Gunther unstrapped Siegfried from the roof of the cab and, control pad in one hand and cable spool in the other, walked him toward the hopper.

The human strode out to meet him.  "You!  What kept you?"  E. Izmailova wore a jazzy red-and-orange Studio Volga boutique suit, in sharp contrast to his own company-issue suit with the G5 logo on the chest.  He could not make out her face through the gold visor glass.  But he could hear it in her voice:  blazing eyes, thin lips.

"I had a flat tire."  He found a good smooth chunk of rock and set down the cable spool, wriggling it to make sure it sat flush.  "We got maybe five hundred yards of shielded cable.  That enough for you?"

A short, tense nod.

"Okay."  He unholstered his bolt gun.  "Stand back."  Kneeling, he anchored the spool to the rock.  Then he ran a quick check of the unit's functions.  "Do we know what it's like in there?"

A remote came to life, stepped forward and identified himself as Don Sakai, of G5's crisis management team.  Gunther had worked with him before:  a decent enough guy, but like most Canadians he had an exaggerated fear of  nuclear energy.  "Ms. Lang here, of Sony-Reinpfaltz, walked her unit in but the radiation was so strong she lost control after a preliminary scan."  A second remote nodded confirmation, but the relay time to Toronto was just enough that Sakai missed it.  "The remote just kept on walking."  He coughed nervously, then added unnecessarily, "The autonomous circuits were too sensitive."

"Well, that's not going to be a problem with Siegfried.  He's as dumb as a rock.  On the evolutionary scale of machine intelligence he ranks closer to a crowbar than a computer."  Two and a half seconds passed, and then Sakai laughed politely.  Gunther nodded to Izmailova.  "Walk me through this.  Tell me what you want."

Izmailova stepped to his side, their suits pressing together briefly as she jacked a patch cord into his control pad.  Vague shapes flickered across the outside of her visor like the shadows of dreams.  "Does he know what he's doing?" she asked.