“Hmph! Well, I’m going up right now and tell her if I hear another word from her about spanking Bennie, I’ll cut her switch myself. Then she can go back to Central for reprogramming and see how she likes it.”
“Ben! You wouldn’t.”
“Why not? Maybe she needs a new personality?”
[p 30]
“You won’t say a thing to her. You’re too soft-hearted.”
“This time I won’t be.”
This time he wasn’t. He met Nana CD-IX in the hallway outside Bennie’s room. Like all nurse, teaching, and children’s personal service robots, she was human in form, except for her control dial safely out of baby’s reach, top, center.
The human form was reassuring to children, kept them from feeling strange with parents
back. Nana was big, gray-haired, stout, buxom, motherly, to reassure parents.
“Now, Mr. Tilman,” she said with weary impatience, “you are too late. Surely you don’t intend to burst in and disturb your son now.”
“Surely I do.”