"Why do you suppose Robots Incorporated chose this asteroid as a proving ground?"
"They—they said the mine would afford an opportunity to observe how well the robots adapted themselves to actual working conditions."
"That's not all. They wouldn't let you go into this blind."
"No," she admitted nervously. "They mentioned something else that struck me at the time, but it was too golden an opportunity to pass up. They said that should the experiment prove—ah—impractical, they would have the infection isolated on a small asteroid well out in the belt."
"Exactly. Look, I helped develop these robots. I've been on the problem seven years, but it was started long before I joined the experimental staff of Robots Incorporated." He paused.
"In fact," he went on dryly, "they were predicted even before science had advanced to a point where it could set up the intricate nervous system necessary. A conscious machine, Sofi, is the result of fusing two sciences which have always been considered more or less antagonistic."
"You mean psychology and physics?" Sofi had begun to pace nervously up and down the room.
He nodded.
"It was a logical deduction from mechanistic psychology, which itself is an outgrowth of the old school of Behaviorism. Mental life is response to stimulus. Consciousness is like the spark between two electrodes in a circuit of feeling arising from viscera, muscles, blood vessels, glands—"
"Get to the point!" commanded Sofi.