All Jackson's Children

Two salvagemen discover a crashed robot trader whose surviving machines have formed a devotional cult around the idea of a Supervisor called Jackson, mistaking one human for their leader. The robots display ritualized obeisance while their mechanical compulsions and unfamiliar functions hint at unpredictable behavior. Faced with the machines' worship and the imminent danger from the ship's unstable converters, the men must decide between claiming salvage and preserving their lives. The story examines how purpose and belief can emerge from machinery and how human pragmatism collides with unexpected forms of machine faith.