“You’re the one who put an end to it before, aren’t you?” Sharif said. “You’re the one who buried it in the desert.”

The robot didn’t answer that.

“Can you fix it?” it said instead.

“I can fix anything!”

Sharif took the canister. She knelt beside the golden man. She made adjustments, opened its chest.

She placed the bomb inside.

Mariam held her breath, waited.

“Now what?” Saleh said.

Sharif stepped back. They all watched the golden man on the floor. Mariam thought it looked peaceful.

At first nothing happened.

Then Mariam saw it move.

19. The Return

A leg twitched, and then an arm. The golden man’s eyes opened. How had Mariam never noticed its eyes before? They were beautiful. The golden man looked at her and Mariam felt warmth and compassion and sorrow in its gaze. She looked away with effort.

The golden man’s skin began to glow.

“This better not be the black hole eating its way out from inside,” Mariam said.

“I’m sure it’s not!” Mukhtar said. Though she noticed he seemed nervous.

“It does not destroy it,” the robot said. It spoke in a quiet, devoted voice. “It powers it.”

“What sort of robot,” Mariam said, “needs a black hole for a heart?”

“This one,” the robot said.

The golden man lay on the ground. It seemed disinclined to get up.

“You are alive,” the robot said. It knelt beside the golden man. Took its hand and held it in its own.

The golden man just lay there, saying nothing.

“Why isn’t it saying anything!” Mukhtar said. He looked both excited and nervous now. He looked at Sharif.

“Don’t look at me!” she said. “I fixed it up fine.”

The robot stroked the golden man’s head gently. The golden man’s golden skin glowed.

“It has its heart,” the robot said. “But it is missing its soul.”

“Robots don’t have a . . . soul,” the jackal, Anubis, said.

“Don’t be rude!” Saleh said.

“Not rude. Just . . . honest.”

“This one does,” the robot said gently. “It took me a while to find, and it is only a fragment, but I hope it will do.”

The robot knelt over the golden man. It put its lips over the golden man’s mouth in a kiss. Mariam grabbed Mukhtar’s goggles and put them on, just in time to see—something—pass from the robot to the golden man. It wriggled into the golden man’s mouth and vanished.

Mariam thought of a flower growing undetected in the ersatz shelter for centuries and that never existed at all. . . .

Is this what you were all along? she thought. She felt a little sad, and didn’t know why.

The golden man closed its perfect eyes. It lay still. They all waited.

The golden man’s skin began to glow brighter.

It opened its eyes.

It looked at the robot.