At last he sat down on the bench and an uncontrolled sob shook his frame briefly as his numbed brain began to relax. No wonder she had quizzed him so hopefully that afternoon; he had thought it the sensitivity of a young girl who hated to see anything destroyed. She had not only been in sympathy with the roboes but one of them.
Now they could travel to the stars and the world would well be rid of them. Or would it? His mind flashed an image of the lovely Shiela when she was amused, gay laughter tinkling out or the mischievous twinkle in her eyes when she teased him.
"Don?"
The youth's head sprang up, hopefully. Surely, with the area guarded so closely, she couldn't have come back.
"Don?" the voice asked again. In the dim light from the house, he saw that it was Stone. The scientist had seen him by that time and hurried over to sit beside him.
"Forgive me, son," he begged, laying a hand on his shoulder. "If all of this trouble hadn't come about, no one would ever have discovered the truth; she was exactly the same as everyone else."
"That's what I can't understand," protested Don. "I was with you before Primo and the other roboes and knew Shiela then. She—she had consciousness and reason even before then, Doctor Stone."
The older man nodded. "Until Primo's disclosure, Donald, concerning how he obtained his, I was somewhat nonplussed about Shiela. She was modelled after the daughter my wife and I would have liked to have had but never could. All the care and love that a father and a scientist could pour into his effort, went into the creation of Shiela."
"But her inner personalities, what about that?"
"It's apparent to me now. During a later experiment with radiation, at which time she was helping me, a shield broke down and bathed Shiela almost to the point of burning her. Fortunately, I had been behind even another shield or would have been instantly killed. It was shortly after that that I noticed the change in Shiela; my wife and I were so overjoyed that we determined to pass her off as our very own daughter."