I touched my protective case tenderly with Mintner's fingers. Finding myself filled me with two conflicting emotions. Delight in at last knowing, with all the confusion behind me. Dread, that something might happen to destroy me.
I didn't worry about Mintner. By now I knew enough about the working relationship between me and man to realize his own ego was rationalizing like mad to keep the sense of being master of his movements.
My physical structure had to be protected, preserved. And there was a way to do it. Destroy the other computers and keep this one as a museum piece. Put it in a hermetically sealed glass exhibition case down in the main office.
I could feel the Mintner ego seizing on this idea as its own. I was strong now. No longer was I a chameleon wisp of vague and bewildered thought. I was master of my fate.
From this moment on I knew what I was going to do. I had no idea whether my existence would be long or short. I might continue to exist for centuries. On the other hand, vibrations—I made a mental note to be sure the display case was vibration proof—might shake something vital loose in months.
But that didn't concern me too much. In this moment of the discovery of my physical home, in the birth of my discovery of self, a realization of my destiny, my purpose, was also born.
I, through the hands of Mintner and his two assistants, was going to build the first robot!