I Hoe Bot
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Mike Donovan looked skeptically at his partner.
 "What's wrong?" he said.
Gregory Powell looked up, the thin traces of a smile appearing on face.
 "You heard me right the first time," Powell stated, trying to suppress a snort of laughter.
 After weeks of vacation, with pay this time, the idea of setting out to yet another asteroid on the beck and call of the slide-rule boy's bill seemed like paradise. Donovan should have know better by now.
 "Let me get this straight." Donovan sighed, "The brains on this rock decided that their men needed some 'entertainment' between shifts."
Powell nodded.
 "So they commissioned the US Robot and Mechanical Men Inc. to build them the SA-13, an entertainment unit."  He frowned, "So what's all this fuss about a broken machine?"
Powell sat still for a moment and opened his mouth to speak, but before he could respond, the docking alarm sounded.

Vesta was the heart of the near earth asteroid mining sector, the once rich rock now home to a warren of caves, its precious metals long since depleted. Despite the overhead of sustaining a human workforce, the asteroids teamed with miners, and with them any number of support staff, scientists and traders that made the asteroid a boomtown.

Powell continued as the airlock of the shuttle cycled, his red brow creased in thought.
 "As is common knowledge, most of the belt is male, and the SA-l3 unit, know to the locals as 'Sally' is designed to keep the lonely men company during their downtime." Powell leered at his partner. "Lets just say that she can do more than play Parcheesi."

...