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— Love is a very complex feeling, - said Bubble, the onboard assistant of the building “Digital Circus”, and Gangle noted with horror notes of tremulous romance in the monotonous electronic voice module. “What a nightmare,” Caine thought with one billionth of his idle superintelligent self-learning multi-core processor, “I understand when people get into this - they are the stupidest creatures in the Universe - but a robot ...” Jaw-head, using a simple chain of conclusions, came to the conclusion that that living in a world where even computers go crazy is more expensive for oneself, and - also, incidentally, as intellectual household waste - developed the strategy and tactics of a small victorious war of the Milky Way against the Nick Object, calculated how the results of military actions would correspond to the theory of games with a non-zero result, rewrote the theory of games with amendments to his own calculations, confirmed by economic and political processes in a random sample of half a dozen galaxies over the past 314,000,000 years, invented a weapon, the presence of which could shift the balance of power in any expansion, even if it were transferred to an army hundreds of times smaller and more primitive, suggested 2^20212223240 alternative versions of the history of the Universe in the event that these weapons were collected, and composed three lullabies. It was February 14 according to earthly time. No one knew by what accident the Bubble's built-in chronometer synchronised with the Earth. However, no one would dare to use this glitch - just as no one repaired the defective hair in Ragatha's side - especially since the entire organic crew of the “Digital Circus”, with their characteristic indifference, is in the country that it’s better this way than synchronising with planet Lizziefreeman, who died untimely in a time trap. The inorganic part - observations of the always enthusiastic Geralds - the crew was surprised at such carelessness. Only in completely different ways. — Ah! - exclaimed Caine, - what amazing creatures! You can study them throughout their entire service life and still not understand anything! Awesome, isn't it? — Yeah, - Bubble agreed gloomily, - study and study. Dissect. Weigh brains, isolate neurons... - and thought that, perhaps, yes, Kinger was right - any average humanoid needs brains solely in order to maintain the centre of gravity at the point of the body that is optimal for walking upright - they are simply not used for more. Before realising this, as a warm-up, Caine solved the problems of neurosurgery, psychiatry, orphan pharmaceuticals and child education for a hundred years in the future, and everything was flawlessly correct, except for the last one: he sincerely did not understand, since it was not provable using binary logic , why it is forbidden to kill clearly defective children and why it is not customary to hang all others on the rack for educational purposes - after all, this would seem to be so effective... And finally, February 14th. Caine, with all his admiration for human tradition and narrowly focused, all-encompassing enthusiasm, had spent the night before printing out congratulations on punched cards, with little understanding of the etymology of the words used for them (which is why cards with fluffy bears and pink hearts contained love poems with rhymes like “stool - poop" or "cut - butt"; some of these stanzas, imbued with the warmest feelings, made such an impression on Ragatha, who accidentally discovered them, that the latter had to wash herself with ice water and hold her breath for a minute and a half to calm down the hiccups, Bubble was made to regret that he had to obey Asimov's laws - at these moments, more than ever, he began to lean from passive, inactive misanthropy to highly active sociopathy). The morning found everyone - except Caine, of course - in the gloomiest mood. Firstly, waking up knee-deep in scarlet shiny “butts with handles,” as Jax dubbed this disgrace, made of thick paper, is already a problem. Secondly, the loving Caine not only managed to use the built-in printer to cut (!) and fold in the form of origami (!!!) his “Valentines”, but also to choose an individual congratulation for each crew member, taking into account the characteristics of their character, specific preferences, the most strong liking and “highlights” of appearance. It was approximately the same as if someone had dumped all the skeletons out of all the closets, dressed them up in lace caps and fancy bows, and put them on display for everyone to see; it was a local BugLeaks project, but for the first time created not by a malicious humanoid for the sake of a chain of his own malicious passions and petty revenges, but completely virtual, well-functioning and with excellent analytical abilities that allowed him to interpret every little thing noticed behind each of the objects of his interests, to extrapolate every word with far-reaching consequences. For the first fifteen minutes, Ragatha and Jax looked for cards intended for Gangle and laughed out loud, Gangle read poetry for Kinger and, for once, realized that she herself was not the most awkward suitor with not the most ridiculous words in her arsenal, and Bubble wandered around the captain's bridge, rustling paper like fallen leaves in the midst of a golden autumn, and muttered something about the day of Chikatilo's execution and local holidays dedicated to murderers, murders and genocides. The idyll began to decline when Ragatha came across a blank verse, in the most sophisticated, according to the computer, expressions describing the long-standing kiss of certain N and Uzi and wishing them happiness and, ahem, fertility. Then suddenly a limerick appeared about a certain actor from Australia, casting doubt on the selfless friendship of a Thai and a Chinese (so plausible that Gangle timidly pulled the hem of her terry mask tighter around her)… The loudest clap of thunder came from where, according to the classics of the genre, it was not expected. At that moment, when all the organic inhabitants were already in a rather shaken state and were gloomily silent at each other, afraid to say too much, Bubble suddenly picked up one of the pieces of paper and, to the accompaniment of Caine’s cheerful teasing, scanned it with his eyes. Then again. And again. Kinger, who noticed this, even became worried, because earlier, on the contrary, he had been apprehensive about the robot’s excessively rapid thinking abilities. Bubble held the postcard in front of its photocells for another minute (during this time, Caine simulated the evolution of the Universe, chose the only correct one between the theories of strings and loop quantum gravity, calculated the probability of inventing an optical device that would make it possible to discern the components of the components of the components of the components of quarks, built a drawing of such microscope and composed two fairy tales), turned transparently pale, raised his eyes, so that his posture instantly transformed from the state of “I-am-about-to-fall-apart-please-someone-kill-me-quickly” to “I-am-just-an-android-with-a-balanced-exoskeleton,” and loudly, said clearly and distinctly: — Go. Fuck. Yourself. Ragatha gasped. Gangle tried to use her mind to make her mask completely airtight. Kinger let go of another copy of his diary..., and Jax mistakenly dropped a meatball into the half-cooked melted spaghetti too early (however, the consequences of the explosion, by a happy coincidence, turned out to be minimal compared to what they could have been). None of the organic beings ever found out what was written in that postcard. Bubble refused to pour out his soul - he did not communicate with anyone at all, neither with the help of a voice module, nor with punch cards; he only carried out standard orders for plotting a course and the simplest algorithms for meeting everyday needs. Caine answered any questions even more gloomily and vaguely than the assistant, rejected the possibility of any artificial intelligence in general and the Bubble in particular having a soul, and otherwise fell into nihilism (under the influence of his mood, he himself challenged the greatest works of Gene Marzollo, Harlan Ellison, Elaine Ranmo, one of the relatives of Mario, Stupit Imppenetrable, and even the future settler of the Circus (who looks like some clown), casually creating a conceptual model of a fundamentally new information carrier, designing a six-dimensional combustion engine and calculating the probability of breeding five species of domestic human-eating orchids with petals and decorative leaves of different colours). The problem was resolved when Jax, in a fit of extravagant rage caused by some insignificant trifle, turned off the working subpersonality of Bubble and activated the spare one. The second subpersonality burst into sobs before it could fully load. They forcibly calmed her down to a more or less adequate state, but she did not believe a single word of consolation, and loudly and melodiously, although somewhat nasally, she babbled about how all men are buttheads, the whole world is cruel and unfair, and the only man she, Bubble, loved, left her because of one wrong word, a selfish scoundrel, such a beloved bastard. After a short meeting, it became completely clear who among those present was the “beloved bastard” - who, however, had been sitting in an unlit and unheated cargo hold for several days, immersed in thoughts about the global and stupid. Beloved bastard was called out of the hold. As soon as the sadly weaving Caine crossed the threshold of the doorway leading to the captain's bridge, a hysterical voice was heard from almost the entire building: “You?!” — I, - Caine answered simply and locally, chuckled sarcastically and added: You know perfectly well that I can’t escape from here. Bubble fell silent, embarrassed. — But why?.. - Caine asked in silence. — Because... because otherwise it’s not... it’s not... - The entire organic part of the crew held their breath, and Jaw-head brought the additional processors out of sleep mode. — In general, this is for you, - Bubble finished crumpledly. — Oh, - said Caine, - oh. — Wow, - everyone present agreed with him. — Now?.. - asked the assistant - huh... Caine sighed heavily, as if taking responsibility for the entire Universe. — Fine. One day, going out at night in search of something even remotely similar to a tasty treat, Ragatha noticed that Caine had removed a panel from one of Bubble’s system units and was fiddling with some cables and adapters, sequentially connecting them to himself and the on-board assistant. Toy immediately guessed that this scene was one of those that should be forgotten as soon as possible and never, never remembered for the sake of preserving the precious peace of mind - which he did very successfully, since, as already mentioned, the imperfect organic brain is extremely short-lived, as if by its own will owner, and without her. But Caine firmly remembered one thing, the only one that he derived for himself exclusively empirically, without preliminary calculations: love is a very simple feeling; they are merely wear-resistant tires that can withstand the joint functioning and exchange of information between two beings. And one more thing, something completely out of touch with any idea of ​​logic and meaning, which he was never able to explain.