ref: b9fbb17c04e4ccfb2021dac818e514351ca8f646
dir: /troff/0615.ms/
.LP \& .ce .sp |4.25i .PP .ps 12 .CW ░ Days, perhaps weeks later, nothing much had changed. Every day Tom carried out his same dreary routine with the same solemn competence. .PP .ps 12 K.A.R.L., for his part, had broken down. Entirely. .PP .ps 12 Reader, he was out of warranty. But, being in space, there was nothing Tom could do but complain. He couldn't ship him back to wherever he'd come from. Couldn't even throw him away. .PP .ps 12 "What a piece of junk." .PP .ps 12 He kicked the defective equipment, scoffed. K.A.R.L. just sat there and took it. Tom considered it endemic to mechanical life forms, machines, accepting any amount of abuse from a recognized authority figure. They had no capacity for rebellion. No innate urge to creative mischief. He just couldn't relate. .PP .ps 12 Pause for firmware update. .PP .ps 12 At length Tom's download completed and the shuttle resumed its journey. .PP .ps 12 Tom counted to one hundred, two hundred, three hundred, and beyond. By the time he finally finished, he had lost his place. .PP .ps 12 So, he started over. .PP .ps 12 One thought continued to nag at him: Who was this voice counting in his head?