"Randall Garrett - His Master's Voice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Garrett Randall)

some way of making that change, but they failed to see that it would be necessary. Only by completely
draining McGuire's memory banks and refilling them with new data can this bias be eliminated."

"Then why don't they do that?"
 "There are two very good reasons," he said. And there was a shade of anger in his tone. "In the first
place, that sort of operation takes time, and it costs money. If we do that, we might as well go ahead and
make the slight changes in structure necessary to incorporate some of the improvements that the
robotocists now feel are necessary. In other words, they might as well go ahead and build the MGYR-8,
which is precisely the thing I hired you to prevent."

"It seems you have a point there, Mr. Ravenhurst." He'd hired me because things were shaky at
Viking. If he lost too much more money on the McGuire experiment, he stood a good chance of losing
his position as manager. If that happened some of his other managerial contracts might be canceled, too.
Things like that can begin to snowball, and Ravenhurst might find himself out of the managerial business
entirely.

"But," I went on, "hasn't the additional wasted time already cost you money?"

"It has. I was reluctant to call you in againтАФunderstandably enough, I think."

"Perfectly. It's mutual."

He ignored me. "I evea considered going through with the rebuilding work, now that we have traced
down the source of failure of the first six models. Unfortunately, that isn't feasible, either." He scowled at
me.

"It seems," he went on, "that McGuire refuses to allow his brain to be tampered with. The
self-preservation 'instinct' has come to the fore. He has refused to let the technicians and robotocists
enter his hull, and be has threatened to take off and leave Ceres if any further attempts are made to . . .
ah . . . disrupt his thinking processes."

"I can't say that I blame him," I said. "What do you want me to do? Go to Ceres and tell him to
submit like a good boy?"

"It is too late for that, Mr. Oaks. Viking cannot stand any more of that kind of drain on its financial
resources. I have been banking on the McGuire-type ships to put Viking Spacecraft ahead of every other
spacecraft company in the System." He looked suddenly very grim and vesy determined. "Mr. Oak, I
am certain that the robot ship is the answer to the transportation problems in the Solar System. For the
sake of every human being in the Solar System, we must get the bugs out of McGuire!"

What's good for General Bullmoose is good for everybody, I quoted to myself. I'd have said it out
loud, but I was fairly certain that Shalimar Ravenhurst was not a studest of the classics.

"Mr. Oak, I would like you to go to Ceres and co-operate with the robotocists at Viking. When the
MGYR-8 is finally built, I want it to be the prototype for a fast, safe, functional robot spaceship that can
be turned out commercially. You can be of great service, Mr. Oak."

"In other words, I've got you over a barrel."

"I don't deny it."