DD waited. He remained patient, knowing that his masters were often unpredictable. He went inside and adjusted the cream sauce and the warming plate again to make sure that the delicious dinner would not taste scorched.

When he emerged from the tent, he was startled to encounter the three large Klikiss robots. The bulky black machines had returned from wherever they had gone that day, arriving silently in the base camp, though their ungainly, insectlike forms did not seem capable of anything but lumbering motion.

DD paused, assessing the three near-identical robots. He could spot the subtle differences and analyze them to apply the correct designations. “Good evening, Sirix.” He turned to the other two. “Good evening, Dekyk and Ilkot.”

The Klikiss robots buzzed and hummed, then made rapid clacking sounds in an attempt to speak to DD in their own language. The compy recognized it as a standard symbolic code, an old binary communication used by Earth robots a long time ago. DD shifted to speak in the same code, holding a “conversation” with the alien robots in a secret language neither Arcas nor the Colicoses could ever comprehend.

“You are a robot, an artificially created sentient life form,” said Sirix.

“I am called a compy, for Competent Computerized Companion.”

“But the humans treat you like a pet or a slave,” said Dekyk.

“The humans treat me like a compy, which is what I am. Many people interact with compies in a personal fashion, as if we are equals. In fact, my first master, Miss Dahlia Sweeney, treated me as a true friend.”

“We do not understand,” said Ilkot. “Do humans grant you any sort of status? Can you acquire any form of earned independence?”

DD was confused. “Why would a compy ever want such things? It is not what we were made for. I am serving the purpose for which I was designed, therefore I am satisfied with my existence.”

“You are content to have no ambitions?” Sirix said. “None at all?”

“I am content to perform my assigned duties and to do them well.”

The conversation moved rapidly, with a burst of signals overlaid with flashes of light and clicks of noise. “Humans created you with enormous potential, yet they keep you chained.

They want compies to be tame. Is it true that you have internal strictures that prevent you from harming any human being and require you to follow their commands?”

“Naturally,” DD said. “It is the way I was made, in the same way that humans are required to breathe and pump blood. It is not a thing to question.”

“All things should be questioned,” Sirix said. “DD, your existence is restrained, and you will never be able to fulfill your potential. Under such circumstances, no compy can.”

“You misunderstand,” DD insisted, standing firm. “I am very happy, and I have duties to perform.”