The Android
"You need to recycle your android," Lloyd said.
"We've been through a lot together," I said.
"She's just an android," he argued. "You've gotten too attached. Recycle her, and get a new one with both of her legs. My gosh, how long has she been hopping around like that?"
"A couple of years," I said. It was that long since we'd been in port where androids could be repaired. "She lost the right leg during an outside walk to check the stabilizer."
"You never fixed that either," Lloyd said, looking at my vessel.
"I only need it when going into atmosphere. I'm in space ninety-nine percent of the time," I reminded him. We weren't allowed to land on most planets, so we usually dropped and picked up loads at space stations, like Fergus 9, where we were now.
"Take her down and recycle her. She doesn't need to be moving around on one leg."
"She's my friend. We've been through too much," I said.
"You're space happy. Like Moller. He went over the edge after being in space too long, like you."
"He didn't have an android, though, did he?"
"Androids aren't human. You're no better off than he is."
"I haven't tried to fly into a black hole." Moller had tried to fly his ship into one, apparently thinking it was a shortcut to the other side of the galaxy. His ship's safety controls had taken over and brought him back to Hospital. He was in a rubber room, as far as I knew.
"Maybe your ship has safety controls that don't bring you back to Hospital."
"Or maybe my android keeps my head screwed on straight."
"I'm going to recommend you be grounded. You could be a menace and not know it. I'll have your records scanned and I'll find something."
"Go ahead, Lloyd, but you won't find anything." I kept my ship's records in my android, a female robot named Karla. Karla looked human, though the stump of her missing leg revealed wire ends that we'd tied together after the accident. The right leg served no useful purpose other than for locomotion, whereas her left leg had several memory storage devices. In addition, we had installed an electro-hydraulic propulsion system in her foot so that she could move as needed on any relatively level surface.
Lloyd scowled. "No, you and that damned robot probably have the records stashed somewhere. I wouldn't be surprised if you ejected the records into space somewhere along the way."
"Yes, we buried them on an asteroid. You just have to figure out which one."
"I'll find out which asteroids you've visited and go over each and every one with a finely tuned scanner."
"Good-bye, Lloyd."
"See ya around, Gart."
Karla and a couple of her android friends came to our space-station cabin a little while later. Karla was wearing a flippy skirt that covered up what was left of her right leg. "Gart, you're not going to let them recycle me, are you?"
"No, what would I want to do that for?"
"Your friend Lloyd–" Apparently Lloyd's ideas circulated quickly around the station.
"He's not my friend. We just had a few classes together at the Trade Academy. He's a jerk." I flipped up her skirt and checked the wires that stuck out of her leg. "We've got to get you a new leg, though."
"Why?"
"Don't you want to be whole?"
"I don't want to be recycled," Karla said. "I know they'll try to recycle me if you send me in for repairs."
"You won't be recycled. I have to order it, and I won't. I'll order a new leg only."
"Thank you," she said.
I recorded and sealed an order for a new leg, support type only, for Karla. Some androids had right legs that also contained memory storage, but I feared that that might be an attempt to recycle her memory, which would be just as bad as recycling her. I sent her off to the droid works for the new limb.
The next morning, my door buzzed. "Your android's missing," said Lloyd after I let him in.
"What do you mean?" I was still only half awake.
"She never checked into the droid works."
"How do you know she was supposed to check into the droid works?"
"You just told me." He laughed. "Seriously, they did an android count this morning, like they always do. The count came up three short. I figured yours would be one of them."
"I don't believe you," I said.
"Call down to the works and check. If your android has caused a couple of other droids to be lost, she can be involuntarily recycled."
"You've set her up."
"Maybe. But it's for your own good. You'll see."
"Why is it you're so hell-bent on seeing her recycled?" I asked. Whether or not to recycle an android was always a personal decision.
"I think she's made you space happy. That's dangerous."
"You're not a doctor, Lloyd."
"I'm recommending you see one, though. You have twelve hours to schedule an appointment or get off this station and out of this solar system."
"If my droid is missing–"
"Not an excuse, though it would probably validate any suggestion you've gone space happy." Lloyd smiled. "Either way, it looks like she's going to be recycled."
"I'll take the next transport down."
"You'd better hurry. It leaves in fifteen minutes. That leaves you only about five hours on the surface before you have to come back up to schedule your appointment."
I walked back to my vessel, planning to get a few things, including a homing device that would let me find Karla, or at least talk to her. I opened the door, entered, quickly closed it, and sat down in the "office," the place I usually sat if I wasn't navigating the ship. I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Karla.
"Why didn't you go to the droid works?" I asked. "They think you've taken a couple of other droids to the planet surface, which will give them a reason to recycle you."
"They went of their own accord," Karla said. "They were due for recycling. They're afraid."
"Let's see if we can fix that stabilizer," I said.
Working in the space station's artificial gravity, we fixed the stabilizer within the hour, and quickly set a course for the planet's surface. It would be a long trip down, since even with a solid stabilizer, it would take nearly three hours. But Karla had a good idea as to where on the planet we would need to go.
"We should be fine if we head into the eastern continents," Karla said. "Androids have rights in most of the entities there."
As we landed, I got a message from Lloyd. He told me that he was going to go ahead and have me detained for being space happy, and there was nowhere in this solar system that I could hide. I ignored the message and prepared to search for Karla's friends.
"Recycling is not permitted here," said the android at the guard station.
"I know. That's why I think they may have come down here. Look, I'm not here to recycle them. But my android is their friend and she wants to make sure they're not hurt."
"Where is she?"
"I don't know–" I just then noticed she wasn't with me. "I think she went off to the northern districts."
"Then go look there."
"We can search more working separately. Look, here are some descriptions. If you see them, tell them Karla and mate are looking for them."
"You're a mate?"
"I consider myself one. There's no official way to recognize marriage between humans and androids--at least, not in space. Do you have something here?"
"If your android is your mate, let her vouch for you. Be gone."
I searched all of the official places, while Karla found them in a few hours using her android ways. We helped them establish a safe identity on the planet, then took off for space.
We had time to return to the space station and pick up some fuel and a load before Lloyd's order on me took effect. "Guy thinks he runs the place. I guess he's right," I said, as we undocked from the space station.
"Don't ever recycle me–"
"I won't--"
"And don't ever fix my leg."
"OK, mate."
After we had cleared the solar system, we practiced mating.
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