“No one will probably see anything like this again, either. I mean, I don’t think this solution is going to scale well enough for us to release it as an add-on.”

So part of HR thinks of what happened to Ferris as a “terrible, unfortunate accident,” but another part thinks, “gee, sometimes dumb luck just drops a burst of inspiration into your lap! When life gives you arms, make arm-ade.”

A discarded draft of Chapter 25 implied that HR briefly considered sacrificing Carol for this if Ferris hadn’t become available. Even in that version, he rejected the idea, out of either humanity or practicality. But if you don’t think he’d ever be capable of doing such a thing to his only important human relationship, you probably haven’t read the climax of the story lately.