He seizes me and I drop my Kennington's flowers.
I cannot drain him. My coils are already loaded near their capacity, and he is
specially insulated.
There are dozens around me now, fearing and hating. They will junk me and I
will lie beside Kennington.
"Rust in peace," they will say.. I am sorry that I cannot keep my promise to
Fritz.
"Release him!"
No!
It is shrouded and moldering Fritz in the doorway of the mausoleum, swaying,
clutching at the stone. He always knows..
"Release him! I, a human, order it."
He is ashen and gasping, and the sunlight is doing awful things to him.
--The ancient circuits click and suddenly I am free.
"Yes, master," says the Over. "We did not know."
"Seize that robot!"
He points a shaking emaciated finger at him.
"He is the werebot," he gasps. "Destroy him! The one gathering flowers was
obeying my orders. Leave him here with me."
He falls to his knees and the final darts of day pierce his flesh.
"And go! All the rest of you! Quickly! It is my order that no robot ever enter
another graveyard again!"
He collapses within and I know that now there are only bones and bits of rotted
shroud on the doorstep of our home.
Fritz has had his final joke - a human masquerade.
I take the roses to Kennington, as the silent `bots file out through the gate
forever, bearing the unprotesting Overbot with them. I place the roses at the foot
of the monument - Kennington's and Fritz's - the monument of the last,
strange, truly living ones.
Now only I remain unjunked.
