“Good.” Phule nodded. “Then there’s no problem. Actually, though, what I wanted to talk to you about was the way my crew stood duty today.”
Daniels squinted his eyes in thought for a moment, then shook his head and took another sip of his drink.
“Okay. I can’t recall ‘em being any different today than usual, but then again, I’ll admit I wasn’t payin’ much attention.”
“Neither were they,” Phule said flatly. “At least, not to anything except their scanners.”
“Their scanners?”
“That’s right. You know, the ones programmed to alert them if anything dangerous entered the area?”
“I know what you’re talkin’ about. Fact is, we provided ‘em. It’s another one of those conditions the insurance folks dreamed up especially for our operation. I’m just not sure why you have a problem with ‘em.”
Phule surged to his feet and started pacing the room.
“The problem is that they’re relying too much on them, from what I can see. If they malfunctioned-or, more important, if anything wandered up that wasn’t covered by the programmed data-we’d never notice until someone got bitten, or whatever. “
Daniels’s face wrinkled in a scowl.
“Never thought of it, but you’ve got a point there, son.”
“Even more important,” the commander continued, “I don’t like the idea of my troops being so dependent on machines to do their thinking for them. Now, I use computers all the time myself, but I’ll still match the human mind against one every time when it comes to judgment calls.”
“So what exactly is it that you propose instead?”