"It wouldn't work. The living voice can't be imitated so as to get past the sound analyzers. Humans must be on the flagship. Don't you understand? There must be two humans besides Vilbis, who must be a prisoner. Is he in with you on this?"
"He thinks he is." Pwowp smiled broadly.
"Then there remains only...." 2615 turned to look back the way they had come.
"The two humans," Pwowp said, nodding. "Can they be made to say the right words, do the right things?"
2615 looked down at his metal fingers, slowly curving them into claws. "They will do what I ask them to do—by that time," it said.
Pwowp regarded the robot curiously. "Are you sure?"
"Yes. I broke their arms today. That can be the beginning of their conditioning. Pain. Torture. They will plead. Sometimes when they plead I will make them do things, and as a reward I will withhold pain and torture. In the end they will be beyond thinking. They won't consider that one word from them might ruin the plan. To keep from feeling more pain—ever to delay pain for another second—they will gladly sacrifice the entire human race. That is conditioning."
"Then nothing can go wrong. We will have conditioned the robots for the one specific operation. Our fleet will remain in space until you and I have accomplished our task. Then we will send the signal for it to come in and occupy the Earth. When it's all over you will undoubtedly be the leader of the new race—the robots of Earth."
"The leader," 2615 said. "Yes. The Leader."
Pwowp watched 2615 ride the travelwalk out to the grav-cylinder, and there was a quiet smile of contentment hovering on his lips.