The robot tells the story of his master, who's been missing for three months. He's a metabaron, a warrior, but he doesn't really like his parts. He wants to know about the father who cut off his left hand when he was a kid. The father was a baron, so he's always the baron's father. The robot also tells the tale of the origin of the barons, who live on a giant marble globe called marola. Apparently, marola was a small, fertile valley with a fortress called Castaka. The robots can't figure out how to get a thousand blocks of marble from marola without the help of the natives, so they have to cut a huge block of marble out of the mountain. This is amazing, the robot says, because they're like a family. They're just like a big family, and they can do anything they want. They just have to wait for the robot to cut the giant marble block out of a cleft in the wall. This will crush the man, and he won't be able to get out of it. They have to save the man's life by cutting the giant block apart to free it. This sounds like a lot of work, but it's worth it to the robot.