"Then ... I am a machine, too? A machine created by mental, rather than physical processes, but a machine nonetheless?"
"In a sense," the alien said thoughtfully, "you could be called that—though to compare you, as an artistic creation, with that trumpery piece of gimcrack...."
"Don't call her that!" Emrys shouted. "She's dead!"
Uvrei began to laugh quietly. After a little, Emrys began to laugh, too. "I'm being foolish," he said.
"Extremely foolish," Uvrei agreed. "Resign yourself, my son, and accept your fate. That is what we immortals have all had to do, one by one."
Of course he could do that, Emrys thought. After all, he wouldn't be as badly off as the other Earth people when the Morethans came; whatever else happened, he, at least, could not be turned into a component part of a little golden pill. Immortality was a dull future, but perhaps, after the Morethans arrived, it would become more interesting.
"Good-by, son of my spirit," Uvrei said. "We shall meet again corporeally in a few centuries." The fog thickened about him and disappeared, leaving its characteristic odor behind.
And still Emrys could not resign himself. Dyall could have had this, too, if he had wanted it. This was what he was offered and what he was strong enough to refuse. If I accept my fate, then I will always know that I have come off second best to him. And this prospect, more than immortality, more than the knowledge of what would happen to Earth and its people, was the one that Emrys found intolerable.
IX