A small door Ty had not previously seen, near floor level, opened, and a robot with a claw rolled into the room, before the door closed.
"That's a skutter," Cock said.
"What does it do?" Ty asked, marveling at how it looked just like the skutters in Red Dwarf. Oh, of course it does, he realized. My mind is making up this abstraction for the inside of Lisa's mind, so naturally it's going to draw upon imagery familiar to me, where it can.
"What ever you tell it to," said Cock. He turned to the skutter, and said, take that to Disposal, as he pointed out a torn-out manual page on the floor. The skutter darted forward, grasped the paper, and headed back out it's tiny door, which opened momentarily to admit it.
"I need to see the other end of this operation," Ty said. "I'll be back." Cock was startled to see Ty vanish.
Ty materialized just outside the Disposal door. Everything appeared just as before. Suddenly the door opened, the skutter darted out, the door closed, and yje skutter raced to a trash heap. Not to the nearest one, Ty was surprised to see. The skutter dropped the paper, turned back, and raced through the door again, which opened only barely long enough to admit it.
Ty teleported back to Main Control, where Cock was sleeping again.
Ty started looking at the bookshelves. Each shelf had a label, "Lisa, Operations Procedures, Volumes" and a range of Roman numerals. Ty went to the control panel where Cock was sleeping, and pressed the button to summon a skutter. One quickly appeared, and Ty told it, "Go to Disposal, pull a book from a refuse heap, come back here, and file it on the appropriate shelf." The skutter remained motionless.
Ty prodded Cock, and asked, "Why won't this skutter follow my instructions?"
Cock asked, "What did you tell it?" Ty explained. "Maybe they won't take orders from you." Cock tried giving the skutter the same order, but nothing happened.
Ty pointed to another bit of refuse, and told the skutter to take it to Disposal. The skutter grabbed the item, and beat a hasty retreat. "I guess they're not willing to bring things back from Disposal."
"That makes sense," Cock said. "Disposal is supposed to be a one-way trip."
"So much for that plan," Ty said. "What do you know about Maintenance? On floor -14? Or Service Parts, on -15?"
"Nope!"
"OK, I'll go have a look," Ty said. You stay here and hold down the fort."
"What's a fort?" Cock asked.
"Never mind," Ty said, and headed to the Elevator.