“Eh, Small Stiva?” he said, shaking his head.
The android turned his head all the way around, flashed a cheerful red from within his frontal display, and piped, “Worry not, master. For you, all things will turn out right.”
With a midbody effector he was holding up Stepan Arkadyich’s fresh shirt like a horse’s collar, and blowing off some invisible speck with a burst of air from his Third Bay, he slipped it over the body of his master.
CHAPTER 3
STEPAN ARKADYICH, IN SPITE OF his unhappmess and his natural irritation at the sacrifice of a particularly good household Class II, walked with a slight swing of each leg into the diningroom, where coffee was already waiting for him, piping hot from the I/Samovar/1(8).
Sipping his coffee, he activated Small Stiva’s monitor to display the first of several business-related communiqués he had to review. One was very unpleasant, from a merchant who was buying a small but valuable patch of groznium-rich soil on his wife’s property. To sell this property was absolutely essential; but at present, until he was reconciled with his wife, the subject could not be discussed. The most unpleasant thing of all was that his pecuniary interest should in this way enter into the question of his reconciliation with his wife. And the idea that he might be led on by his interests, that he might seek a reconciliation with his wife on account of the sale of the land-that idea hurt him.
When he had finished viewing his communiqués, Stepan Arkadyich dismissed Small Stiva, enjoyed a sip of coffee, and allowed the morning news feed to wash over him.
Stepan Arkadyich took a liberal feed, not an extreme one, but one advocating the views held by the majority. With the liberal party and his liberal feed, Stepan