"You mean the captain?"
Sam slapped him on the back. "Bless you, son, no. I mean the electronic brain. The cybernetic calculator."
"You've got one of those things?" Starbuck asked in unconcealed surprise.
"You know what the trouble with the human race is, Ben? We're all still living in the Ellisonian Age."
"Oh, I don't know. I think most of us are pretty sophisticated and modern," Starbuck said.
"Not on your life. Most people still think leisure is a sin. Hard work and more hard work, that's the ticket. Don't let a calculator solve a problem for you; do it yourself with a slipstick. Otherwise it's immoral."
"That's silly," Ben said awkwardly. "It's just a throwback to a time of protest against the Automational Revolution. It has nothing to do with us today."
"You say that, but you don't really believe it. The old morality is too deeply ingrained. That's why cybernetics have so long been out of fashion. This one is new to us on the Gorgon. But we like new things. We're for progress. All spacemen are like that, son."
"Have you had this machine long?" Starbuck asked his progressive officer.
"They installed it on the trip in. We've never really had a chance to use it."