"Allen Steele - Agape Among The Robots" - читать интересную книгу автора (Steele Allen)

generation robots a closer resemblance to humanity, but it would also give their owners a more
user-friendly means of checking their onboard systems. Casual queries like "are we still
friends?" or "am I bothering you?" sound more benign than "error code 310-A, resetting
conditioning module, yes/no?"

"Yes, Samson, weтАЩre still friends," I replied. "Please bring me the sandwich now."

I turned back to the dinner table, picked up my lukewarm coffee and took a sip, then clicked my
pen and started to make a few notes. Behind me, I heard Samson was walking over to the table,
bearing my lunch. Through my earpiece, Keith asking Donna if she wanted to go to Boston for
dinner tomorrow night, and Donna sayingтАУas usualтАУthat she was busy. IтАЩd heard this before.
Donna had recently divorced her second husband and Keith had never married; the two were
friends and colleagues, but their attraction was anything but mutual. Donna was understandably
reluctant to strike up a workplace romance, and particularly not with the likes of Keith, who
thought fart jokes were the height of . . .

"Jerry, look out!"


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DonnaтАЩs warning reached me just an instant too late. I looked up just as Samson slammed a
peanut butter and extra-jelly sandwich into the side of my face.

Maybe that sounds funny, in a Three Stooges kind of way, but mind you this came from a robot
capable of picking up one end of a six-foot couch without perceptible strain. The sandwich was
soft, sure, but the plate upon which it rested was hard; even if I had known what was coming, itтАЩs
still likely that I would have been knocked out my chair.

I sprawled across the tile floor, more surprised than injured, with grape jelly drooling down into
my right eye and peanut butter plastering my hair against my face, the plate rattling against the
table. Towering above me was Samson, six feet of cobalt-blue robot, his right hand placidly
returning to his side.

"Jerry!" Donna screamed. "Are you. . . ?"

"Samson, shut down!" Keith bellowed. "Samson, code S. . . !"

"No, Samson!" I yelled. "Code B-for-Break!"

"Code B understood." Samson double-beeped and became motionless, yet his chest diodes
remained lit.

Good. He had obeyed the orders of the person closest to him. Had he shut down, as KeithтАЩs
Code S instruction would have made him do, there was a chance that the abrupt loss of
electrical current might have erased the last few moments from his memory buffer. Code B, on
the other hand, simply returned him to standby mode.