...it's an adaptation by Alfie Bester of his short story "Fondly Fahrenheit", where a plantation owner, James Vandeleur, has an android that keeps going berserk and killing people. The android's psychosis is triggered by the heat rising above a certain point, at which stage the andy starts getting twitchy. The punchline is that Vandaleur himself is the psycho, and the andy is acting out the suppressed mania of his owner. Bester based this story on an account of a slave owner prior to the Civil War who refused to surrender a murderous slave because the man was too valuable. In this story, Vandaleur sells his property and moves because the andy costs too much to part with. And, as with all of Bester's tales, there's a nifty little twist at the end...
Review of Murder and the Android
