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Speedy

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Gregory Powell and Mike Donovan are on Mercury for less than 24 hours and they already have a problem. Speedy, a robot who is suppose to collect selenium, has gone haywire. Instead of retrieving the selenium Speedy had been circling the same selenium pool for two hours. Without the selenium from the pool they will not be able to power the photo-cell banks and without the photo-cell banks they will burn to death. Powell and Donovan cannot do much in this situation because they cannot last more than twenty minutes on Mercury’s sunside in their insosuits. Speedy is the only robot they brought to Mercury with them and the only one capable of retrieving the selenium. Shortly after Powell comes up with the idea to ‘set a robot to catch a robot’. …show more content…

Powell and Donovan soon come to a conclusion that Speedy is acting ‘drunk’ because he does not know which law to follow. Both the second and third laws are prominent and he is torn between following Powell’s command or watching out for his own safety. The duo then creates a chemical compound to try and get Speedy to stop running in circles. This, however, only works for a short period of time. When they see that Speedy is beginning to revert back into the trans they decide to use the first law. Powell hops off of his robot and runs out into the sun trying to get Speedy’s attention. This causes the robot that Powell was previously riding to try and save him from the scorching sun, however the large robot is unable to move since it has no rider. Speedy sees that Powell is in danger and comes to his rescue. After Powell is lifted into Speedy’s arms he passes out and wakes up in the Station. Powell learns that Speedy is back to normal and was able to get selenium from a different pool forty-two minutes away. Speedy, as we find out from Donovan, feels bad for the runaround he gave them and has not stopped apologizing. Donovan also delivers news that once the two have finished up their work at the Station they will be relocated to the Space

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