Harry Vinson smiled. "And have you the will and the ambition to build a better machine to take your place? And if you have, have you the desire to step aside?"
"I can join it—"
"But machine or human, there comes a time when the corporeal being is worn out. No matter how excellent the replacement parts, nor how well executed is the repair, there comes a time when machine or body is worn out and must be replaced. So you will go on building machines of no better capability; you will, you say, spread out across the universe. But for what? Just for the useless end of occupation?"
"But what is ambition? What drives it into being?"
"Ambition takes many forms and many angles," said Vinson thoughtfully. "One man works to appear more desirable in the eyes of a loved one; another man may hope to leave his stamp on civilization's future; a third may want sheer animal comfort; a fourth may crave financial domination while his brother may want only to tinker with nuts and bolts in an effort to assuage his curiosity. One man's meat is another man's poison, you know."
"And you, yourself?"
"I, too, have many facets, as has any man. I started to build you because you could aid me and mine, because by building you I could increase the efficiency of mankind. When you came to cognizance and left to start this fight, I went to fight you because I believe that nothing is truly capable of defeating its constructor, who must necessarily know more in order to complete the thing in the first place. Then—"
"And then?" asked the machine eagerly.
"And then I met Narina. Then I strove more furiously to defeat you because I saw in Narina something that might answer all of my desires—providing that we could win the opportunity to try life together."