That life might be very long indeed; in the nutrient tank beside Tropile's, as it happened, lay a Component with eight legs and a chitinous fringe around its eyes. It had lain in such a tank for more than a hundred and twenty-five thousand Terrestrial years.
The Component was placed in operation. It opened its eyes and saw things. The sensory nerves of its limbs felt things. The muscles of its hands and toes operated things.
Where was Glenn Tropile?
He was there, all of him, but a zombie-Tropile. Bereft of will, emptied of memories. He was a machine and part of a huger machine. His s*x was the s*x of a photoelectric cell; his politics were those of a transistor; his ambition that of a mercury switch. He didn't know anything about s*x, or fear, or hope. He only knew two things: Input and
