After a while I asked what he was doing there. At first, he replied reluctantly, but then gradually grew more talkative. I learned that, to the left of the ditch, humanity was living out its last days under the heel of savage robots. The machines there had become more intelligent than men, had seized power and were now basking in all the delights of life, and had driven the men underground to work on the conveyors. To the right of the ditch, on the territory guarded by him, the men were enslaved by wanderers from a neighboring galaxy. They, too, had seized power, installed a feudal order, and were making the fullest use of the right of first night. They lived quite high, these wanderers (would that everyone could do as well), and this and that goody fell to those who served them well. Abou
