It must be said that the description of humans contained in the story How Erg the Self-Inducting Slew a Paleface isn’t very flattering. The court sages of King Boludar, who had seen a human once, assured their electric ruler that Homos Anthropos is a creature as venomous as it is greedy, and passionate to destroy everything that crosses its path. Its malice is legendary, and greater the more delicate its bodily shell seems to be; its power – immeasurable. For that reason alone, the human presents ‘a danger worse than all the whirlpools and reefs of the Great Asteroid Noose together!’.
But it’s not only about the character of the pale bipeds and their deficient moral condition. The physiology of the human, their biochemistry, poses a mortal threat to the robots: ‘It has, Sire, a multitude of slimy tubes inside, through which waters circulate; some are yellow, some pearl grey, but most are red – the red carry a dreadful poison called phlogiston or oxygen, which gas turns everything it touches instantly to rust or else to flame’.
As we can see, aesthetic or moral categories are not the most important here. For creatures made of crystals and delicate metals, awakened to life by electricity and nourished by oils, the most dangerous thing is organic life, at least in the form dominant on Earth. Rusty blood, so treasured by people that they’re extremely willing to spill it, is for them a corrosive liquid. Human tears, sweat and mucous – poison. Oxygen and water – harbingers of an inevitable holocaust. So, it’s no surprise that robots are careful to keep their distance from any Paleface.