"Forget it, Alice. That's outside his experience and beyond his comprehension."
"I know," Alice sighed. "When he begins to show some of the signs of intelligence a baby has, I'll be able to think of him as a human being."
"Sure, darling," Dr. MacNare said.
"Do you think he ever will?"
"That," Dr. MacNare said, "is the big question. I think he will. I think so now even more than I did at the start. Aside from eating and sleeping, he has no avenue of expression except his robot body, and no source of reward except that of making sense—human sense."
The days passed, and became weeks, then months. During the daytime when her husband was at the university and her son was at school, Alice would spend most of her hours with Adam, forcing herself to smile at him and talk to him as she had to Paul when he was a baby. But when she watched his motions through the transparent back of his head, his leg motions remained those of attempted walking and attempted running.
Then, one day when Adam was four months old, things changed—as abruptly as the turning on of a light.
The unrewarding walking and running movements of Adam's little legs ceased. It was evening, and both Dr. MacNare and his wife were there.
For a few seconds there was no sound or movement from the robot body. Then, quite deliberately, Adam said, "Ah."
"Ah," Dr. MacNare echoed. "Mm, Mm, ah. Ma-ma."