Now, directly ahead of him, he could see the monolithic slab of the U.N. building. Like one structure in five, it stood incredibly intact, a remembrance of the past and a promise of the future. We can build again, Johnny thought, without the Robots and the Plague. They could build again or they would die. Natural world or artificial world—men or Robots—they could not survive jointly.
Battered and broken but still functioning adequately, Johnny's Robot pushed through the debris south of the U.N. building to the edge of the river. He stood there a moment and stared upstream at the gaunt ruins of a bridge, now tumbled down the river and resting on the river-bottom, thrusting its towers up beyond the surface of the water and toward the sky. Men had used that bridge once, long ago but within the memory of Johnny's father, to reach the country beyond. The bridge might be rebuilt. Men might learn to use it again. It was as if, in dying, Amos Westler had transferred his own vision to Johnny, showing him a dream of the unborn tomorrow—its birth or stillborn death depending entirely upon Johnny's success or failure today.
Half a dozen Robots stood about the wide terrace leading to the building, but Johnny ignored them, for he had passed many in the broken streets of the city and grown accustomed to them. He entered the building through a door of glass and metal and was not aware of the Robots entering it behind him.
His impulse was to climb down from his Robot, to stretch his cramped arms and legs and find something to eat, then explore the wonders of this new place. Above his head, the ceiling was high and vaulted. Ramps led away, curving and graceful, in all directions and he longed to feel his feet, his own feet, upon them, and to explore until he satiated himself with this wonder and sought another.
To leave the Robot would be suicide. Had the thought been his own—or a metal-made thought, instilled in him some unknown way, an unbidden suicide thought? It was less specific than the commands of the Robot that had perished in the repair bay, but Johnny guessed it came from outside nevertheless.
He advanced mechanically, for Westler had given him careful directions. The ramps led up, higher and higher, past the rooms in which men from many lands once, long ago, used to debate their future—then higher still, climbing....
There was noise behind him. He whirled in cramped quarters, peered from the Robot's second set of eyes. A dozen Robots climbed the ramp behind him, gaining. He let his mind drift blankly, let their thoughts reach him.
He is not wandering aimlessly. Somehow he learned. He learned. Capture him.
He ran now, awkwardly, his own Robot not smooth and graceful, a flawless piece of machinery like the others. He clomped and clattered up the ramp and prayed for time.