"It would perhaps simplify our conversations," said the robot, "if you were to refer to me by a name, as is your custom. Using the first—letters—of my designation, my name would translate as Elb."
"Glad to meet you," Steffens mumbled.
"You are called 'Stef,'" said the robot obligingly. Then it added, pointing an arm at the robot near Ball: "The age of—Peb—is seventeen years, one month and four days. Peb has therefore remaining some thirty-eight years."
Steffens was trying to keep up. Then the life span was obviously about fifty-five years. But the cities, and the carbon dioxide? The robot, Elb, had said that the Makers were similar to him, and therefore oxygen and plant life would have been needed. Unless—
He remembered the buildings on Tyban IV.
Unless the Makers had not come from this planet at all.
His mind helplessly began to revolve. It was Ball who restored order.
"Do you build yourselves?" the exec asked.
Peb answered quickly, that faint note of happiness again apparent, as if the robot was glad for the opportunity of answering.
"No, we do not build ourselves. We are made by the—" another pause for a word—"by the Factory."