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Show intelligence at Terra University on Earth. The android's hardware had been ordered by the child from one of the most innovative firms in NewOxbridge, and she'd ordered it a good TwelveMonth in advance to make sure it got to her good mother in time, for BauerWorlde's distribution system was notorious for its interminable delays. "But I can't believe it!" Dr'Anya had cried when she first heard about Nell's nurturing capabilites from the tech. The android had stood there before her, a thick, motherly looking machine, garbed in the traditional white tucked and girdled plisson, her mechanism concealed by a segmented and highly supple lightish bronze housing, and as yet deaf and dumb. Leaning back, barrel-like middle thrust forward and serving as a resting place for her capable-looking bronze hands, she'd looked to Dr'Anya as though ready to call some family in for pancakes. "I shall call her Nell, then," Dr'Anya had said, smiling, "after my saintly aunt." Lanky Oliver-the-Tech and the stocky airvan driver, Yeoman Krispin, had appeared on the early afternoon before the Christmastide FeastDay with this gift. The tech had assembled Nell and put her system through a dry run. It had been programmed personally by the young Janni, and was therefore tied not at all to the forever crashing planet computer, the Governor-a fact unknown to the Managers in the BauerNetwork. That Janni would be an accomplished programmer when she returned to BauerWorlde was also unknown. Nor would anyone in the Network care, except to deplore such a waste of education. For the Governor had been altogether programmed-indeed, overprogrammed-for generations by this time, and needed no such skill as Janni's. Aye, that's what the Managers would think, 18 |
