“We boarded a cargo ship to Gateway. It is cheaper to travel as cargo. I have often gone this way, sometimes as contraband. From there we took a slow bullet to Mars. It was the days when they were just starting to settle. Before Terminal City became Tong Yun. We crash-landed without ceremony. Terminal was then just a collection of jalopies strung together. Temporary bubble domes and the first subterranean levels. They were desperate for robots like us. We could go out in the hostile atmosphere, help build. It was a good time.

“I went all over Mars back in the old days. We took odd jobs with the Red Soviets, with the Chinese in the Valles Marineris, and in New Israel. We laid down the railway tracks. You take a train on Mars today, odds are the tracks you run on were laid down by an old robot. You use what you can, on Mars. And they had us, so they used us.

“You’ve never been to the Valles Marineris, Nasir, but it is subtropical in climate, ever since settlement came fast and locked in atmosphere and planted. They grow white cabbage there that is the finest in the solar system. Also Martian roses famed even in the outer worlds. The problem was the heat and the humidity.

“We came back from digging tunnels one night to find the Fondly humming to itself. Something had gone wrong with the cooling vents. It was boiling hot, and the corpses lay everywhere. The Fondly had been cooking for the workers. Now it hummed cheerfully to itself as it sharpened its knives, and they were dull with blood.

“Well, this time there was no covering up for it. A mob was gathering. It was clear what they thought of robots. Not that I could blame them just then. But it wasn’t the Fondly’s fault. It was just wired wrong, somehow.

“We made a hasty escape onto the surface. They followed us in cars but we hid and they couldn’t find us. They get drunk, on Mars, on vodka and moonshine, and race buggies across the surface until someone dies. I know you think it is an orderly place. But you’d be surprised what happens in the lonely hamlets and little townships across the planet. Every place has its own law, or more often than not none at all.

“We knew we had to split up then. Really, we should have put the Fondly out for good. But we were all quite fond of it. It wandered away quite happily, still singing to itself. I don’t know where it went. From time to time I’d hear of some unexplained, gruesome murder out in who knew where. I’d always think of the Fondly’s happy humming.