"With a brain. Do you know anything about cybernetics, Sam?"
"I know just as much about cybernetics as you know about people. Nothing."
"That's not quite fair. I'm not sentimental about people, but it's inaccurate to say I don't know anything about them. I'm a person. I think I'm—discerning and sensitive."
"Sure," Sam said. "Let's drop the subject."
"Why?"
"Because you're talking nonsense. A person without faults is not a person. And if—it or he—she were, I don't think I'd care to know him or her or it."
"Naturally. You're a sentimentalist. You've seen so much misery, so much human error, so much stupidity that you've built up your natural tolerance into a sloppy and unscientific sentimentality. It happens to sociologists all the time."
"Joe, I'm not going to argue with you. Only one thing I ask. When you—break the news to Vera, break it gently. And get her back to the Center as quickly as you can. She's a choice, rare number."
Joe said nothing to that. Sam looked miserable. They sat there, listening to the swishing, burring clicks of the airlocks, two friends—one who dealt with people and had grown soft, the other who dealt with machines and might not have grown at all.