The ship has been lazily adrift in space for many years, and the robots on board had done their duty long ago when they jettisoned the corpses of their human masters. The humans had been dead for many years, but the batteries in the robots were still holding strong.
After the ship crash lands on a strange and remote world, the robots discover themselves lost in a civilization of robots who consider them to be strangers – outsiders – those without a designated purpose. The great robot city is a purposeful place – a totally utilitarian robot society where there are no humans to serve, and no robot is without it’s sanctioned purpose. Humans are at this point only crude constructs of a strange digital mythology leftover from centuries long lost in the green glow of lithium powered digital clocks.
After being banished unceremoniously from the great robotopolis, the two marooned robots wander aimlessly into the wastelands where they find another who was banned long ago for the most inconceiveable of robot sins – learning to grow and synthesize human flesh. In it’s greed to become more human, this ancient robot who taught itself to grow flesh had gotten caught in a loop and grew itself much too quickly and much too large to be able to move around – let alone serve any useful purpose.
The flesh growing robot imparts it’s folly and wisdom upon the two wandering robots, who understand the message and tell the giant being their story of being marooned on a ship built and occupied by humans, and that they carry perfectly preserved strands of human DNA.
The robots make their way back to the robot city from whence they had been banished. This time they are welcomed by guards who escort them to the royal robot palace where they face trial for the ultimate robot crime of “puposelessness,” from which they could be switched off permanently and their circuits recycled. During the initial trial process, the two marooned robots produce evidence of their human masters – the DNA – which ultimately convinces the robot jury that their purpose has been revealed – to further the great work of their creators and preserve the DNA of the human species.
