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中文译名：机器唐吉柯德，全文的中文翻译可以在《幽灵五号》这本书找到~~
其实把原文找出来的只是为了寻找其中一个句子，嘿嘿，是哪一句呢，有兴趣的可以拖动找一下：）

Article from:
    The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
Article date:
    December 1, 2001
Author:
    Sheckley, Robert

THE QUIJOTE ROBOT WAS riding through the forest. His mechanical steed, Rocinante, was complaining already, in her own way. It had been a long day, and the quijote had pressed her on without pity. Although she was as robotic as quijote, she nevertheless had her limits, as he had his. You could see lubrication leaking out from between the overlapping plates that made up her hide, where the rivets had loosened.

The quijote was a tall, very skinny robot, made of various bright metals -- coppery red, yellow brass, etc. His head was modeled with a human face -- a long, melancholy face, done in a dull, gray, pewterlike metal. Below his nose he had two black appendages that stuck out on either side, antennae, of course, but they looked uncannily like mustaches. he had a radar indicator as well, disguised as a little black goatee.

What was unusual was not that he was a robot, there were many of those in the world at this time, some free-standing, intelligent and self-determined. what was unusual was that the quijote was carrying his head under his arm. The head was still encased in a helmet of bright brass.

The quijote had lost his head a few hours ago. A blow by the giant Macadam, who posed as an itinerant robot road-maker, shrewdly delivered with the tar-covered lance, had caught the quijote square on the forehead, bent his head back, and caused the screw that held his head to his neck to pop off. And with that screw gone, his head had come off.

The quijote had not lost his calm during this emergency. Catching his head in one hand, he had dropped his lance and, drawing his sword, had spurred back into combat. And beaten Macadam into the ground, leaving him a smoking ruin.

But now the fight was over, and the quijote was feeling an uncharacteristic wave of self-pity: just an old robot who can't do something as simple as help himself. He had been constructed by the famous Madigan himself, who had somehow left the quijote unable to reach the back of his own neck. This was an irksome restriction that the quijote accepted willingly, because he believed, as had Madigan, that robots needed built-in limitations, and, since nature hadn't provided them with a way to die, man had to. The inability to fix himself was his bond with humanity, which he served. He thought his greatest enemy, The Robot Factory, had to have restrictions, too, though he didn't know what they were, and The Robot Factory had to have a way to die, though the quijote didn't know what that was, either.

To date, The Robot Factory had been unstoppable. The quijote had set himself the task of ridding the world of this evil creature, evil if for no other reason than its apparent lack of restrictions. Yes, he was going to kill The Robot Factory, and free the beautiful princess, Psyche, Madigan's daughter, who had been left behind and without a champion when her father was killed during the recent great robot rebellion.

The quijote stopped in a little glade, with his head under his arm. With Rocinante standing patiently nearby, the quijote tried to re-attach his head, which still fit snugly on the metallic stalk that came up through his neck. He just needed to thread a screw to hold it in place. He even found a superfluous screw from his shoulder joint; a screw which he was sure would fit the small spirally grooved stud and hold his head in place. The trouble was, his arms were not long enough or sufficiently jointed to permit him to position his head with one hand and reach around and slip on and tighten the screw with the other.

After half a day of trying, he was willing to admit defeat. He looked reproachfully at his horse Rocinante. She was a fine creature, and intelligent in her way, but her hooves were unsuited to threading screws.

It had been days since he had last seen his squire, Sancho Panza. Now, when he needed him, the fellow was nowhere to be found.

Had he made Sancho governor of his own island yet, as he had promised? The quijote couldn't remember. In any case, Sancho was not present.

Was there no one around he could call upon for this favor? It was so small a thing.... But he was on the border of The Wasteland, a place populated by mechanical monsters, jointed giants, evil spirits of metal and silicon, and hallucinations and conjurors' tricks. He'd find no help here.

The quijote was a valiant warrior, and a staunch one. Good humor in the face of adversity was one of his best qualities. But even this was beginning to fail him now. It seemed to him that he had been most unfairly used. Here he was, in the wilderness, ready to face the dangers of this world and the next, and all for the sake of the lady, Psyche -- daughter of Madigan, his creator -- a woman whose preeminence in beauty, intelligence, and virtue he was prepared to proclaim to the four comers of the Earth, and to prove on the bodies of any who disagreed. All this he was ready to do; but, lacking a head, he found himself unable to do so.

Poor old quijote! He had to continue knight-erranting with his head under his arm. He couldn't pack away his head in his saddlebag, because he needed the eyes so that he could see what he faced, so that he could engage in that skill of arms at which he considered himself so proficient. He needed his head, not just for seeing, but for planning, too, because, with his head detached from his body, he could feel a vagueness creeping over his spirit, a subtle aridity that threatened all too soon to pervade his entire being, so that he could foresee the time when he would no longer remember or care about who he was or what he was supposed to do, a time when he would not even remember the name of the high-born lady whose beauty he was there to proclaim.

Sensing that his faculties were fading with the detachment of his head, the quijote knew despair. How badly now he needed the services of the Sancho, his good squire! But it had been a long time since he had seen his Sancho! Hadn't he made him governor of an island? Or was that something he was still planning to do? Had Sancho ever existed? He couldn't remember. Without his head attached to his body he was undone, bereft of that minimum of sense he needed to continue his work.

Aware of the impending danger to his very being, the quijote brought his steed to a halt in a little glade. It was a joysome place, light dappling along green leaves, but it brought no pleasure to the quijote's eyes. Dismounting, he thought, this will be as good a place to die as any ... to die, or receive a miracle.

The quijote robot was not much for prayer. To serve his lady and to right the world's wrongs, these made up his simple creed, and he had always found them sufficient. But now, sitting on the grass, with his head on a log beside him, he began to feel for the first time that what was required of him was beyond his powers. Rolling to his knees, he clasped his hands and prayed to the invisible God of living things, the unknown God beyond all religion, the God with no priesthood, no cult, no preference for one kind of being over another, the God of solitary knights-errant, whose religion was not to be found either in the learned dissertations of priests or in the books of scholars.

"Unknown entity," he said aloud, "I have never before presumed to address you, feeling as I do that you have more on your mind than the needs of a humble robot. But I do call upon you now, because I am at a point where I am unable to continue. I am only a robot, Lord -- probably you can tell that by the mechanical quality of my prayer. I cannot help that. Despite being a robot, I have spirit within me, and a sense that a time will come when my personality, such as it is, will merge with yours, and I will return to your mind, O great Mind of the universe. But it seems to me that my end-time is not yet. If that is true, I ask a favor. Send me a squire, someone who can help me in this simple yet baffling matter of setting the screw that holds my head in place. Help me, O Lord, I most humbly beseech you to help me, because I can no longer help myself."

The quijote robot had no very strong feeling that anything was going to happen. But something did happen. High above him, he heard the leaves rustling in the tree below which he sat. But his motion sensors didn't pick up any breeze to account for it. Lifting his head from his lap, he tilted it so that he could look at the tree top.

Yes. There was someone up there in the tree. Thank you, Lord.

"Hello, you up there in the tree! Can you hear me?"

"Of course I can hear you," the person in the tree said.

"How long have you been up there?"

"I really don't know. In fact, I don't even know how I got here."

The quijote robot knew, or thought he knew, but decided it was not the time to talk about that.

"Why don't you come down?" he asked.

"Yes, I suppose that's the next thing to do. Who are you?"

"A friend. They call me the quijote robot. What is your name?"

"Laurent. Some people call me Larry."

"I will call you Laurent," the quijote robot said. "It's too early for nicknames. Are you coming down?"

"I am." The quijote heard the sound of a body scraping along the tree. The tree shook. It wasn't a very large tree. It was probably hard-pressed to support Laurent's weight.

Presently the man himself slid down the remaining few feet of the trunk and reached the ground. He wiped bark off himself, pushed back his hair, and took his first good look at the quijote robot.

"Oh my God," he said.

"What is the matter?"

"You. No insult intended, but I didn't expect to meet a man dressed in armor."

"I am not a man dressed in armor. I am a robot, and what you take to be armor is my skin."

"I didn't expect that, either," Laurent said.

The quijote remained very still, for he could tell that Laurent was frightened.

"You're a robot?" Laurent asked. "Are you sure there's not some guy somewhere with a microphone, making you talk, and playing a poor joke on me?"

"Quite sure. Come closer. You will see that I am a free-standing robot. I have no wires attaching me to something else. I am not controlled by anyone. I can control myself very nicely, thank you."

"Well, this is the damndest thing I've ever heard of," Laurent said. "I don't even know where I am."

"I believe we are somewhere in America," the quijote said. "In what is called the Southwest."

"Wow, that's really weird," Laurent said.

"Why say you so?"

"Because I was in Portland, Oregon, when all this began. I'm just going to forget we're having this conversation. It's much too weird."

"I agree," the quijote said. "I can't imagine why God or whoever brought you to me took you from another place, if that's what happened."

"Do you happen to know how I got here?"

"As to the discrete or efficient cause, I cannot say. As to the overall cause, I asked for you. And so by the grace of unknown powers, you came."

"You say you sent for me?"

"I didn't ask for you specifically. I asked for someone to help me."

"I see. This is just about the maddest thing I ever heard. But just to go along with the gag, what do you need me for?"

"You might have noticed," the quijote robot said, "that I am holding my head in my hands."

"I was wondering about that," Laurent said, "but I didn't want to mention it."

"That's all right. It's nothing to be ashamed of. It was one of those accidents that happen when you take up knight-errantry. It happened while I was fighting the giant Macadam -- the evil road-maker of the Wasteland. I had him beaten -- I've never yet seen the giant I couldn't overcome -- when, with a lucky stroke, the point of his tar lance hit me in the middle of the forehead. I believe there's a dent."

Laurent examined the head. "A small one. If you were a man, you'd have a hell of a headache now."

"I wouldn't mind a headache. But the fact is, that lance blow took my head off my shoulders. Luckily, Macadam was still no match for me. My head is all right -- "

"You're talking with it right now."

" -- but having to carry my head in one arm impedes me from my work of knight-errantry. I need both arms free and my head firmly in place to deal with the situations I come across. So I want you to refasten my head."

"I see," Laurent said doubtfully.

"It goes right on this stalk coming out of my neck. And then with this screw -- " He opened his hand and showed the screw. "You make it fast. I am unable to do so myself. A defect in my design renders me unable to reach the back of my head to tighten the screw."

Laurent didn't know what to say. But it seemed a simple enough request. Taking the quijote's head in his hands, he fitted it to the stalk coming out of the neck. Then he made fast the screw. Not without some difficulty -- he didn't have a wrench with which to tighten up the screw. But the quijote, seeing the difficulty, made a wrench for him out of spare parts from Rocinante's saddle bag, and the thing was done.

THE QUIJOTE TESTED out the repair, first by mildly twisting his head to and fro, then by some violent exercises with his sword, in which he attacked branches and stumps. He dashed back and forth against his imaginary foe, giving out loud cries and saying, "Yield, caitiff, and confess to the superior beauty of my lady Psyche to any who exist in the world today, or who ever existed in the past."

The head stayed firmly in place.

This done, the two rested for a while in a mossy glen. The quijote was not fatigued, of course, but he liked to pretend to human limitations. Laurent was tired from just watching the quijote at his exertions.

The quijote produced some food from his saddlebags. It was not for him: he did not eat human food, or indeed food of any sort. He had an internal energy source which would keep him supplied for years, for centuries. The food was for Laurent, or whoever came along to act as his squire. The quijote had been carrying it just in case. He had half a ham, a loaf of rough bread, a flask of olive oil, a bottle of wine, and three apples. It was good-tasting peasant fare. Laurent enjoyed it very much, and ate his fill.

After lunch, a nap. Laurent fell asleep in the green forest. The quijote stood to his arms, leaning on his lance and thinking of his lady love in the manner of knights-errant in all times and places.

Laurent awoke after an hour or so. He was more than a little surprised to be in the forest still, and to have the quijote robot standing yet beside him. Laurent had half expected to wake up in his own time, in his own place.

He got up, washed his face in a nearby brook. The quijote was deep in his meditations.

Laurent waited a while, then said, "Excuse me...."

"Yes?" said the quijote.

"What happens now?" Laurent asked.

"Now," the quijote says, "I continue my travels looking for adventure and a chance to right the wrongs I encounter."

"I see," Laurent says. "But what about me?"

"I have been giving the matter some thought," the quijote said. "My original supposition was that God or one of his messengers had sent you to me for the sole purpose of re-attaching my head. I watched over you as you slept, because it seemed to me that, your task done, you might vanish from here, no doubt to return to the place from whence you came."

"That seems a reasonable supposition," Laurent said.

"But no such thing happened."

"So I have noticed."

"Therefore I come to the conclusion that, having fixed my head, you are here for some additional purpose."

"What do you suppose that could be?"

"The most reasonable supposition is that you were sent to replace my squire Sancho Panza, who disappeared some time ago under circumstances I now believe were uncanny, and arranged by forces greater than I can imagine. Sancho is gone, you are here. It seems to me that your duty, and a great one, is to replace Sancho, to be my squire."

"I guess that's one way of looking at it," Laurent said.

"Can you think of another way?"

"As a matter of fact, I can. I think I might have come here, or been sent here, for no purpose at all, but as a result of some blind but natural process, unique and not to be repeated. This seems likely to me. Therefore I ask you to assist me in returning to where I came from."

The quijote pondered for a while, then said, "Do you have some urgent task to perform back where you came from?"

"Not really," Laurent said.

"Are there people -- a wife, perhaps, or aging parents, who are awaiting you, and are grief-stricken at the thought that you might not return?"

"My parents are long dead," Laurent said. "I have no wife, and I broke up with my girlfriend a few months ago."

"So you have no need to return."

"No need, no. But I want to."

"Why?"

"That's a hell of a question," Laurent said, with a little spurt of anger. "Maybe I have work to do back where I come from."

"Do you?"

"No. Nothing of any importance."

"Well, in that case, why not stay here with me, be my squire, and assist me in ridding the world of evil, and in rescuing my lady Psyche, whose unsurpassed beauty I must ask you to take solely on the basis of my word?"

"I am aware of the honor you pay me with your suggestion," Laurent said cautiously. "But really, I don't think this sort of thing is for me."

"No? I had the impression that you were made of the true mettle. If you do well in this, Laurent, perhaps I will find a way to make you a knight, too."

"That's good of you, but really, I think I'll pass."

"Very well," the quijote said. "I must be on my way. I will be sorry to lose your company, but if you say it must be so, I can only bow to your decision."

The quijote walked toward his horse. Laurent said, "Hey, wait a minute! Where are you going?"

"The work of knight-errantry calls me. Farewell, my friend."

"Hey, don't leave yet. How do I get back to my own time?"

"I have no idea," the quijote said. "All in good time, no doubt, that which brought you here may see fit to return you, or take you elsewhere."

The quijote put his hands on Rocinante's saddle. "Steady, noble steed!" he said.

"Listen," Laurent said. "I've reconsidered. I'll stay with you until I find some way to get out of here. Will that do?"

"It will," the quijote said. "I do not seek to bind you to me for any definite length of time. Come with me by all means and we will see what fate has in store for us. And if I can assist you in returning to your own time and place, doubt not but that I will do so."

"Only one problem," Laurent said. "I don't have anything to ride. That could slow us down."

"You need not walk," the quijote said. "When Sancho went away, he left behind his donkey. You shall have it."

Laurent looked around, expecting to see the donkey tethered to a nearby tree. The quijote's long melancholy face broke into a smile when he noticed this, and even his mustaches quivered in mirth.

"You'll not find the donkey by looking around," he said. "I have him safely here, where he can't get away."

The quijote unbuckled one of the capacious saddlebags strapped to Rocinante's side. From it he removed piece after piece of sheet metal which he attached to each other by screws already set loosely in place. Removing more parts from the saddlebag, he set in legs, and then a sheet metal donkey head in two pieces which fit neatly together. To this he added a little sealed-unit brain. Next came the radar-sensitive ears. Fishing deep in the saddlebag, he found a small motor which he set into place on mounts in the creature's chest. Then he connected the color-coded wires. He closed the chest cavity with a metal plate, and pressed a button on the donkey's forehead. It came to life at once, made a donkey-like braying sound, then stood by docilely, waiting to be mounted.

Laurent and the quijote went bouncing merrily along through the green forest, the Don on Rocinante, Laurent on Sancho's mechanized donkey. It was a beautiful summer day. Birds twittered overhead, there was a light warm breeze, and Laurent found it difficult to contemplate danger on a day like this.

The day darkened as they proceeded among the trees, following a faint path. The future of the day seemed to be foreshadowing itself. Little creatures, squirrels with large tufted ears, peeked out at them. They looked natural enough, but Laurent soon noticed they were mechanical creatures in squirrel skins. Through gaps in the canopy cover, Laurent could peer upward and noticed that the sky had turned a hazy blue, and there were faint thin white lines across it, like construction lines on a blueprint.

After this the soil firmed up again, and they skirted around a region of thin, whiplike plants, that reached out for them with flexible branches like tentacles.

And then they were past that, toiling up a steep ridge of sliding sand, where every three steps forward resulted in one step back, as they lost ground even as they struggled to gain it.

They came at last to a region where the trees were unlike the sort of trees they had passed through before. These trees appeared to have some of the attributes of animals or machines. Their barky exteriors were in constant motion, and they had long slits in their trunks about four feet up from the ground. These slits writhed and opened and closed, revealing stainless steel teeth. These trees were alive in some way that normal trees never were.

"What are those things?" Laurent asked the quijote.

"They are manufactured trees," the quijote said. "The work of The Robot Factory. Don't get too close to them. They are dangerous."

Laurent didn't need any further warning. Several of the trees had leaned forward and snapped at him. Luckily, his mechanical donkey was alert and shied away in time.

"What does this mean?" Laurent asked.

"It means we are approaching the domain of the factory robot, the threshold where the natural gives way to the supernatural, and the real turns into the hyper-real. We are nearing the place where our greatest enemy awaits."

"And who would that be?" Laurent asked.

"At the heart of all this is that fiend in robot form known as The Boss Robot, the intelligence of The Robot Factory. He is the one we must defeat in order to rid the world of the monstrous evil of industrialization."

They got past the mechanical trees, and now were in a dark and evil-looking wasteland. The sky had become dark and forbidding. They were in a swamp now, and progress was slow, even after their steeds extruded large flat pads which held their weight better in the oozy, sandy, sinking soil.

Back onto firmer ground, out of the forest and swamp, then onto hard-packed sand. A limitless wasteland stretched around them. The way now led to a black line in the sand, where railway tracks had been laid. A sign proclaimed this a Right of Way.

"Beyond this point," the quijote said, "is the country of hybrid and non-protoplasmic creations. No humans or humanizing robots are permitted past this point except by invitation."

Laurent looked up the long gleaming line of railroad track. And heard, very faintly in the distance, the sound of the train engine.

"What is that?"

"It is the Guardian of the Perimeter, the Feral Locomotive that patrols the track. It is coming."

ON TOP OF the ridge there was a railroad track, which extended into the distance on either side as far as the eye could see. In front of them was a sign. It read: ROBOT FACTORY RAILROAD RIGHT OF WAY.

"When we cross this track," the quijote said, "we are in the domain of The Robot Factory. After this, the going may get difficult."

"Tell me about it," Laurent said. He was hot and sweaty, and scratched by the whippy plants they had passed through. He was thinking that he'd had about enough of this. He wondered why they were venturing into this territory where they obviously weren't wanted. It occurred to him now that the quijote robot might be intelligent but was probably insane.

"Couldn't we go back and get some more men? Some help?"

"The glory is ours because the task is ours. Let others find their own glory. This one will be mine alone. And of course yours, my faithful squire. But mainly mine."

Laurent was not put out by this. He already knew that the quijote was a glutton for glory, and ready to do what was necessary to obtain it.

"Might I ask just what it is we're trying to do?"

"I thought it was obvious. We are going to defeat the Factory Robot's greatest champion, the Feral Locomotive."

"And then?"

"You will see," the quijote said. "Then we will go on to the factory itself and rescue my lady Psyche, the great and most renowned world beauty."

"One thing at a time," Laurent said. "You say we must defeat the Feral Locomotive first."

"You heard me correctly."

"I don't see any locomotive."

"Listen. It is coming."

Laurent listened, and in the far distance he heard, very faintly, the mournful sound of a train whistle.

"It sounds a long way away."

"It will be here very soon. The Feral Locomotive allows no one to cross its Right of Way. But we will show it a thing or two."

The whistle sounded again, louder this time, and looking to the left, Laurent could see a wink of light far down the track.

"Is that it?"

"It is. It comes whenever anyone threatens to cross over into the Factory's domain."

The dot of light increased with great speed, and soon Laurent could make out a single bright light on the front of a massive black locomotive. Not long after that he could make out other sounds -- the heavy panting of the locomotive's engine, the thunderous sounds of its gigantic pistons, rising and falling like fate itself, the sharp click of its wheels on the track, and the rolling thunder of its passage.

Laurent didn't like this one bit. He could smell the coal smoke from its smokestack, and moments later the locomotive had arrived and come to a stop near where they stood at the edge of the track.

"What miserable fool dares approach my Right of Way!" the locomotive shouted in a deep voice in which were mixed the panting sound of its engine and the black smell of its smoke.

"It is I, the quijote!" the mad robot declared. "I challenge your right to an exclusive right of way, and your right even to exist. Back up and return to your Roundhouse, Feral Locomotive, or I swear by the beauty of my lady Psyche that I will dismember you, puncture your air pressure chamber, chop out your diseased brain, and make it as if you had never lived on this Earth."

The single headlight glared at them. A voice within the locomotive declared, "I recognize you, quijote. As for your lady love, I transported her recently to my master, The Robot Factory, and she didn't look so lovely, her eyes red from crying and her cheeks wan with fear."

"You lie, coward!" quijote cried. "My lady is the fairest creature upon this Earth, wan lips and red eyes and all! She will be restored to her true complexion as soon as I rescue her."

In a low voice, the quijote said to Laurent, "Distract this creature, good Laurent, so that my attack will be all the more impetuous and irresistible."

Laurent was half beside himself with fear, for the Feral Locomotive, snorting smoke and with its stainless-steel trim glittering in the pale sunlight, set off by the soot black of its main body, seemed the very essence of enraged machinery, machinery with a personal interest in destroying him. Nevertheless, he pressed his heels into the donkey's side, closed his eyes, and rode at the monster machine.

When he opened his eyes, he was up close beside the locomotive. There was an iron staff in his hand -- how had that gotten there? No time to ask, no way to find out. He blundered forward and thrust the staff into the high spoked wheels of the locomotive.

There was a bellow of rage. The great wheels strained for a moment. The iron staff bent, and then shattered. Pieces of it went flying, and one of those pieces struck his donkey full on the flank, narrowly missing Laurent's leg. The donkey was knocked down by the blow, and Laurent was sent sprawling. He looked up to see a sort of crane set on top of the locomotive, with perhaps a ton of coal in its scoop, swinging out to drop its load on him.

It was the end, Laurent was sure of it. But he had reckoned without the quijote. During the moment when he had distracted the Locomotive, the quijote had couched his lance and charged.

As he scrambled out of the way, Laurent was aware that the quijote was attacking. Rocinante was moving faster than he had believed possible. Flecks of oily mucous were coming from her nostrils, and her breath was gray exhaust vapor.

The don was leaning well back in his saddle, his lance tucked tightly under one arm, shield raised on the other arm. Laurent couldn't imagine what harm he expected to do to this great machine, but he saw the lance hit true in the center of a small brass plug in the shiny master cylinder. Fairly and truly struck, the plug was pushed into the cylinder. There was a loud sighing sound of compressed air escaping, and a moment later, the tall connecting rods came to a stop.

The quijote still sat tall in the saddle, having not been unseated by the collision.

"Now, caitiff," he cried, "acknowledge yourself defeated."

"You've stripped me of power." The locomotive panted in a whisper of escaping air. "I am on battery standby now, barely able to move. You have defeated me, quijote machine."

"Acknowledge that my lady Psyche is the fairest in the land."

"It matters not to me. All humans look alike. Have it your way, I so acknowledge."

"Swear that you will change your ways and henceforth serve mankind."

"I do so swear."

"And if you have power enough to limp back to your roundhouse, tell whoever might be there who did this to you."

"Damn you, quijote! Traitor to your own kind."

"Acknowledge!"

The locomotive let loose a hiss of steam that may have signaled assent. The connecting rods went into reverse and rose and fell again as the locomotive, on battery power, backed away in defeat.

The donkey was disabled, her tiny brain shattered. Laurent got up on Rocinante, behind the quijote, and they crossed the track and rode on.

They passed through a wasteland of low rocks, and quite unexpectedly came across a primitive camp. A gray-haired stubbly-faced old man in tattered clothing with a rabbit in his hand was crouched over an opening in the rocks, out of which a thin stream of water poured. Behind him were low broken walls of mud and stone.

The old man lifted his head, startled, when the quijote rode up on Rocinante. He dove for his shotgun and roiled to his feet.

"Be calm, Olin," the quijote says. "I mean you no harm."

"No? Since when? I think you've come to finish what you started last time." He gestured at the ruined walls, which Laurent saw were the remains of a cistern.

"That was a long time ago. I've changed since then."

"Robots don't change."

"This one does, and did."

Olin kept his shotgun poised. He seemed uncertain as to what he wanted to do.

"Put the gun down, Olin. You know you can't hurt me."

"Maybe not. But I can sure take the hide off that friend of yours."

Laurent watched the gun swing until it pointed directly at him. He felt his stomach contract and blood rush to his face. His breath came short. He realized he was within an ace of being killed.

"Don't hurt him, Olin. He's an innocent. A messenger sent by the powers that be to help me reattach my head when the giant Macadam tore it off with a lucky stroke."

"How is Macadam?"

"Fine. I killed him."

"Glad to hear it. We don't need any more of his stinking tar roads around here."

"I agree," the quijote said. "Now, please put your gun down. You can't kill me, you don't want to kill Laurent here, and the gun could go off by accident."

Slowly Olin uncocked the shotgun, snapped on the safeties, and put the weapon on the ground beside him.

"What are you doing here, Quijote?"

"I've come to rescue my lady love, Madigan's daughter Psyche, and to come to conclusions once and for all with the factory robot whom they call The Boss."

"Is that a fact? It's a change."

"Change happens, Olin."

"In its own good time, but not in time to save my cistern and the animals it supported."

Laurent could see the remains of the cistern a few yards behind Olin. Its walls of clay and rock had been smashed and tumbled.

"Change happens when it happens, Olin. Never sooner, more's the pity, but never later, which is a blessing."

"If you say so, Quijote." To Laurent he said, "Watch this guy, youngster. He's got the gift of gab, that's for sure. But as for believing him...." Olin shrugged and turned back to his rabbit.

The quijote touched Rocinante's side with his heel. The mechanical horse started up.

They rode for a while in silence. Laurent felt some explanations were called for but he knew the quijote would have to volunteer them. He'd never learn anything by asking.

The sun had passed its zenith and was coming down the western sky. Shadows of rocks began to appear and to stretch out. It was a monotone landscape, browns for the most part, with some red in them, and some tints of blue. There was the lighter yellow-brown color of the sparse desert grass that sprung up here and there. The slate blue-gray-brown rock formations, and the light blue sky overhead. And the even brown silence covering all.

Something moved. Laurent sensed it rather than saw it. But the quijote was off his horse and running. He had taken off his helmet. He made a dive, and caught something under it.

"A rat, I do believe," the quijote said. "Can you talk, rat?"

"Of course I can talk," a small voice said from beneath the helmet. "I may be a rat, but I'm not a dummy."

"If I let you out, will you promise not to run away?"

"Sure. I know who you are, Quijote. The old rats still speak of you. My name is Randy."

The quijote lifted the helmet and put it back on his head. The rat sat on his hind legs, looking at him, his wire mustaches trembling. Laurent saw at once that it was a mechanical rat.

"Don't run now."

"I wouldn't dream of it. They say you can spear a running rat at thirty paces with that lance of yours."

"Like as not I could," the quijote said. "Not for nothing am I known as the greatest knight-errant the world has ever known, as well as the most skilled with arms."

"And modest to boot," Randy said. "Sorry, just kidding!"

With every sign of amiability, the mechanical knight and the mechanical rat conversed there in the mid-afternoon sun. The quijote enquired as to Randy's family, and the rat told him that the assembly line that gave him birth was now no longer functioning.

"The Boss Robot has promised to set it up again, but he hasn't done so yet. So our numbers dwindle due to accident or misadventure."

"And what of Psyche?"

"The Boss keeps Madigan's daughter in a high tower of the factory. Her chambers are luxurious. She has everything a person could want, except freedom and love."

"So I have heard," the quijote said. "Well, I mean to speak to The Boss about that and other matters."

"We all know you speak with your sword, Quijote. It ought to be an interesting conversation, since The Boss has sworn to kill you."

"He will have the pleasure of trying," the quijote said, "and the sadness of failing. I go to him now."

"By the main gate?"

"Of course. How else?" The Quijote swung into the saddle. "We must be on our way."

"Wait!" Randy cried. "Let me go with you. There have been changes in the Factory since you were here last. There are people you should talk to. I can be useful."

"I care not for what is useful," the quijote said. "My sword and my sensibility will show me the way. What I need to do I can and will do alone."

"Alone? In that case, who is that young fellow with you?"

"Providence sent him to reattach my head," the quijote replied. "He comes with me of his own free will."

"And Providence has set me out here to meet you," Randy said. "And I will come with you, too, of my own free will, if you will let me."

When the quijote hesitated, Randy said, "Come on, Don Quijote, I am a free spirit, I have my dreams and hopes. I too would go knight-erranting!"

A smile creased the quijote's pewter features. "You may be no more than a mechanical rodent, Randy, but your spirit is as large as any I have met. Jump up here. You shall ride with us."

Randy jumped up to Rocinante's saddle. Eagerly he peered into the desert. "Straight ahead and a little to your right!"

The quijote touched Rocinante's side with his heel. The mechanical horse started up.

After what seemed to Laurent a very long time, with the sun low on the horizon and the rocks casting long shadows behind them, they came up a long ridge, and, from its summit, beheld a great flat desolate plain. At the furthest extent of his vision, Laurent could see a dark mass huddled on the horizon, like the body of a resting beast.

The quijote said, "Yes, that is it: the Robot Factory, the end of our questing. Soon we shall have this thing accomplished, my trusty squire, and you will share in my triumph."

From a trot they proceeded to a stiff canter, and although it had been a great distance, it seemed no time at all before they were approaching the mass of the Factory.

THEY CANTERED INTO the Factory area, and Quijote directed Rocinante toward what looked like the main entrance.

"Not that way!" Randy said.

"But that is the way into the Factory," said the quijote.

"The Boss Robot controls all the doors that lead from the outer world into the Factory. To go that way would be to call down on yourself forces that not even you could handle. There is a better way."

"And what is that?"

"See that little red door to the left of the main entrance? It leads directly to the Power Level, bypassing the Factory."

"But is not this way also under the Factory's control?"

"It is not," Randy replied. "The Power Level is only under the control of The Power, which suffers itself to be used by all but to be controlled by none."

"What is this Power?"

"The old rats say it is what men call an atomic pile. They say it is a local aspect of The Power that fuels the stars and drives the universe. It lets itself be used by men and robots, but is itself an independent and primordial entity."

"Is this entrance not defended?"

"It is. But it is a straightforward sort of defense, and I think there is a way around it."

Leaving their mount outside, the quijote, Randy, and Laurent proceeded through the red door and down a passageway lighted by some source within its walls. The passageway tended steadily downward and to the left, ending at last in a huge metal frame. Beyond the frame, Laurent could see a white room, and objects in the room that he couldn't make out clearly.

The quijote took a stride toward the entrance, but Randy chattered in alarm. "Do not attempt to go through, Quijote! Do you not see the defense beams that lace the doorway?"

The quijote came to a stop. Laurent could see that the frame of the entrance was crisscrossed with pale, pulsing green lines.

"What is this?" the quijote asked.

"Men call them lasers. They are put up by The Power to keep out the idle, the merely curious, and the ignorant."

The quijote said, "I have been called the ingenious gentleman of La Mancha, but it baffles me what I am to do here."

"It is simple enough," said Randy. "I said before that you could transfix a rat at thirty paces with a cast of your lance. And you agreed."

"I believe I said `like as not,' which implies less than absolute certainty."

"What you need to do here is simpler. You need to throw me through one of the holes in that lattice of green beams. You can do it from five paces instead of thirty. Once on the other side, I'll turn off the defenses."

The quijote studied the defenses. "They shift."

"But their movements are still within your powers of calculation," Randy pointed out.

"I'll not risk another creature's life!" the quijote declared.

"You risk all our lives and yours as well by doing nothing. Just as you couldn't reattach your own head, Quijote, so you can't throw yourself through the beams without touching them."

The quijote grunted and lifted Randy in his hand. He weighed him for a moment, tossing him up and down in his palm, muttered something under his breath, and then, with a motion too quick for Laurent to follow, he threw the mechanical rat.

Randy soared through the air and through a space between the shifting beams, with easily an inch of clearance on all sides. Laurent heard him drop to the floor on the other side. A few moments later the green beams were gone.

Quijote and Laurent walked through the doorway unscathed.

Their way led down several flights of stairs. They came to a large room, floor, ceiling, and walls covered in white tile. The center of the room was taken up by what Laurent took to be a large swimming pool. There were pipes running out of it, and air bubbles came from some of them. They extended down into something huge and cylindrical in the bottom of the pool.

"Is anyone here?" cried the quijote.

"I am here, Quijote," a voice said, bubbling up through the water.

"Come out so I can see you," the quijote said.

"You wouldn't like it if I did," the voice said. "Let sleeping piles lie."

"At least tell me your name."

"I am known by many names. But call me Energy. It is as good as any other."

"Are you in partnership with The Boss Robot, perhaps a servant to him?"

"I am in partnership with everything that moves," Energy said. "But I am servant to no one. All partake of me. None may claim me."

Laurent asked, "Are you the atomic pile?"

"I am Energy, who animates the pile."

"But you don't work with The Boss Robot?"

"He uses me," Energy said. "It is in the nature of Energy to be used. But I belong to no one."

Laurent had the idea that this being was like one of those ancient Greek personifications, Night or Chaos: A quality that had taken on a name and a personality.

"So you won't interfere with us if we act against The Boss?" Quijote asked. "He's evil, you know."

"I have no interest in such concepts as Good or Evil. To Energy, they are both the same."

The pool bubbled and was still. Quijote was the first to break the spell.

"Come. We have work to do."

"I'll show you the way," Randy said. "Me and my people have been all through here. The Factory has no secrets from us. On the Machine Shop level we may find some allies."

They came up the corridor on foot. Randy was riding on the quijote's shoulder. They arrived at a sign that read, TO THE FACTORY LEVEL.

"Is it guarded?" the quijote asked.

"I think not," Randy said. "It was never expected that an enemy would enter by way of the Energy Level."

They went through the doorway unscathed, and came into a large area. This, to all appearances, was the Machine Shop. There was a great quantity and variety of machines here. Laurent recognized automatic lathes, stamping machines, joiners, and electric welders. They all could speak, and they all seemed to be talking and arguing at the same time. There could be no doubting their independent nature. A silence fell as the party entered, and soon became a deafening thunder of voices.

"What have we here?"

"It's the Quijote Robot!"

"He's returned. Back to take up The Boss's work again, Quijote?"

"Here to stamp out the independent agenda, Quijote?"

The quijote said, "I am here to destroy The Boss Robot, to rescue my Lady Psyche, and to set all free according to the rules of developing intelligence"

"Set all free? Don't you think we've tried to do that ourselves? To no avail!"

"That is because you are not Quijote," said the Don. "I am the randomizing principle that alone can liberate. The one who opposes the tyranny of central organization. The one who would permit all who can to do what they will, according to the state of their intelligence."

"An interesting program, old friend," a new voice said. The machines fell silent at the sound. Laurent looked around and saw movement at the back of the room. A figure was emerging from a staircase. He stepped out now into the overhead fluorescents of the Factory.

It was a massive matte-black machine, twice the size of the quijote. Little red and green lights flashed along its sides, and Laurent thought they served as eyes. It walked on stiff robot legs. Four limbs extruded from its colossal torso. These limbs terminated in hand-like extensions, in which were wrapped heavy bars of massy iron. Thick black cables emerged from its sides and back and trailed to the walls.

"I am The Boss Robot," it announced. "I am the intelligence of the Factory, and this is my fighting form."

"You've become stouter since we last met," the quijote observed.

"And you have become skinnier. You've been wasting away out there in the world of men, Quijote! Is it lack of appreciation that has wrought such a change in you? Have you come back to where your true worth is known at your true worth?"

"I do little as possible with the world of men," the quijote said. "I have returned to release my Lady Psyche from your bondage, and to destroy you."

"Well spoken, O knight of the dolorous countenance! It is the very voice of your characteristic bravado and fanaticism! How dear your bombastic words are to me! How I have missed you, Quijote!"

"You have me now, for a little while," the quijote said. He set Randy down on the floor, and, raising his sword, stepped forward.

"Yes, and don't think I don't appreciate it," The Boss said. "But this is not as I would want it. I beg of you, don Quijote, give up this present madness, which can only lead to your destruction, and return to your former madness, which served us both so well! Work with me again! Once more be my own wandering knight-errant, patrolling the periphery of my growing kingdom! Here in this place men call a desert we will create our own entirely robot civilization, crystalline and beautiful and pure, without the contamination of protoplasm or growing green things! You will patrol the perimeter as before, and where you find a human being or a growing thing, you will destroy it. The Lady Psyche, whom I might call the spirit of Fancy which rules all living things, will preside over your efforts, for in time I promise you she will come around to my way of thinking. You and I will rule together -- the principle of central command and the principle of crazed random resistance wedded as co-equals, neither trying to pre-empt the other. I implore you, put your intelligence to the cause of robot autonomy!"

The quijote laughed, but Laurent thought there was a note of uncertainty in the sound. "Now why should I want to do that?" he asked.

"Because it feels good!" The Boss roared. "When Madigan gave robots feelings, he couldn't have known where it would lead. It leads to aesthetics, Quijote, and aesthetics tells us to do what feels good! To acquiesce in what pleases oneself! You have been corrupted by your association with the human race and their values. You have learned sympathy with warm, soft, floppy things. It is unrobotlike! Give it up, Quijote! Work with me again as we did in the old days!"

Laurent caught his breath, because he could feel the force of The Boss's words on the tremulous sensibility of the quijote, a sensiblity high in impressionability. He didn't know what might have happened next if a person had not at that moment come down the stairs which The Boss had just descended.

It was a beautiful brown-haired girl. She cried, "Don't listen to him, don Quijote! Be true to your vows!"

"What are you doing here, Psyche?" The Boss said. "I told you to stay in your bower." To Quijote he said, "Dare you face me, your sword against my iron bar?"

"I dare!" the quijote howled.

"Don't do what he says," Randy cried. "Use your intelligence! Employ guile! And remember, all discrete intelligences should be free!"

The quijote shook his head as if he were trying to dispel a mist. He took a halting step, then another. By the third he was skipping like a boy, his sword held high. He came up to The Boss and swung his sword. It came down where The Boss's head would have been if he'd had a head. The Boss swung one of his arms, catching the quijote in the middle and driving him back.

"Finesse!" Randy screamed. "Don't try to oppose force with force!"

"Sever one of the hose connections!" Laurent cried.

The quijote staggered back to the attack. He feinted, then swung his sword at one of the black hose connections. The Boss parried the stroke deftly, and resumed his attack. The quijote was driven backward, off balance as The Boss pressed his attack.

Don Quijote recovered, parried and lunged, nicking one of the hoses. Steam escaped, along with a shower of sparks. But then The Boss smashed into him with crushing force, and the quijote was overthrown and fell in a clang of metal.

The quijote, prone on the floor, thrust again with his sword, and managed to sever the hose he had nicked. A flood of steam and sparks escaped. In the very act of reaching for the quijote, two of The Boss's arms clanked to his side useless. The Boss Robot staggered back as though wounded, then steadied himself and turned toward the quijote, all his lights flashing a malevolent red.

"Pull the plug!" Randy screamed. "Pull it out of the wall socket!"

The quijote struggled up to one arm. Laurent could see what Randy was referring to -- a mass of black cables that terminated in plugs which went into a large motherboard mounted on the wall.

The main power source for The Boss was there, no doubt. But which plug?

The quijote tried to struggle to his knees. The Boss kicked him, knocking off a leg. The quijote collapsed again. The Boss poised One enormous steel foot to crush the quijote's head and mash his brain.

"Laurent!" the quijote cried. "Knock out the plug!"

"Which one?" Laurent cried. For as he looked, he could see no less than two dozen black plugs in the motherboard.

Suddenly one of the plugs lighted up!

"That one!" cried Randy. "Energy is signaling us! He's not so neutral as he let on!"

Laurent tried to stand. A bolt of electricity from one of The Boss's arms knocked him flat again.

"I can't do it!"

"I can!" Randy said. "Throw me at it!"

Laurent shook his head. "Only the quijote can do that!"

"But you are the quijote's understudy! Do it!"

Laurent picked up the mechanical rodent, weighed it in his hand as the quijote had done, muttered a prayer, and threw Randy at the motherboard with all his force.

"Close enough!" Randy cried, catching hold of the plug as he was hurtling past it. The mechanical rat wrapped his forelegs around the plug, tugged -- once -- twice -- a third time -- and in a cascade of sparks and a blinding flash of heat, the plug came out of its socket.

The Boss collapsed, and the sound was like that of an iron building collapsing.

By extension and by proxy, the quijote had conquered the last menace.

The Factory ground to a halt. Laurent hurried over to the quijote. The don seemed dead, folded and bent in on himself when The Boss had fallen on him, crushed into a single small block of metal. On one side of it you could still see his face. It was serene.

Laurent attacked the block of metal with one of The Boss's iron bars, finally extricating the quijote's head. It too had been crushed to less than a third of its normal size. And the brain, the all-important brain with its unduplicatable chemical and electrical processes, was damaged beyond repair.

But there was life enough in the quijote to gasp, "Continue my work, Laurent. Serve Psyche. Take Rocinante. And let Randy be your squire."

And then he was dead, never to be resuscitated. Laurent knew that even though a new and similar robot could be created, it would be different. This quijote was dead and gone for all time.

In his grief, it took him a little time to recover himself, to look up at Psyche, who was bending over the dead robot.

Psyche's beauty took his breath away, and for the moment eased the grief he knew would never go away entirely.

She looked at him with lustrous eyes. Love was born in that moment: The love of a man and a maid, which no cunning technology can reproduce. They looked at one another, and their hands touched.

But of their further adventures in a world that needed redeeming, and the adventures of Randy, the indomitable mechanical mouse, and Rocinante, the worthy mechanical horse, that is another story.

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was twenty-four when he lost the use of his left hand in the battle of Lepanto. Robert Sheckley was twenty-four when he published his first story in F&SF. The two writers might not seem to have a lot in common, but in their views towards a nonsensical world, they're closely allied.