"It has always been our belief that the Makers would return. Why else would we have been built?"
Steffens thought the robot would go on, but it didn't. The question, to Elb, was no question at all.
Although Steffens knew already what the robot could not possibly have known—that the Makers were gone and would never come back—he was a long time understanding. What he did was push this speculation into the back of his mind, to keep it from Elb. He had no desire to destroy a faith.
But it created a problem in him. He had begun to picture for Elb the structure of human society, and the robot—a machine which did not eat or sleep—listened gravely and tried to understand. One day Steffens mentioned God.
"God?" the robot repeated without comprehension. "What is God?"
Steffens explained briefly, and the robot answered:
"It is a matter which has troubled us. We thought at first that you were the Makers returning—" Steffens remembered the brief lapse, the seeming disappointment he had sensed—"but then we probed your minds and found that you were not, that you were another kind of being, unlike either the Makers or ourselves. You were not even—" Elb caught himself—"you did not happen to be telepaths. Therefore we troubled over who made you. We did detect the word 'Maker' in your theology, but it seemed to have a peculiar—" Elb paused for a long while—"an untouchable, intangible meaning which varies among you."
Steffens understood. He nodded.
The Makers were the robots' God, were all the God they needed. The Makers had built them, the planet, the universe. If he were to ask them who made the Makers, it would be like their asking him who made God.
It was an ironic parallel, and he smiled to himself.