16

It took only a reasonable time, and the operation was a success.
   "I was very much against the operation, Andrew," Magdescu said, "but not for the reasons you might think. I was not in the least against the experiment, if it had been on someone else. I hated risking your positronic brain. Now that you have the positronic pathways interacting with simulated nerve pathways, it might have been difficult to rescue the brain intact if the body had gone bad"
   "I had every faith in the skill of the staff at U.S. Robots," said Andrew. "And I can eat now."
   "Well, you can sip olive oil. It will mean occasional cleanings of the combustion chamber, as we have explained to you. Rather an uncomfortable touch, I should think."
   "Perhaps, if I did not expect to go further. Self cleaning is not impossible. In fact, I am working on a device that will deal with solid food that may be expected to contain incombustible fractions-indigestible matter, so to speak, that will have to be discarded."
   "You would then have to develop an anus."
   "Or the equivalent."
   "What else, Andrew... ?"
   "Everything else."
   "Genitalia, too?"
   "Insofar as they will fit my plans. My body is a canvas on which I intend to draw ..."
   Magdescu waited for the sentence to he completed, and when it seemed that it would not be, he completed it himself. "A man?"
   "We shall see," Andrew said.
   "That's a puny ambition, Andrew. You're better than a man. You've gone downhill from the moment, you opted to become organic."
   "My brain has not suffered."
   "No, it hasn't. I'll grant you that. But, Andrew, the whole new breakthrough in prosthetic devices made possible by your patents is being marketed under your name. You're recognized as the inventor and you're being honored for it-as you should be. Why play further games with your body?"
   Andrew did not answer.
   The honors came. He accepted membership in several learned societies, including one that was devoted to the new science he had established-the one he had called robobiology but which had come to be termed prosthetology. On the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of his construction, a testimonial dinner was given in his honor at U.S. Robots. If Andrew saw an irony in this, he kept it to himself.
   Alvin Magdescu came out of retirement to chair the dinner. He was himself ninety-four years old and was alive because he, too, had prosthetized devices that, among other things, fulfilled the function of liver and, kidneys. The dinner reached its climax when Magdescu, after a short and emotional talk, raised his glass to toast The Sesquicentennial Robot.
   Andrew had had the sinews of his face redesigned to the point where he could show a human range of emotions, but he sat through all the ceremonies solemnly passive. He did not like to be a Sesquicentennial Robot.