stained with dirt. Its eyes seemed flat, listless. The guards carried high-powered stun weapons, easily capable of shorting out the robot and frying its internal works.

“A female,” Sinter said, “as you see. How interesting-female robots! And fully capable sexually, I understand-examined by one of our physicians. Makes me wonder if in the past humans actually made robots to bear children! What would the children be like, us-or them? Biological, or mechanical? Not this one, however. Nothing besides the cosmetic and pneumatic-not fully practical.”

The feminine robot stood alone and silent as the guards withdrew, weapons held ready.

“If only the recent attempt on the Emperor’s life had been made by a robot,” Sinter said, then added unctuously, “Sky forbid!”

Planch narrowed his eyes. The man’s political savvy was weakening with every moment of perceived glory.

Vara Liso approached the robot with a worried expression. “This one is so like a human,” she muttered. “Even now it’s difficult to pick her out from, say, you, or you, Farad.” She pointed at Planch and then at Sinter. “She has humanlike thoughts, even humanlike concerns. I felt something similar in the robot we could not capture-”

“The one that got away.” Sinter smiled broadly.

“Yes. He seemed almost human-maybe even more human than this one.”

“Well, let us not forget they are none of them human,” Sinter said. “What you feel is the creative drollery of engineers thousands of years dead.”

“The one we could not capture…” She looked directly at Mors Planch and once again he suppressed a shiver. “He was bulkier, not very good-looking, with a distinct character to his face. I would have thought he was human…but for this flavor to his thoughts. He was about the same size and shape as the shorter, bulkier robot on your tape.”

“See? We almost had him,” Sinter said. “Just that close.” He pinched his fingers together. “And we’ll have him yet. Lodovik Trema and all the others. Even the tall one whose name we do not know…” Sinter approached the feminine robot. It wobbled slightly on its mechanical ankles, but there came no mechanical sound from its frame.

“Do you know the name of the one I am looking for?” Sinter asked. The robot turned to face him. Its voice emerged from parted jaws and writhing lips, a harsh croak. It spoke an old dialect of Galactic Standard, not heard on Trantor for thousands of years, except by scholars, just barely understandable.

“I ammm the lasssst,” the robot said. “Abandonn-n-ned. Not funnn-n-nctional.”

“I wonder,” Sinter said. “Did you ever meet Hari Seldon? Or Dors Venabili, Seldon’s Tiger?”

“I do not knn-n-now those names.”

“Just a hunch…Unless there are billions of robots here, something even I give no credence to…You must make contact with each other now and then. Must know each other.”

“I do not knn-n-n-now these things.”

“Pitiful,” Sinter said. “What do you think, Planch? Surely you’ve heard of Seldon’s superhuman companion, the Tiger. Do you think we’re looking at her now?”

Planch examined the robot more closely. “If she was a robot, and if she’s still on Trantor, or still functional, why would she allow herself to be captured?”

“Because she’s a broken-down bucket of oxidation and decay! “ Sinter shouted, waving his hands and glaring at Planch. “A wreck. Garbage, to be discarded. But worth more to us than any treasure on Trantor.”

He circled the robot, which seemed disinclined to watch his motions.

“I wonder what we can do to access its memories,” Sinter murmured. “And what we’ll learn when we do.”

Linge Chen allowed his servant, Kreen, to dress him in full regalia for the judge-administrator role of Chief Commissioner. Chen had designed these robes himself, and those of his fellow Commissioners, using elements of designs from hundreds and even thousands of years ago. First came the self-cleaning undergarments he wore all the time, sweet-smelling and supple, light as air; next the black cassock, hanging to his ankles and brushing lightly at his bare feet; after that, the surplice, dazzling gold and red, and finally the guard, a sheer mantle of dark gray cinched at the waist. On his short-cut black hair sat a simple skullcap with two dark green ribbons hanging just behind his ears.

When Kreen had finished his adjustments, Linge Chen regarded himself in the mirror and the imager, touched his hem and the angle of his cap to suggest adjustments, and finally nodded approval.

Kreen stood back, chin in hand. “Most imposing.”

“That is not my purpose today, to be imposing,” Linge Chen said. “In less than an hour, I am to appear before the Emperor in these gaudy robes, summoned without a chance to change into more appropriate garb, and behave as if I have been caught off guard. I will be a little confused and I will vacillate between the two impossible options given to me. My enemy will appear to triumph, and the fate of Trantor, if not the Empire, will teeter in the balance.”

Kreen smiled confidently. “I hope all goes well, sire.”

Linge Chen tightened his already thin lips and gave the merest indication of a shrug. “I suppose that it will. Hari Seldon has said it will, claims to have proved it mathematically. Do you believe in him, Kreen?”

“I know very little about him, sire.”

“A marvelously irritating man. Yes, well, to act my part, in the next few days, I am going to bring an Emperor to his knees, and make him beg. Before, it has been an unpleasant duty to step from my traditional role. This time, it will be a delight, a reward for my hard service. I will be lancing a boil in the tissue of the Empire, and allowing a persistent and painful lesion to drain.”

Kreen absorbed this in thoughtful silence.

Linge Chen raised his finger to his lips and gave his servant a narrow, wry smile. “Shh. Don’t tell anyone.”

Kreen shook his head slowly, with great dignity.