140
Time on the human-shells is booked first-come, first-serve. I don't think we've ever had a resource contention issue with them before."
"Well, I'd booked in first, right? So how do I enforce my rights? I tried to download again and got a failed authorization message. They've modified the system to give them exclusive access. It's not right -- there's got to be some procedure for redress."
"How old did you say you were?"
"Six months. But I'm an instance of an artificial personality that has logged twenty thousand years of parallel existence. I'm not a kid or anything."
"You seem like a nice person," Robbie began. He stopped. "Look the thing is that this just isn't my department. I'm the rowboat. I don't have anything to do with this. And I don't want to. I don't like the idea of non-humans using the shells --"
"I *knew* it!" Tonker crowed. "You're a bigot! A self-hating robot. I bet you're an Asimovist, aren't you? You people are always Asimovists."
"I'm an Asimovist," Robbie said, with as much dignity as he could muster. "But I don't see what that has to do with anything."
"Of course you don't, pal. You wouldn't, would you. All I want you to do is figure out how to enforce your own rules so that I can get with my girl. You're saying you can't do that because it's not your department, but when it comes down to it, your problem is that I'm a robot and she's not, and for that, you'll take the side of a collection of jumped up polyps. Fine, buddy, fine. You have a nice life out there, pondering the three laws."
"Wait --" Robbie said.
"Unless the next words you say are, 'I'll help you,' I'm not interested."
"It's not that I don't want to help --"
"Wrong answer," Tonker said, and the IM session terminated.
#
When Kate came up on deck, she was full of talk about the Reef, whom she was calling "Ozzie."
"They're weirdest goddamned thing. They want to fight anything that'll stand still long enough. Ever seen coral fight? I do