Escaped in the nick of time.  And  stuck in my cabin overnight as Edith Nelson happily prepares supper for Harry. Chip too I’m told. I can’t help feeling a bit guilty. But no way am I going to endure another one of her domestic moods. The last time I spent two days in bed or in the head with a crate of the pink stuff and a couple of jumbo rolls of toilet paper respectively. I’ll be sure to note that Harry and Chip will probably be unavailable for work for the next couple of days.

Harry also told me that she got him a robot that vacuums. Not a bad idea, but I can’t say I’m all that pleased with the way everything’s getting so hands off nowadays.  I had my own experience with a robot aboard Seaview thank you very much, and I’ve been suspicious of the things ever since.

You can imagine my surprise when the astronaut we were picking up turned out to be a robot. Not a sophisticated looking dummy of wires and transceivers, but something that looked as if it belonged in some old B movie. Built to withstand heat, cold, solar storms, the whole megilla. What it’s designer failed to tell it though, was not to get its programming fried in outer space, turn tail, and try to destroy us.

It wouldn’t respond to signals, it interfered with our ballast tanks, our air revitalization, it walked through bulkheads, etc. etc. and need I go on, it damn near destroyed us and killed some of my crew.  I’ve never been partial to robots of any kind since then.

Harry managed to figure out (why couldn’t it’s designer?) that it was attracted to light (a partial power source) and then he lured it to the escape hatch and blew it out of Seaview, which was a good thing as the stupid machine attached some magnetic mines on itself. 

So, off the boat and blown up, things returned to normal, except of course, for the fact that my boat was still damaged and nothing could bring my dead crewmen back to life.

Morton just called. Said Edith has a present for me. A robotic floor mop I can use for Seaview. Oh the pain…