unsmiling amusement, but her voice grew warm when she spoke of robots. She had told me about the Speedies, the Cuties, and the Daves, and then I stopped her before she began to tell me about another type.
Doesn't anything ever happen on Earth?' I asked.
She looked at me with a little frown. "No, we don't have many problems with robots here on Earth
"That's too bad. Our readers will enjoy the stories about your engineers, but can't we have a story about you? Didn't a robot that you were working on ever go wrong?
Dr Calvin's face reddened. "Well, yes. Robots have gone wrong. It's a long time since I thought about it. It was almost forty years ago 2021. And I was only thirty-eight. Oh dear I'd rather not talk about it.
I waited, and she changed her mind.
"Why not?" she said. "It can't hurt me now. Even the memory can't. I was foolish once, young man. Would you believe that?"
"No," I said.
I was. But Herbie was able to read minds. The only robot of its kind, before or since. A mistake somewhere