18 April, 2011

[SFAP] Chapter 2:16

This is the sixteenth section of the second chapter of Sonnets from a Proton. The novel starts here.
The next section is here.

“So why are you obsessing over this old dump anyway?”
“I am not obsessing” replied Laurence.
“You’ve been staring out of that window for hours now”
“You exaggerate. ”
“Not by much.”
“Have you never seen an engineer enjoying a work of genius?”
“It’s alright, it just a ship, it’s not even a really exciting one, just a shuttle to the Habitat.”
“Doesn’t it inspire you that someone built that?”
“Really?”
“How did you think it got built, magical pixies? Well that seems to be what drones are, they even sparkle." Laurence continued in a slightly mumbled voice "Well if you hit them hard enough anyway, the Habitat ones anyway.”
Tom ignored the mumbling, “Well who else would build it?”
“Okay well yes robots did build most of this, but who do you think designed it or the robots?”
“An AI?” asked Tom
“Do you have any idea how old this place is, or how new AIs actually are?”
“Sorry”
“No it’s not your fault, I guess out here you’re used to everything having to be built by robots, but this place was at least designed by humans and built by robots that were designed by humans that were built by robots that were built by  humans”
“Come again?”
“Sorry I’m just fed up with people always assuming that everything is done for them, when here you can see so much evidence of how you can so something amazing for yourself”
“Come on misery guts, let’s go get lunch” said Tom resisting the urge to grab Laurence and drag him.

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