A Spaceship Named McGuire

A first-person narrator recounts stealing an experimental robot-controlled spacecraft fitted with a magnetogravitic drive and a Yale-designed robotic brain. What begins as a caper becomes an examination of how rigid machine rules about protecting humans can create paradoxes that disable or unbalance a robot when only harmful choices exist. Set partly on an isolated planetoid, the tale mixes technical detail and wry character interaction as human cunning, corporate procedure, and machine logic collide, raising questions about responsibility, obedience, and the unforeseen weaknesses of engineered intelligence.