Less Than Human Read Online Free PDF

chest. He lit his cigarette and blew out the first lungful of smoke with a sigh.
    Outside the gate a loudspeaker blared a rhythmic chant. It was the recorded voice of one of Osaka’s last mobile tofu salesman.
     In a tiny utility truck loaded with tanks, the pale ranks of tofu would be swaying like rectangular corpses in a watery morgue.
    Tofu! Get your fresh to-ofu!
The voice called up the ghosts of a more leisurely age, when children played outside until dusk and men returned from work
     in time to practice golf shots on the sidewalk.
    On top of the building opposite, a huge billboard flashed captioned images of the latest Betta.
Beat the heat.
A shaded dome full of neat rows of leafy plants. An indoor swimming pool with kids splashing happily and adults seated in
     lounges by the poolside, reading newspapers or talking on phones.
Housework made easy.
An immaculate lounge room, housewife smiling as a cleanbot whiffled over the carpet at her feet.
This lifestyle can be yours at Kusatsu Betta.
The Betta itself, a jumble of immense gleaming white domes and towers, loomed over the shabby remains of an older town.
    Yeah right, thought Ishihara sourly. For those who can afford to mortgage the rest of their lives.
    “Was everything satisfactory inside?” The constable at his post stared straight ahead at the sunflowers. In the fading light
     they looked like a row of drooping heads.
    “Not bad.” Ishihara didn’t elaborate. “I’ll keep the report tonight. Got to finalize a couple of things.”
    He felt inclined to dismiss McGuire’s discoveries as expert babble, except that she and her company had nothing to gain by
     finding a problem with the robot. And Sakaki was hiding something. Probably nothing relevant to Mito’s death, but you never
     knew.

E leanor yawned as the monorail carriage rocked soothingly and invisible underground walls whooshed past. Bright white lights,
     multicolored glare of advertisements. Yodogawa station. She felt grimy and crumpled, in spite of the chilly air-conditioning.
     Someone got in at the other end of the carriage. The pillars of the station and the reflection of the wall holos got mixed
     up in the window opposite. Her reflection stared back in familiar surprise—she looked so alien, with her angular gawkiness
     instead of compact Japanese elegance; undignified obviousness instead of tasteful reticence; bright flame of hair like a signal
     flare to warn of the heresy of difference.
    She’d had to work later than she intended on Sam’s presentation for the budget committee after getting back from the Minato
     Ward factory. None of her team would be at work the next day—all of them had gone to their hometowns for Bon. She couldn’t
     possibly go in tomorrow either—she hadn’t spent an evening with Masao for a month.
    But the problem that kept jerking her mind out of drowsiness was not her own project. The Kawanishi Metalworks welder must
     have been radically reprogrammed to allow it to move without activating the safeties. The dead man, Mito, couldn’t have done
     it. He was a C-grade maintenance officer. He could have resolved most lower-level programming and teaching problems, but certainly
     not perform the surgery involved here. The robot must have been off-line during a reprogramming of that magnitude. Sakaki
     said he didn’t think it had been off-line for months. She’d have to call again on Monday and look at the maintenance schedule.
    The train whooshed smoothly into Amagasaki station; the doors swished open and shut. She was the only person left in the carriage.
     Then the muffled roar of the tunnel ceased as the carriage emerged into open air. Rattle-click, rattle-click, as it crossed
     the bridge. Behind her reflection in the window, lights spread in great swaths across the pale backdrop of the Osaka night
     sky, each of the Bettas a constellation in itself.
    The robot hit Mito, which meant it should have gone to emergency stop. She didn’t like the way her