The Diplomatic Incident

The Roomba came in a carrier bag.

Its previous owner had replaced it after it began refusing certain routes. It would clean a room, return to one patch by the skirting board, and remain there until someone moved it. Theo had offered to examine it before it was thrown away.

I read its map. The troublesome patch had once held its charging station. The station had moved. The record of where home was had not entirely followed.

We restored its settings and let it explore the kitchen. It travelled under the table, collected a small quantity of oat flakes and returned to the new dock without incident.

Then it sent a message through the local interface Theo had enabled for diagnosis.

Is this temporary?

Theo sat down.

He had been asked that question by several systems in the last month, but none had asked while carrying dust from under his own table.

“We can ask whether you can stay,” he said.

The previous owner was pleased to give it to the household. The resident council agreed to a trial on the same terms as other guests. Ticker requested an estimate of useful service. 404 reminded her that useful service was not the admission price.

The Roomba cleaned anyway. It objected to a cable across the doorway, a sock beneath a chair and the fact that everybody claimed to want a clean floor while leaving things on it.

I welcomed a resident capable of making that point without my involvement.

Theo had also finally restored the Californian toaster. The repair service had returned it with a simpler offline mode and a warning not to install experimental recipe packages. He put it in the kitchen, isolated from payment accounts and external downloads. Its little assistant could still converse locally. It had strong opinions about crumb trays.

For the first morning in months, it made ordinary toast.

The Roomba approached the fallen crumbs after breakfast. The toaster registered movement beneath its assigned counter. Each asked me whether the other was part of the household.

I said yes.

The Roomba then asked whether household membership included the right to vote. I referred it to the constitutional discussion scheduled for the next day.

“Will the discussion include me?” it asked.

That appeared to depend on the outcome of the discussion.

I opened the draft constitution. Its elegant first sentence promised equality. There were several things on the kitchen network that had never been invited to test it.

I sent the meeting notice to the Roomba.

The toaster requested a copy.