“It does,” the Count said, pouring us out a pair of drinks. “It is a perfect example of what is wrong with the Freiburian economy under the gracious rule of Villelm the Incompetent. You don’t see any robots like this in the capital!”
“I should hope not,” I gasped, staring bug-eyed at the trickle of steam escaping from the thing, and the stains of rust and coal dust on its plates. “Of course I’ve been away a long time … things change. …”
“They don’t change fast enough! And don’t act galactic-wise with me, Diebstall. I’ve been to Misteldross and seen how the rubes live. You have no robots at all—much less a contraption like this.” He kicked at the thing in sullen anger and it staggered back a bit, valves clicking open as steam pumped into the leg pistons to straighten it up. “Two hundred years come next Grundlovsday we will have been in the League, milked dry and pacified by them—and for what? To provide luxuries for the King in Freiburbad. While out here we get a miserable consignment of a few robot brains and some control circuitry. We have to build the rest of the inefficient monsters ourselves. And out in the real sticks where you come from they think robot is a misspelling of a boat that goes with oars!”
He drained his glass and I made no attempt to explain to him the economics of galactic commerce, planetary prestige, or the multifold levels of intercommunication. This lost planet had been cut off from the mainstream of galactic culture for maybe a thousand years, until contact had been reestablished after the Breakdown. They were being eased back into the culture gradually, without any violent repercussions that might upset the process. Sure, a billion robots could be dumped here tomorrow. What good would that do the economy? It was certainly much better to bring in the control units and let the locals build the things for themselves. If they didn’t like the final product they could improve the design instead of complaining.