"Christopher Stasheff - Warlock 02 - The Warlock In Spite Of H" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stasheff Christopher)

'Replaced,' finished Rodney, 'and your circuits torn out and
redesigned. No, thank you, I like your personality the way it is -
except when you pull off a landing that jam my clavicles loose!'
'Ivy m'lorrd will vorgive, ad thuh cruzhial momend ovvv
blanetfall, I rezeived zome very zingular radio waves thad-'
'You got distracted, is that what you're trying to say?'
'M'lorrrd, id was imberative to analyze-'
'So part of you was studying the radio waves, and part of you was
landing the ship, which was just a wee bit too much of a strain,
and the weak capacitor gave.. . . Fess! How many times do I have
to tell you to keep your mind on the job!'
'M'lorrd egzbressed a wizh to be like thuh-'
'Like the heroes of the Exploration Sagas, yes. But that doesn't
mean I want their discomforts.'
Fess's electronic system had almost recovered from the post-
seizure exhaustion. 'But, milord, the concept of heroism implies-'
'Oh, forget it,' Rodney groaned. Fess dutifully blanked a portion
of his memory banks.
Fess was very dutiful. He was also an antique, one of the few
remaining FCC (Faithful Cybernetic Companion) robots, early models
now two thousand years out of date. The FCC robots had been
programmed for extreme loyalty and, as a consequence, had perished
in droves while defending their masters during the bloody
Interregnum between the collapse of the ancient Galactic Union and
the rise of the Proletarian Eclectic State of Terra.
Fess (a name derived from trying to pronounce 'FCC' as a single
word) had survived, thanks to his epilepsy. He had a weak
capacitor that, when overstrained, released all its stored energy
in a massive surge lasting several milliseconds. When the
preliminary symptoms of this electronic seizure - mainly a
fuzziness in Fess's calculations - appeared, a master circuit
breaker popped, and the faulty capacitor discharged in isolation
from the rest of Fess's circuits; but the robot was out of
commission until the circuit breaker was reset.
Since the seizures occurred during moments of great stress
- such as trying to land a spaceship-cum-asteroid while
analyzing an aberrant radio wave, or trying to protect a master


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Christopher Stasheff

from three simultaneous murderers - Fess had survived the
Interregnum; for, when the Proletarians had attacked his masters,
he had fought manfully for about twenty-five seconds, then
collapsed. He had thus become a rarity - the courageous servant
who had survived. He was one of the five FCC robots still
functioning.
He was, consequently, a prized treasure of the d'Armand family -
prized as an antique, but even more for his loyalty; true loyalty