'Sometimes it seems,' he said, 'that we're at the tail-end of nowhere. There are times we wonder if there is a soul that remembers we are here.'
From the direction of the ship, Richard Daniel heard the faint, strained violence of the captain's roaring.
'You'd better get on up there and unload,' he told the man. 'The captain is just sore enough he might not wait for you.'
The man chuckled thinly. 'I guess that's up to him,' he said.
He flapped the reins and clucked good-naturedly at the horses.
'Hop up here with me,' he said to Richard Daniel. 'Or would you rather walk?'
'I'm not going with you,' Richard Daniel said. 'I am staying here. You can tell the captain.'
For there was a baby sick and crying. There was a radio to fix. There was a culture to be planned and guided. There was a lot of work to do. This place, of all the places he had seen, had actual need of him.
The man chuckled once again. 'The captain will not like it.'
'Then tell him,' said Richard Daniel, 'to come down and talk to me. I am my own robot. I owe the captain nothing. I have more than paid any debt I owe him.'
The wagon wheels began to turn and the man flapped the reins again.
'Make yourself at home,' he said. 'We're glad to have you stay.'
'Thank you, sir,' said Richard Daniel. 'I'm pleased you want me.'
He stood aside and watched the wagons lumber past, their wheels lifting and dropping thin films of powdered earth that floated in the air as an acrid dust.
Make yourself at home, the man had said before he'd driven off. And the words had a full round ring to them and a feel of warmth. It had been a long time, Richard Daniel thought, since he'd had a home.
A chance for resting and for knowing — that was what he needed. And a chance to serve, for now he knew that was the purpose in him. That was, perhaps, the real reason he was staying — because these people needed him… and he needed, queer as it might seem, this very need of theirs. Here on this Earth-like planet, through the generations, a new Earth would arise. And perhaps, given only time, he could transfer to the people of the planet all the powers and understanding he would find inside himself.
And stood astounded at the thought, for he'd not believed that he had it in him, this willing, almost eager, sacrifice. No messiah now, no robotic liberator, but a simple teacher of the human race.
Perhaps that had been the reason for it all from the first beginning. Perhaps all that had happened had been no more than the working out of human destiny. If the human race could not attain directly the paranormal power he held, this instinct of the mind, then they would gain it indirectly through the agency of one of their creations. Perhaps this, after all, unknown to Man himself, had been the prime purpose of the robots.
He turned and walked slowly down the length of village street, his back turned to the ship and the roaring of the captain, walked contentedly into this new world he'd found, into this world that he would make — not for himself, nor for robotic glory, but for a better Mankind and a happier.
Less than an hour before he'd congratulated himself on escaping all the traps of Earth, all the snares of Man. Not knowing that the greatest trap of all, the final and the fatal trap, lay on this present planet.
But that was wrong, he told himself. The trap had not been on this world at all, nor any other world. It had been inside himself.
He walked serenely down the wagon-rutted track in the soft, golden afternoon of a matchless autumn day, with the dog trotting at his heels.
Somewhere, just down the street, the sick baby lay crying in its crib.
