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But then Prohorov descended again and came ru
Admiral Vernon turned pale and made a rattling sound in his throat. He crumpled and collapsed, while the graduating class rose to its feet uncertainly. Ensign Peet hadfollowed Prohorov onto the platform and had caught his words and now stood there thunderstruck.
Prohorov raised his arms. “All's well, ladies and gentlemen. Take it easy. The admiral has just had a momentary attack of vertigo. It happens on landing, sometimes, to older men.”
Peet whispered harshly, “But we're stuck in the past, Prohorov.”
Prohorov raised his eyebrows. “Of course not. You didn't feel any inertial effects, did you? We can't even be an hour off. If the admiral had any brains to go with his uniform, he would have realized it, too. He had just said it, for God's sake.”
“Then why did you say there was something wrong? Why did you say there are Indians out there?”
“Because there was and there are. When Admiral Sap comes to, he won't be able to do a thing to me. We didn't land in Lincoln, Nebraska, so there was something wrong all right. And as for the Indians-well, if I read the traffic signs correctly, we've come down on the outskirts of Calcutta.”
Harry Harrison's anthology, in which THIOTIMOLINE TO THE STARS appeared, was called simply Astounding. It had been Harry's aim to make it one last issue of that magazine. Not Analog now, but Astounding.
There is nothing wrong with Analog, but to us old-timers no name change can possibly replace Astounding in our hearts.
In the spring of 1973 The Saturday Evening Post, having reprinted a couple of my short pieces, asked me to write an original piece for them. On May 3, 1973, caught in the grip of inspiration, I wrote LIGHT VERSE in one quick session at the typewriter and scarcely had to change a word in preparing final copy. It appeared in the September-October 1973 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.
Light Verse
The very last person anyone would expect to be a murderer was Mrs. Avis Lardner. Widow of the great astronaut-martyr, she was a philanthropist, an art collector, a hostess extraordinary, and, everyone agreed, an artistic genius. But above all, she was the gentlest and kindest human being one could imagine.
Her husband, William J. Lardner, died, as we all know, of the effects of radiation from a solar flare, after he had deliberately remained in space so that a passenger vessel might make it safely to Space Station 5.
Mrs. Lardner had received a generous pension for that, and she had then invested wisely and well. By late middle age she was very wealthy.
Her house was a showplace, a veritable museum, containing a small but extremely select collection of extraordinarily beautiful jeweled objects. From a dozen different cultures she had obtained relics of almost every conceivable artifact that could be embedded with jewels and made to serve the aristocracy of that culture. She had one of the first jeweled wristwatches manufactured in America, a jeweled dagger from Cambodia, a jeweled pair of spectacles from Italy, and so on almost endlessly.
All was open for inspection. The artifacts were not insured, and there were no ordinary security provisions. There was no need for anything conventional, for Mrs. Lardner maintained a large staff of robot servants, all of whom could be relied on to guard every item with imperturbable concentration, irreproachable honesty, and irrevocable efficiency.
Everyone knew the existence of those robots and there is no record of any attempt at theft, ever.
And then, of course, there was her light-sculpture. How Mrs. Lardner discovered her own genius at the art, no guest at her many lavish entertainments could guess. On each occasion, however, when her house was thrown open to guests, a new symphony of light shone throughout the rooms; three-dimensional curves and solids in melting color, some pure and some fusing in startling, crystalline effects that bathed every guest in wonder and somehow always adjusted itself so as to make Mrs. Lardner's blue-white hair and soft, unlined face gently beautiful.
It was for the light-sculpture more than anything else that the guests came. It was never the same twice, and never failed to explore new experimental avenues of art. Many people who could afford light-consoles prepared light-sculptures for amusement, but no one could approach Mrs. Lardner's expertise. Not even those who considered themselves professional artists.
She herself was charmingly modest about it. “No, no,” she would protest when someone waxed lyrical. “I wouldn't call it 'poetry in light.' That's far too kind. At most, I would say it was mere 'light verse.'“ And everyone smiled at her gentle wit.
Though she was often asked, she would never create light-sculpture for any occasion but her own parties. “That would be commercialization,” she said.
She had no objection, however, to the preparation of elaborate holograms of her sculptures so that they might be made permanent and reproduced in museums of art an over the world. Nor was there ever a charge for any use that might be made of her light-sculptures.
“I couldn't ask a pe
When the holograms were taken, she was cooperation itself. Watching benignly at every step, she was always ready to order her robot servants to help. “Please, Courtney,” she would say, “would you be so kind as to adjust the step ladder?”
It was her fashion. She always addressed her robots with the most formal courtesy.
Once, years before, she had been almost scolded by a government functionary from the Bureau of Robots and Mechanical Men. “You can't do that,” he said severely. “It interferes with their efficiency. They are constructed to follow orders, and the more clearly you give those orders, the more efficiently they follow them. When you ask with elaborate politeness, it is difficult for them to understand that an order is being given. They react more slowly.”
Mrs. Lardner lifted her aristocratic head. “I do not ask for speed and efficiency,” she said. “I ask goodwill. My robots love me.”
The government functionary might have explained that robots ca
It was notorious that Mrs. Lardner never even returned a robot to the factory for adjustment. Their positronic brains are enormously complex, and once in ten times or so the adjustment is not perfect as it leaves the factory. Sometimes the error does not show up for a period of time, but whenever it does, u. S. Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc., always makes the adjustment free of charge.
Mrs. Lardner shook her head. “Once a robot is in my house,” she said, “and has performed his duties, any minor eccentricities must be borne with. I will not have him manhandled.”
It was the worse thing possible to try to explain that a robot was but a machine. She would say very stiffly, “Nothing that is as intelligent as a robot can ever be but a machine. I treat them as people.”
And that was that!
She kept even Max, although he was almost helpless. He could scarcely understand what was expected of him. Mrs. Lardner denied that strenuously, however. “Not at all,” she would say firmly. “He can take hats and coats and store them very well, indeed. He can hold objects for me. He can do many things.”