The day machines learned how to love, the satellites careened one last time round the earth till they’d spent all their power, petered out and burned up in the atmosphere. Things had come full circle. At the dawn of the 18th century they’d entered the evolutionary arena as a brand new species. At first, although they soon evinced creaturely emotions and musical intuition, the humanoids exploited them as tractable slaves. The machines – and this is the latest zoologically accurate designati