"Love, you were going to say?" The chuckle was louder, and the glowing yellow eyes flickered aside toward the place behind the wall where Shannon was penned up. "You're being stupid, Gaspipe. Because you know what love is, you think others do. Gaspipe, I'll never know what love is. I'm not made for it."
"I see you aren't," Gascon nodded solemnly. "All right, Tom-Tom. You can find life worth living if you try for supremacy in some line—leadership—"
"That," said Tom-Tom, "is where killing comes in. And where you come in, too."
He laid down the gun and put the tips of his jointed fingers together, in a pose grotesquely like that of a mild lecturer. "I've given my case a lot of time and thought, you see. I realize that I don't fit in—humanity hasn't ever considered making a place for me. I don't have needs or reactions or wishes to fit those of humanity."
"Is that why you turn to criminals? Because they don't fit into normal human ethics, either?"
"Exactly, exactly." Tom-Tom nodded above his poised hands. "And criminals understand me, and I understand them better than you think. But," and he sounded a little weary, "they're no good, either.
"You see, Gaspipe, they scare too easily. They die too easily. Just now you overpowered one. They're not fit to associate with me on the terms I dictate. If I'm going to have power, it will turn what passes for my stomach if I have only people—people of meat and bone—under me." He made a spitting sound, such as Gascon had often faked for him in the days when the two were performing. "As I say, this is where you come in."
"In heaven's name, what do you mean?"
"You're smart, Gaspipe. You made me—the one thing that has been given artificial life. Well, you'll make other things to be animated."
"More robots?" demanded Gascon. "You want a science factory."