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robot,” Beachstone said, and scratched his leg. “I wish I could just be a robot.”
    â€œYou are so much more than a robot. Without you, there would be no me.”
    â€œThere was ‘you’ long before there was me,” Beachstone said.
    â€œWithout people,” Asimov 3000 clarified.
    â€œYou were doing fine without me,” Beachstone said.
    No, I wasn’t, Asimov 3000 thought. Mary and Kent had been consolation, but now there was purpose. “There is nothing more important than you,” Asimov 3000 said. “I am here for you .” He paused. “Okay?”
    â€œSo I should read for my protection?”
    â€œMaster Vandley read for pleasure as well. He told me he could read much faster than the tablet could talk.”
    â€œI’ll read for protection,” Beachstone said, and sat up and leaned forward. “ ‘The . . . cat . . . is also . . . crying.’ ” He advanced the page. “ ‘The ellff says, ‘Do n-ah-t cry.’”
    â€œGood,” Asimov 3000 said.
    Beachstone didn’t reply. He shifted, bringing his legs up under him so he was on his knees, leaning over the table. Asimov 3000 resisted the impulse to reprimand the boy for having his feet on the chair. He did not want to discourage Beachstone now that he had resolved to work hard.
    Beachstone continued to sound things out, the words that he had seen before coming faster and more fluidly, still scratching his leg at intervals.
    The front door opened. The boy started at the sound,watching the front hall through the dining room door. Kent appeared, paused, and went on.
    Beachstone returned to his lesson, his focus uncanny, fending off any help Asimov 3000 tried to offer as he decoded the simple text and went on to the next story. The robot was proud that he had been able to instill such concentration, satisfied in a way that many robots today would not understand.
    Eventually Asimov 3000 went to prepare a meal for the boy. The stripe of sunlight on the table had shifted, so it didn’t quite reach the tablet anymore. The robot placed the plate on the table, but Beachstone didn’t even glance at it. Asimov 3000’s pride from earlier turned to worry. Such intensity could not be safe. Had he scared the boy too much with his talk of deceitful robots?
    â€œ ‘. . . break the egg,’ ” the boy read in an expressionless monotone.
    â€œGood work,” Asimov 3000 said.
    The boy moved on to the next sentence.

5.
    MARY STOOD AT the edge of the cliff behind the house watching the small speck on the beach below. From this distance, with no zoom, the boy looked like his namesake, like a stone that had been washed ashore. When she did zoom in, he came into focus, still as immobile as a rock, sitting with his feet flat in front of him so that his legs formed two triangles with the ground. His wrists resting on his knees, he held a tablet in front of his face. Good. He was safe. She checked on him every day at some point in the afternoon, worried that Kent would try something else to harm the boy.
    Already as penitence, Mary had gone to town and found the small shop that served the human population. It brought in supplies on an as-needed basis, filling each human family’s account of regularly ordered items—rice, flour, sugar, butchered meat. Mr. Brown, the shop owner, had been skeptical when Mary came into the store with her list of items. He asked if the order was to be charged to Mr. Vandley’s account, that he thought Mr. Vandley had passed on, though the account hadn’tbeen used in many years. But Mary set up a new account in her father’s name and asked for it to be kept supplied regularly. The money she had slid across the counter had spurred Mr. Brown’s attempt to fill the order.
    But errands were the easy part. Mary wanted to interact with the boy directly again, like she had when she stitched him up. Father fawned