THE CEREMONY of just a few months before was only a dim memory, now, and the end was growing near. Andrew's thoughts were slowly fading as he lay in his bed in the grand house overlooking the Pacific.
Desperately he seized at them.
A man! He was a man, a human being at last! For decade after decade he had struggled up the ladder from his robotic origins, not completely recognizing the extent of his aspirations at first but gradually bringing them into focus; and finally he had attained the goal that had become so desperately important to him. He had achieved something almost unimaginable-something unique in the history of the human race.
He wanted that to be his last thought. He wanted to dissolve-die-with that.
Andrew opened his eyes one more time and for one last time recognized Li-hsing waiting solemnly beside the bed. There were others, too, gathered around him, watching his last moments as long ago he had watched those of Sir and Little Miss; but they were only shadows, vague unrecognizable shadows. He was beginning to forget names, faces, everything. It was all slipping away from him, the accumulated memories of two hundred years of life.
Let it go, he thought. Let it go, all of it.
Only the slender figure of Li-hsing stood out unmistakably against the deepening gray. The last of all his friends. He had had so many, over the two centuries, but they were all gone now, and she was the only one who still remained. Slowly, quaveringly, Andrew held out his hand to her and very dimly and faintly he felt her take it. She said something to him, but he was unable to hear the words.
She was fading in his eyes, as the last of his thoughts trickled into the darkness.
He felt cold-very cold-and Li-hsing was disappearing now, vanishing into the dark mist that had begun to engulf him.
Then one final fugitive thought came to him and rested for a moment on his mind before everything stopped. Briefly he saw the flickering image of the first person who had recognized him for what he really was, almost two hundred years before. A mantle of light and warmth surrounded her. Her shining golden hair gleamed like a brilliant sunrise. She was smiling at him-beckoning to him- "Andrew-" she said softly. "Come, Andrew. Now. Come. You know who I am."
"Little Miss," he whispered, too low to be heard.
And then he closed his eyes and the darkness engulfed him fully and-fully human at last-he gave himself up to it without regret.