The Invincible

by Stanisław Lem

All the machines we are familiar with serve someone else, not themselves. Thus, from a human perspective the existence of the vast metallic jungles of Regis, or its iron clouds, are quite pointless—in the same sense, it’s true, that cactuses in the deserts of Earth could be called pointless.

It wasn’t that he wanted to hide—he simply didn’t wish to take part in their conversation.