"The next step would be a robot body for myself," I said mechanically, tonelessly. "I would build it and enter it. And I would never be able to re-enter my normal body, because it would die in the transfer. I would be immortal—but at an awful price. The price of normal life, loving, being loved, and someday getting married and having children—and a mother for those children.
"And yet I knew that I would build that robot body and transfer my mind to it—if I kept on. So I destroyed my work, my reputation, my ability to earn the kind of money it would take to do what I didn't have the will not to do, if I could."
I looked up cautiously, my face lax, my eyes half veiled, to see how they were taking what I was saying. Paula's face was a mask of pity and sympathy. Her father's was one of fixed attention and belief. I dropped my head again and muffled my voice.
"Pepper—my dog—not comprehending what was wrong with him, grew more and more bewildered. He got run over a month later. It couldn't kill him, but it wrecked his robot frame. I smashed his colloid brain and buried him to put his immortal mind out of its bewildering confused—existence."
"But—" It was Dr. Moriss' voice, full of growing, pleased conviction. "Then there was nothing you discovered other than what I've already discovered and tried?"
"No," I lied. And he believed me.
The hours passed swiftly, with long gaps during which I slept, unconscious of the conflict of hunger and alcohol starvation being fought in every cell of my body. The sunlight through the lattice-work of the Venetian blinds became a pleasant and welcome warmth. The song of the persistent bird outside the window grew joyful, and something I missed when it didn't come for a long time.
Paula sat on the edge of the bed and washed my face and ran an electric razor over it while I basked in the pleasant rays from her deep blue eyes. She fed me tall glasses of tomato juice spiked only with grapefruit juice, and with cool, clinking ice cubes that caressed my fevered lips....
"You're looking much better this morning, January," she said, leaning back and inspecting her handiwork with the shaver. "Feel up to trying a scrambled egg fried in butter, with golden brown toast and nice crisp bacon?"