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You can’t build a robot with the necessary sensitivity. This world has no seasons. Three identical trees standing side by side can have ripe fruit, green pods, and buds, at any given time. Each tree may support three types of creeper, each of which produces a usable product, with all three at separate points in the growth cycle. A Shambler knows instinctively when any given item is ripe. ” Allan accepted the information as valid, and tried a new tack. ” “Oh yes, Tes. That proves nothing whatever.

The skin was a uniform dull green, and innocent of covering; no sex organs were visiable. The entire body was trembling, as though afflicted with ague. One shaking hand clutched the strap of a carrying sack, slung over one narrow shoulder, and the other was held before the face, palm inward, in an odd gesture of seeming appeal. Allan saw that the raised hand had three long thin fingers, apparently without an opposing member. “Back away slowly,” Jeri said in a low voice. ” Allan was watching the dull brown eyes, which were blinking furiously.

There is always enough to eat and we require no environmental protection. We have none of the conflicts between individuals, or groups of individuals, which characterize your society. But this is not enough. We seek to improve the life of the individual within the species, and this entails increasing the natural lifespan, eliminating enemies, perfecting a science of medicine—a concept new to us—and achieving the ability to enjoy pleasure, which we now know to be lacking in our lives. All this we can accomplish by means of the knowledge now stored in our memory, once the land is again ours.