Spofforth’s metal brain had been constructed and his body grown from living tissue at a time, long before, when engineering was in decline but the making of robots was a high art. That art too would soon decline and wither; Spofforth himself had been its highest achievement. He was the last of a series of a hundred robots designated Make Nine, the strongest and most intelligent creatures ever made by man. He was also the only one programmed to stay alive despite his own wishes.
