“What about an offworld hospital?” asked the Baroni.
“They had no ship and no money. They moved here in the second year of a seven-year drought. Then various catastrophes wiped out their next six crops. They spent what savings they had on mutated cattle, but the cattle died before they could produce young or milk. One by one all the families began leaving the planet as impoverished wards of the Democracy.”
“Including Miss Emily’s family?” I asked.
“No. Mother died when Miss Emily was nineteen, and Father died two years later.”
Then it was time for me to ask the Baroni’s question.
“So when did Miss Emily leave the planet, and why did she leave you behind?”
“She did not leave.”
I frowned. “She couldn’t have run the farm—not in her condition.”
“There was no farm left to run,” answered Sammy. “All the crops had died, and without Father there was no one to keep the machines working.”
“But she stayed. Why?”
Sammy stared at me for a long moment. It’s just as well his face was incapable of expression, because I got the distinct feeling that he thought the question was too simplistic or too stupid to merit an answer. Finally he projected another scene. This time the girl, now a woman approaching thirty, hideous open pustules on her face and neck, was sitting in a crudely-crafted hoverchair, obviously too weak to stand any more.
“No!” she rasped bitterly.
“They are your relatives,” said Sammy’s voice. “And they have a room for you.”
“All the more reason to be considerate of them. No one should be forced to associate with me—especially not people who are decent enough to make the offer. We will stay here, by ourselves, on this world, until the end.”
“Yes, Miss Emily.”
She turned and stared at where Sammy stood. “You want to tell me to leave, don’t you? That if we go to Jefferson IV I will receive medical attention and they will make me well—but you are compelled by your programming not to disobey me. Am I correct?”
“Yes, Miss Emily.”
The hint of a smile crossed her ravaged face. “Now you know what pain is.”
“It is…uncomfortable, Miss Emily.”
“You’ll learn to live with it,” she said. She reached out and patted the robot’s leg fondly. “If it’s any comfort, I don’t know if the medical specialists could have helped me even when I was young. They certainly can’t help me now.”
“You are still young, Miss Emily.”
“Age is relative,” she said. “I am so close to the grave I can almost taste the dirt.” A metal hand appeared, and she held it in ten incredibly fragile fingers. “Don’t feel sorry for me, Sammy. It hasn’t been a life I’d wish on anyone else. I won’t be sorry to see it end.”
“I am a robot,” replied Sammy. “I cannot feel sorrow.”
“You’ve no idea how fortunate you are.”
I shot the Baroni a triumphant smile that said: See? Even Sammy admits he can’t feel any emotions.
And he sent back a look that said: I didn’t know until now that robots could lie, and I knew we still had a problem.
The scene vanished.
“How soon after that did she die?” I asked Sammy.
“Seven months, eighteen days, three hours, and four minutes, sir,” was his answer.
“She was very bitter,” noted the Baroni.
“She was bitter because she was born, sir,” said Sammy. “Not because she was dying.”
“Did she lapse into a coma, or was she cogent up to the end?” I asked out of morbid curiosity.
“She was in control of her senses until the moment she died,” answered Sammy. “But she could not see for the last eighty-three days of her life. I functioned as her eyes.”
“What did she need eyes for?” asked the Baroni. “She had a hoverchair, and it is a single-level house.”
“When you are a recluse, you spend your life with books, sir,” said Sammy, and I thought: The mechanical bastard is actually lecturing us!
With no further warning, he projected a final scene for us.
The woman, her eyes no longer blue, but clouded with cataracts and something else—disease, fungus, who knew?—lay on her bed, her breathing labored.
From Sammy’s point of view, we could see not only her, but, much closer, a book of poetry, and then we heard his voice: “Let me read something else, Miss Emily.”
“But that is the poem I wish to hear,” she whispered. “It is by Edna St. Vincent Millay, and she is my favorite.”
“But it is about death,” protested Sammy.
“All life is about death,” she replied so softly I could barely hear her. “Surely you know that I am dying, Sammy?”
“I know, Miss Emily,” said Sammy.
“I find it comforting that my ugliness did not diminish the beauty around me, that it will remain after I am gone,” she said. “Please read.”
Sammy read:
“There will be rose and rhododendron
When you are dead and under ground;
Still will be heard from white syringes…”
Suddenly the robot’s voice fell silent. For a moment I thought there was a flaw in the projection. Then I saw that Miss Emily had died.
He stared at her for a long minute, which means that we did too, and then the scene evaporated.
“I buried her beneath her favorite tree,” said Sammy. “But it is no longer there.”
“Nothing lasts forever, even trees,” said the Baroni. “And it’s been five hundred years.”
“It does not matter. I know where she is.”
He walked us over to a barren spot about thirty yards from the ruin of a farmhouse. On the ground was a stone, and neatly carved into it was the following:
Miss Emily
2298-2331 G.E.
There will be rose and rhododendron.
“That’s lovely, Sammy,” said the Baroni.
“It is what she requested.”
“What did you do after you buried her?” I asked.
“I went to the barn.”
“For how long?”
“With Miss Emily dead, I had no need to stay in the house. I remained in the barn for many years, until my battery power ran out.”
“Many years?” I repeated. “What the hell did you do there?”
“Nothing.”
“You just stood there?”
“I just stood there.”
“Doing nothing?”
“That is correct.” He stared at me for a long moment, and I could have sworn he was studying me. Finally he spoke again. “I know that you intend to sell me.”
“We’ll