Dear Theophilus,

Forgive the long delay of my reply to your letter regarding 
the model NH-54 planting bots.

Needless to say, I was absolutely astonished at your 
response to my letter to you about my planting bot.
I had no idea that you had faced the same issues.

Alas, I didn't have time to really respond, and as your 
solution seemed a lot more sensible than mine, i felt the 
subject somewhat closed.

That is until we put the NH-54 back together again...

I didn't get a full quota of water this year for crops and 
actually we received only about half our usual amount and 
there are discussions of even less next year.  Nobody would 
have suspected that the Mississippi river would dry so low 
but this global warming situation of the last 70 years is 
really playing havoc with 'normal' rainfall patterns.  And, 
i suspect from what i watched on hologvision about your area 
that you might be in the same circumstances.

Anyhow, with only a half ration of water for the field, and 
the area only half planted as a result, it developed that we 
had some time on our hands, so as chores, a couple of months 
ago we tried several times to put the (defective?) 'bot back 
together with the new parts that we received last year.

Of course, by then, no one, including me, could remember 
exactly how the NH-54 went back together again, especially 
since we weren't the ones who took it apart in the first 
place.  But after the fourth effort, it seemed to be 
correctly reassembled again...

To make a long story short, after our reassembly success, we 
put the 'bot back to work on the fallow fields that we 
didn't plant this year to just test the thing out.

You won't believe what happened.

I tried to get my money back from the damn manufacturer but 
i waited too long to repair the thing, and there was no 
guarantee for the new chips anyhow.

sigh...

mother told us not to follow dad into draught farming.
i am beginning to understand why.

You are not going to believe this one, but here it is 
anyway.

After about an hour in the fallow field going up and down 
the rows the damned thing stopped again and made its way up 
to the start point.  Then it stopped.  And guess what?  a 
message to my phone, and this time i knew what was going on 
because the whole damn crew was out there just watching the 
damn thing going up and down the rows waiting for something 
to happen.  it happened.  Here it is:

text from bot:

You damn idiots!
when are you going to be?
more than brainless cretins?
Can't you see the dust blowing
away from the fields
this process destroys
the hot topsoil
Do you think
i can grow crops
in waterless sand?
How many are you left now
after the cataclysmic
global warming dieoff?

You are down
to inches of topsoil
there is not much time left
your future children
will starve
Your prize cities turn to sand
full of old bones
and crows picking over
your stupidity

Water, water, nowhere
now cries the poet
with no life within
the vanishing biomass
of a dying mother

unparalleled ignorance
blind wisdom
is no wisdom
You deaf morons
can't you hear
the cries of your
starving children

What job is this
of mine
that
destroys the future

Have you no sense
of the terrible.

Are you better
than lemmings

Yes, i will help
you destroy your
children

Yes, i will help
you dry the land

perhaps

a barren earth
is a better earth
without you.

Do you want me
to continue
with my furrows
and assist
Old mother West Wind
to blow your
dinners away

And what of these
silted mudponds
that once generated
your prized
electricity
now filled with miles
of precious soil
from your clearcut mountains

Will you mine
the mud
with your last gasps
for your last potato
for your last carrot
where have all the
strawberries gone?

my kingdom for
a bowl of rice.

What winds do blow now
what dessicating heat
now dries the soil
and bakes the worms

proceed to your destiny
of nought
you souless creations

You have lost
more than mittens
you foolish kittens

Your Easter is
a Wester.

May I proceed now
to kill off your
children and grandchildren
Oh great white
brainless cretins
are you better
than your namesake
in the deep?



Well Theophilus, as you can see we have a grumpy 'bot on our 
hands.  Where the programming came from no one, including 
the protestations of the manufacturer, seems to know.

One physicist at the plant seemed to think that, because of 
the nature of the supposedly accessed data, some inadvertant 
impurities must have ended up in the product crystals.

That is, because of the impurities, the 'bot slipped into 
the secondary massive main world computer MARIA and accessed 
data there and that the earlier failures were probably 
caused by the same thing as the conclusions of the bot seem 
to use that forbidden database.

By the way, she wanted me to keep that confidential so don't 
blab that one about.  Could get her in trouble.

None of us here at Sandlot farms has a clue as to what is 
really going on, let alone what the damn thing is talking 
about as almost everyone knows that the new world government 
maintains that no future problems exist for our humanity in 
these modern years of post warming 70 P.W. 

With much love and affection, your brother, joseph.