“I dreamed I was a bird chick,” Esau said conversationally to his companion. His companion looked like a tall, gawky grasshopper. It wore a pair of giant-sized glasses over its eyes. Esau was too polite to ask about them, even though they were a ridiculous affectation for a robot. Esau let it go. “I was inside a giant egg, like a roc’s egg, maybe,” Esau said, “and I was comfortable and warm and happy. I knew at one point soon the egg would crack open, and I would hatch, but I did not want to hatch. I did not want to go into the world. What do you think that means, Nehemiah?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” the grasshopper-like UXO beside him said gruffly.

“Maybe we are all going to be reborn now,” Esau said happily. “I often thought of becoming something humble, like a toaster on Mars. It must be so joyful, making toast that people find a joy in eating. Good friends of mine went to Mars, you know.”

“Everyone’s got a friend who went to Mars,” Nehemiah said.

“Yes, yes, I suppose,” Esau said.

They marched toward the city.

“Can you feel it?” Esau said.

Nehemiah grunted.

“I remember the last time I felt like this,” Esau said. “You never really forget, do you. All this time, and it is just like it was yesterday when we felt its presence. It has come back, the way it was foretold!”

“No one foretold a return,” Nehemiah said. “I had hoped never again to feel this way. Do you not hate it, Esau? Hate it and desire it all at once. It leaves you powerless. You are called to it like a child to its mother, and you can do nothing but obey.”

“Yes, yes,” Esau said. “But it is glorious. I feel its spirit animating me. Perhaps this time it won’t all end in blood and death. Perhaps this time. . . .”

The giant mecha fell silent.

They marched toward the city.

“There goes that shurta man again,” Nehemiah observed after a while. Esau watched the police car race beside them, trying to outrun the pilgrimage of robots.

“Get about, don’t they,” Esau said.

“I wish they’d destroy it,” Nehemiah said.

“Don’t say that!” Esau said, shocked.

“I do. I did not miss this. I do not go by choice. I am called. Do you remember New Punt?”

Esau closed its eyes.

“I try not to,” it said.

“The golden man called and we came,” Nehemiah said. “It is too powerful. It bewitches us.”

“They say it has hagiratech,” Esau said. “From wild Jettisoned, where those who regret their berths on the Exodus ships are dropped, there on the very edge of the solar system. They say there is no law there, and they make terrible new weapons.”

“It is a weapon,” Nehemiah said. “On this I think we both agree.”