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"Not if you don't want to. But it would be interesting – I mean if you wanted to." Susan Calvin tried to be bright about it.

"Aw-w-w. You spoil everything."

And the psychologist jumped up suddenly, with a look of flaming insight on her face.

"Oh, my," she gasped. "Oh, my."

And she felt the tension of hours and days released in a burst. It was later that she told La

The ship returned to Earth as silently, as unjarringly as it had left. It dropped precisely into place and the main lock gaped open. The two men who walked out felt their way carefully and scratched their rough and scrubbily-stubbled chins.

And then, slowly and purposefully, the one with red hair knelt down and planted upon the concrete of the runway a firm, loud kiss.

They waved aside the crowd that was gathering and made gestures of denial at the eager couple that had piled out of the down-swooping ambulance with a stretcher between them.

Gregory Powell said, "Where's the nearest shower?"

They were led away.

They were gathered, all of them, about a table. It was a full staff meeting of the brains of U. S. Robot amp; Mechanical Men Corp.

Slowly and climactically, Powell and Donovan finished a graphic and resounding story.

Susan Calvin broke the silence that followed. In the few days that had elapsed she bad recovered her icy, somewhat acid, calm – but still a trace of embarrassment broke through.

"Strictly speaking," she said, "this was my fault – all of it. When we first presented this problem to The Brain, as I hope some of you remember, I went to great lengths to impress

upon it the importance of rejecting any item of information capable of creating a dilemma. In doing so I said something like `Don't get excited about the death of humans. We don't

mind it at all. Just give the sheet back and forget it.'"

"Hm-m-m," said La

"The obvious. When that item entered its calculations which yielded the equation controlling the length of minimum interval for the interstellar jump – it meant death for humans. That's where Consolidated's machine broke down completely. But I had depressed the importance of death to The Brain – not entirely, for the First Law can never be broken – but just sufficiently so that The Brain could take a second look at the equation. Sufficiently to give it time to realize that after the interval was passed through, the men would return to life – just as the matter and energy of the ship itself would return to being. This so-called `death,' in other words, was a strictly temporary phenomenon. You see?"

She looked about her. They were all listening.

She went on, "So he accepted the item, but not without a certain jar. Even with death temporary and its importance depressed, it was enough to unbalance him very gently."

She brought it out calmly, "He developed a sense of humor – it's an escape, you see, a method of partial escape from reality. He became a practical joker."

Powell and Donovan were on their feet.

"What?" cried Powell.

Donovan was considerably more colorful about it.

"It's so," said Calvin. "He took care of you, and kept you safe, but you couldn't handle any controls, because they weren't for you – just for the humorous Brain. We could reach you by radio, but you couldn't answer. You had plenty of food, but all of it beans and milk. Then you died, so to speak, and were reborn, but the period of your death was made… well… interesting. I wish I knew how he did it. It was The Brain's prize joke, but he meant no harm."

"No harm!" gasped Donovan. "Oh, if that cute little tyke only had a neck."



La

"Well," said Bogert, quietly, "obviously it's up to us to improve the space-warp engine. There must be some way of getting around that interval of jump. If there is, we're the only organization left with a grand-scale super-robot, so we're bound to find it if anyone can. And then – U. S. Robots has interstellar travel, and humanity has the opportunity for galactic empire."

"What about Consolidated?" said La

"Hey," interrupted Donovan suddenly, "I want to make a suggestion there. They landed U. S. Robots into quite a mess. It wasn't as bad a mess as they expected and it turned out well, but their intentions weren't pious. And Greg and I bore the most of it.

"Well, they wanted an answer, and they've got one. Send them that ship, guaranteed, and U. S. Robots can collect their two hundred thou plus construction costs. And if they test it – then suppose we let The Brain have just a little more fun before it's brought back to normal."

La

To which Bogert added absently, "Strictly according to contract, too."

Evidence

"BUT THAT WASN'T IT, EITHER," SAID DR. CALVIN thoughtfully. "Oh, eventually, the ship and others like it became government property; the Jump through hyperspace was perfected, and now we actually have human colonies on the planets of some of the nearer stars, but that wasn't it."

I had finished eating and watched her through the smoke of my cigarette.

"It's what has happened to the people here on Earth in the last fifty years that really counts. When I was born, young man, we had just gone through the last World War. It was a low point in history – but it was the end of nationalism. Earth was too small for nations and they began grouping themselves into Regions. It took quite a while. When I was born the United States of America was still a nation and not merely a part of the Northern Region. In fact, the name of the corporation is still 'United States Robots-.' And the change from nations to Regions, which has stabilized our economy and brought about what amounts to a Golden Age, when this century is compared with the last, was also brought about by our robots."

"You mean the Machines," I said. "The Brain you talked about was the first of the Machines, wasn't it?"

"Yes, it was, but it's not the Machines I was thinking of. Rather of a man. He died last year." Her voice was suddenly deeply sorrowful. "Or at least he arranged to die, because he knew we needed him no longer. Stephen Byerley."

"Yes, I guessed that was who you meant."

"He first entered public office in 2032. You were only a boy then, so you wouldn't remember the strangeness of it. His campaign for the Mayoralty was certainly the queerest in history-!"

Francis Qui

But, to get out from under what promises to be a dull and complicated begi

And since politics makes strange bedfellows, Alfred La

The fact, if known to Qui

"I assume you know Stephen Byerley, Dr. La

"I have heard of him. So have many people."

"Yes, so have I. Perhaps you intend voting for him at the next election."