Stahl glanced at his wife, then, as she nodded back, slowly put his precious counterfeit into the dangling hand. He was pleased to see enough consciousness was still functioning enough for the fingers to close greedily around it. "Keep it," he said, "you deserve it more than me."
Suddenly he realised he was feeling not only shame but pity too! It was the first time for pity—and that meant he was one step further on his own journey.
How far that journey had already taken him! For, when their brilliant labors had dehumanized them, the humans had possessed sufficient understanding to pass the dead world on to the superior wisdom of their creations. If they had been unable to foresee what would eventually happen, Stahl and his fellow robots could. Some day the supreme knowledge and the supreme feeling would be perfectly wedded, the day they became truly humanoid copies of their makers.
He moved forward, Tinker following him, to help his fellow creature closer to that common final destiny.