"I hadn't heard they could be separated," he remarks with some puzzlement. Not that the idea of semi-intelligent machines flying around everywhere isn't disconcerting enough. He's a little wide-eyed as she explains: no golem or automaton in his world has ever done that!

"That's amazing, though! And if you use machines as spies, obviously you need them to be clever. But I'm not sure I'd want to build something that could gain a mind of its own and fly off to... I suppose, drop explosives on whatever it liked." That's a lie, so he admits, "At least, it doesn't sound very wise."