"In time, 63-17-B, you shall be tested again. If it is our opinion you have gained back what we thought you once possessed, you will again be elevated to a higher station."
63-17-B cursed Central Intelligence on a private wavelength. Central Intelligence was the creator of perfect plans. If a plan misfired, Central Intelligence could not be held responsible. Since accidents of nature had never been considered valid excuses, blame always fell on the executing Robot. Until recently, 63-17-B had managed to beat the system, largely through luck. Now while he realized it was the most mechanical thing in the world to do as you were told, he could not hide his bitter disappointment. But he pushed it from his mind all at once when he felt another mind nibbling at his private wavelength. No one could be trusted, not when each Robot tried to outdo every other Robot in the eyes of Central Intelligence, not when private thoughts could be intercepted by monitors, not when communal thinking was considered preferable to individual thinking.... That thought made 63-17-B shudder, his joints clanking as a sudden surge of power, the electrical equivalent of adrenal secretions, coursed through his frame. He was indeed thinking not along the prescribed lines. Probably something was wrong with him.
"This is ironical," said Amos Westler as the first inert Robot came sliding down the conveyor belt to stop, a rusted man-shaped creature twice man's size with huge conical head and withdrawn antenna, in front of his bench. "We'll never learn anything this way. You won't learn the whereabouts of Diane at this bench, and I won't learn what I've come to find out."
"We're not on duty twenty-four hours a day," Johnny reminded him, unfastening leg-joints with a large, wrench-like instrument and wiping the parts with an oily rag before he reassembled them. "If Diane is here, I'll find her."
"Well, we've learned nothing so far. They took us into the Citadel through a tile-walled tunnel—"
"Surely one of the wonders of the world!" Johnny cried, remembering.
"The world has many wonders, natural and man-made, if we could but see them. Anyway, they then deposited us in those underground quarters where all the humans seem to live here. The old hag interviewed us—"
"Yes. She wouldn't say if she'd seen Starbuck and Diane or not when I described them, but it sure made her smile. I think they're here in the Citadel, Amos."
"—then assigned us to this repair bay for work. Do you realize that except for the brief time it took to go from the tunnel exit to the underground quarters, we haven't seen the light of day. Try learning something in these, these caves!"