feet that carried his full frame so easily. He pulled up the blind and signaled Small Stiva to bring him his clothes and boots and activate the II/Sartorial/943. The Class II automaton motored to life, a pair of long, flat “arms” unfolding and extending forward from the sides of its hatbox-sized body as it wheeled over to Stiva on its thick treads. As Stiva settled into his comfortable armchair and presented his face and neck, one of the Class II’s end-effectors grew thick with shaving cream, and from the other flicked forth a gleaming silver straight razor.
As the II/Sartorial/943 began carefully lathering Stepan Arkadyich’s cheeks and jowls, Small Stiva emitted a series of three sharp pings: A communiqué was arriving. Stiva gestured for his little beloved-companion to play it, and soon his face brightened.
“My sister Anna Arkadyevna will be here tomorrow,” he said, checking for a minute the efficient end-effector of the II/Sartorial/943 cutting a pink path through his long, curly whiskers.
As the communiqué from Anna Arkadyevna concluded, Small Stiva’s whole frontal display lit up brightly, and his gleaming dome of a head spun rapidly around atop his little body. He, like his master, realized the significance of this arrival—that is, that Anna Arkadyevna, the sister Stiva was so fond of, might bring about a reconciliation between husband and wife.
“Alone, or with her husband?” the Class III inquired.
As he opened his mouth to answer, the II/Sartorial/943 let out a shriek as loud and piercing as a boiling kettle and sank the razor end-effector deeply into Stiva’s top lip, causing him to jerk backward and yelp.
“Ah! Ah!” he shouted in genuine pain, hot blood streaming from the wound into his mouth and down his neck. The Class II screeched again, deafeningly, its razor-tipped end-effector drawn back for a second slash. Stepan Arkadyich raised his hands feebly before his face, trying to protect his eyes, and to wave away the noxious cloud of sweet perfume the II/Sartorial/943 was spraying from the Third Bay at the base of its midsection. The Class II swept its blood-smeared end-effector directly at Stepan Arkadyich’s plump neck, nicking his Adam’s apple and missing the carotid artery by a matter of inches.
Stepan Arkadyich hollered wildly over the din of the Class II’s feverish beeping. “The thing is maltuned! It’s become maleficent! Small Stiva!”
But Small Stiva, programmed in keeping with the Iron Laws to defend his master even past the point of his own destruction, was already in action. The loyal Class III bent forward at a 45-degree angle and launched himself like a little cannonball directly into the black metal frame of the malfunctioning robot. The II/Sartorial/943 was knocked off its treads and thrown across the room, where it smashed against the glass top of the comfort unit.
“Bravo, little samovar,” said Stepan Arkadyich through his wadded handkerchief, which he had stuffed up against his lip in a half-successful effort to staunch the crimson flow from his face.
The Class II’s horrid beeping had not yet ceased, and the malfunctioning of the sartorial unit was more dire than Stepan Arkadyich had realized. It righted itself and shot back across the floor with demonic energy, whirling gyroscopically as it came, firing hot, thick globs of shaving cream toward Stepan Arkadyich’s eyes, its straight-razored end-effector swinging in wild, deadly circles. Stepan Arkadyich cowered back into the corner, his arms flung up helplessly before him.
Small Stiva, faster and more complex in his functioning than the smartest of Class IIs, which this simple household sartorial certainly was not, easily intercepted the smaller machine. Holding it at arm’s length with one midtorso effector, Small Stiva flung himself open at the torso, revealing the intensely hot groznium furnace that burned within him. Then, suddenly, he let go of the II/Sartorial/943 and let the thing fling itself forward—the errant Class II flew into the torso furnace, and Small Stiva clanged the door shut behind it.
“My Lord. I have never seen such a severe maltuning in a Class II, to so wantonly contravene the Iron Laws,” mused Stepan Arkadyich, dabbing more blood from his gashed lip with his shirttail. “I am lucky, as ever, that you were here, mon petit ami.”
Small Stiva whistled proudly and stoked his groznium core for one hot instant—and from within him came the hiss and pop of the II/Sartorial/943’s polymers disintegrating. The casings and trim would be destroyed, but the machine’s thousands of groznium parts, indestructible and reusable, would, by a remarkable process, be “internalized” into Small Stiva’s own biomechanical infrastructure.
Stepan Arkadyich struggled