In one of the factory’s laboratories, Alquist sits at a desk, looking through books. He laments not being able to figure out the secret of Rossum’s manuscript. He mourns the loss of all the people and the stars. Staring in a mirror, he talks about being old and the last human alive. A robot servant enters and says the Central Committee of Robots is waiting. After hearing that no humans have been found, Alquist tells the robot to send in the committee. If he can’t save humans, Alquist wants to at least save the robots.

Radius and four other robots enter. They bemoan how the efforts to reproduce robots have been failures and demand that Alquist share the secret of how to make robots or they will kill him. He says they can kill him because he doesn’t know the secret. One robot identifies himself as Damon, the Ruler of the Robots. The robots claim killing all the humans was an act of becoming more human, because humans kill one another, and that robots now have souls. Alquist suggests robots mate like animals. He repeats that Rossum’s formula for producing robots was burned.