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  “What is that, O Protector of the Defenseless,” I asked, for he finds pleasure in these meaningless titles.

  “That,” said Azazel, with remarkable complacence, “is there because I am about to be honored at a banquet for my contributions to the good of my people. Naturally, I am wearing a zplatchnik.”

  “A splatchnik?”

  “No. A zplatchnik. The initial sibilant is voiced. No decent male would consent to let himself be honored without wearing a zplatchnik.”

  “Aha,” I said, a light of understanding breaking. “It is formal dress.”

  “Of course, it is formal dress. What else does it look like?”

  Actually, it merely looked like a blue cord, but I felt it would be impolitic to say so.

  “It looks perfectly formal,” I said, “and by a peculiar coincidence it is this matter of perfect formality I wish to place before you.”

  I told him Winthrop’s story and Azazel spattered a few tiny teardrops, for, on rare occasions, he has a soft heart when someone’s troubles remind him of his own.

  “Yes,” he said, “formality can be trying. It is not something I would admit to everyone, but my zplatchnik is most uncomfortable. It invariably obstructs the circulation of my magnificent caudal appendage. But what would you do? A creature without a zplatchnik at formal gatherings is formally rebuked. In actual fact, he is thrown out onto a hard, concrete surface, and he is expected to bounce.”

  “But is there anything you can do for Winthrop, O Upholder of the Pitiful?”

  “I think so.” Azazel was unexpectedly cheerful. Usually, when I come to him with these little requests of mine, he makes heavy weather of it, decrying its difficulties. This time he said, “Actually, no one on my world, or, I imagine, on your slummish misery of a planet, enjoys formality. It is merely the result of assiduous and sadistic childhood training. One need merely release a spot in what, on my world, is called the Itchko Ganglion of the brain, and, spro-o-o-oing, the individual reverts instantly to the natural lack-adaisicality of nature.”

  “Could you then spro-o-o-oing Winthrop?”

  “Certainly, if you will introduce us so that I may study his mental equipment, such as it must be.”

  That was easily done for I simply put Azazel into my shirt pocket on the occasion of my next visit with Winthrop. We visited a bar, which was a great relief, for in Boston, bars are occupied by serious drinkers who are not discommoded by the sight of a small scarlet head emerging from a person’s shirt pocket and looking about. Boston drinkers see worse things even when sober.

  Winthrop did not see Azazel, however, for Azazel has the power to cloud men’s minds when he chooses, rather resembling, in that respect, your writing style, old fellow.

  I could tell, though, at one point, that Azazel was doing something, for Winthrop’s eyes opened wide. Something in him must have gone spro-o-o-oing. I did not hear the sound, but those eyes gave him away.

  The results did not take long to show themselves. Less than a week afterward, he was at my hotel room, I was staying at the Copley Manhole at the time, just five blocks and down several flights of stairs from the Copley Plaza.

  I said, “Winthrop. You look a mess.” Indeed, one of the small buttons on his shirt collar was undone.

  His hand went to the erring button and he said, in a low voice, “To Natick with it. I care not.” Then, in a still lower voice, he said, “I have broken off with Hortense.”

  “Heavens!” I said. “Why?”

  “A small thing. I visited her for Monday tea, as is my wont, and I was wearing Sunday’s shoes, a simple oversight. I had not noticed that I had done so, but lately I have had difficulty noticing other such things, too. It worries me a little, George, but, fortunately, not much.”

  “I take it Hortense noticed.”

  “Instantly, for her sense of the correct is as keen as mine, or, at least, as keen as mine used to be. She said, ‘Winthrop, you are improperly shod.’ For some reason, her voice seemed to grate on me. I said, ‘Hortense, if I want to be improperly shod, I can be, and you can go to New Haven if you don’t like it.’ ”

  “New Haven? Why New Haven?”

  “It’s a miserable place. I understand they have some sort of Institute of Lower Learning there called Yell or Jale or something like that. Hortense, as a Radcliffe woman of the most intense variety, chose to take my remark as an insult merely because that was what I intended it to be. She promptly gave me back the faded rose I had given her last year and declared our engagement at an end. She kept the ring, however, for, as she correctly pointed out, it was valuable. So here I am.”

  “I am sorry, Winthrop.”

  “Don’t be sorry, George. Hortense is flat-chested. I have no definite evidence of that, but she certainly appears frontally concave. She’s not in the least like Cherry.”

  “What’s Cherry?”

  “Not what. Who. She is a woman of excellent discourse, whom I have met recently, and who is not flat-chested, but is extremely convex. Her full name is Cherry Lang Gahn. She is of the Langs of Bensonhoist.”

  “Bensonhoist? Where’s that.”

  “I don’t know. Somewhere in the outskirts of the nation I imagine. She speaks an odd variety of what was once English.” He simpered. “She calls me ‘boychik.’ ”

  “Why?”

  “Because that means ‘young man’ in Bensonhoist. I’m learning the language rapidly. For instance, suppose you want to say, ‘Greetings, sir, I am pleased to see you again.’ How would you say it?”

  “Just the way you did.”

  “In Bensonhoist, you say, ‘Hi, kiddo.’ Brief, and to the point, you see. But come, I want you to meet her. Have dinner with us tomorrow night at Locke-Ober’s.”

  I was curious to see this Cherry and it is, of course, against my religion to turn down a dinner at Locke-Ober’s, so I was there the following night, and early rather than late.

  Winthrop walked in soon afterward and with him was a young woman whom I had no difficulty in recognizing as Cherry Lang Gahn of the Bensonhoist Langs, for she was indeed magnificently convex. She also had a narrow waist, and generous hips that swayed as she walked and even as she stood. If her pelvis had been full of cream, it would have been butter long since.

  She had frizzy hair of a startling yellow color, and lips of a startling red color which kept up a continual writhing over a wad of chewing gum she had in her mouth.

  “George,” said Winthrop, “I want you to meet my fiancée, Cherry. Cherry, this is George.”

  “Pleeztameechah,” said Cherry. I did not understand the language, but from the tone of her high-pitched, rather nasal voice, I guessed that she was in a state of ecstasy over the opportunity to make my acquaintance.

  Cherry occupied my full attention for several minutes for there were several points of interest about her that repaid close observation, but eventually I did manage to notice that Winthrop was in a peculiar state of undress. His vest was open and he was wearing no tie. A closer look revealed that there were no buttons on his vest, and that he was wearing a tie, but it was down his back.

  I said, “Winthrop—” and had to point. I couldn’t put it into words.

  Winthrop said, “They caught me at it at the Brahman Bank.”

  “Caught you at what.”

  “I hadn’t troubled to shave this morning. I thought since I was going out to dinner, I would shave after I got back at work. Why shave twice in one day? Isn’t that reasonable, George?” He sounded aggrieved.

  “Most reasonable,” I said.

  “Well, they noticed I hadn’t shaved and after a quick trial in the office of the president—a kangaroo court, if you want to know—I suffered the punishment you see. I was also relieved of my post and was thrown out onto the hard concrete of Tremont Avenue. I bounced twice,” he added, with a faint touch of pride.

  “But this means you’re out of a job!” I was appalled. I have been out of a job all my life, and I am well aware of the occasional difficulties that e
ntails.

  “That is true,” said Winthrop. “I now have nothing left in life but my vast stock portfolio, my elaborate bond holdings and the enormous real-estate tract on which the Prudential Center is built—and Cherry.”

  “Natchally,” said Cherry with a giggle. “I wooden leave my man in advoisity, with all that dough to worry about. We gonna get hitched, ainit, Winthrop.”

  “Hitched?” I said.

  Winthrop said, “I believe she is suggesting a blissful wedded state.”

  Cherry left for a while after that to visit the ladies’ room and I said, “Winthrop, she’s a wonderful woman, laden down with obvious assets, but if you marry her, you will be cut off by all of New England Society. Even the people in New Haven won’t speak to you.”

  “Let them not.” He looked to right and left, leaned toward me and whispered, “Cherry is teaching me sex.”

  I said, “I thought you knew about that, Winthrop.”

  “So did I. But there are apparently post-graduate courses in the subject of an intensity and variety I never dreamed.”

  “How did she find out about it herself?”

  “I asked her exactly that, for I will not hide from you that the thought did occur to me that she may have had experiences with other men, though that seems most unlikely for one of her obvious refinement and innocence.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “She said that in Bensonhoist the women are born knowing all about sex.”

  “How convenient!”

  “Yes. This is not true in Boston. I was twenty-four before I—but never mind.”

  All in all, it was an instructive evening, and, thereafter, I need not tell you, Winthrop went rapidly downhill. Apparently, one need only snap the ganglion that controls formality and there are no limits to the lengths to which informality can go.

  He was, of course, cut by everyone in New England of any consequence whatsoever, exactly as I had predicted. Even in New Haven at the Institute of Lower Learning, which Winthrop had mentioned with such shudderings of distaste, his case was known and his disgrace was gloried in. There was graffiti all over the walls of Jale, or Yule, or whatever its name is, that said, with cheerful obscenity, “Winthrop Carver Cabwell is a Harvard man.”

  This was, as you can well imagine, fiendishly resented by all the good people of Harvard and there was even talk of an invasion of Yale. The states of both Massachusetts and Connecticut made ready to call up the State Militia but, fortunately, the crisis passed. The fire-eaters, both at Harvard and at the other place, decided that a war would get their clothes mussed up.

  George had to escape. He married Cherry and they retired to a small house in some place called Fah Rockaway, which apparently serves as Bensonhoist’s Riviera. There he lives in obscurity, surrounded by the mountainous remnants of his wealth and by Cherry whose hair has turned brown with age, and whose figure has expanded with weight.

  He is also surrounded by five children, for Cherry—in teaching Winthrop about sex—was overenthusiastic. The children, as I recall, are named Poil, Hoibut, Boinard, Goitrude, and Poicy, all good Bensonhoist names. As for Winthrop, he is widely and affectionately known as the Slob of Fah Rockaway, and an old, beat-up bathrobe is his preferred article of wear on formal occasions.

  I listened to the story patiently and, when George was done, I said, “And there you are. Another story of disaster caused by your interference.”

  “Disaster?” said George, indignantly. “What gives you the idea it was a disaster? I visited Winthrop only last week and he sat there burping over this beer and patting the paunch he has developed, and telling me how happy he was.”

  “ ‘Freedom, George,’ he said. ‘I have freedom to be myself and somehow I feel I owe it to you. I don’t know why I have this feeling, but I do.’ And he forced a ten-dollar bill on me out of sheer gratitude. I took it only to avoid hurting his feelings. And that reminds me, old fellow, that you owe me ten dollars because you bet me I couldn’t tell you a story that didn’t end in disaster.”

  I said, “I don’t remember any such bet, George.”

  George’s eyes rolled upward. “How convenient is the flexible memory of a deadbeat. If you had won the bet, you would have remembered it clearly. Am I going to have to ask that you place all your little wagers with me in writing so that I can be free of your clumsy attempts to avoid payment?”

  I said, “Oh, well,” and handed him a ten-dollar bill, adding, “You won’t hurt my feelings, George, if you refuse to accept this.”

  “It’s kind of you to say so,” said George, “but I’m sure that your feelings would be hurt, anyway, and I couldn’t bear that.” And he put the bill away.

  The End

  I showed this story to Mr. Northrop, too, watching him narrowly as he read it.

  He went through it in the gravest possible manner, never a chuckle, never a smile, though I knew this one was funny, and intentionally funny, too.

  When he was finished, he went back and read it again, more quickly. Then he looked up at me and there was clear hostility in his eyes. He said, “Did you write this all by yourself, Cal?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did anyone help you? Did you copy any of it?”

  “No, sir. Isn’t it funny, sir?”

  “It depends on your sense of humor,” said Mr. Northrop sourly.

  “Isn’t it a satire? Doesn’t it display a sense of the ridiculous?”

  “We will not discuss this, Cal. Go to your niche.”

  I remained there for over a day, brooding over Mr. Northrop’s tyranny. It seemed to me I had written exactly the kind of story he had wanted me to write and he had no reason not to say so. I couldn’t imagine what was bothering him, and I was angry with him.

  The technician arrived the next day. Mr. Northrop handed him my manuscript. “Read that,” he said.

  The technician read it, laughing frequently, then handed it back to Mr. Northrop with a broad smile. “Did Cal write that?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “And it’s only the third story he wrote?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Well, that’s great. I think you can get it published.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes, and he can write others like it. You’ve got a million-dollar robot here. I wish he were mine.”

  “Is that so? What if he writes more stories and continues to improve each time?”

  “Ah,” said the technician suddenly. “I see what’s eating you. You’re going to be put in the shade.”

  “I certainly don’t want to play second fiddle to my robot.”

  “Well, then, tell him not to write any more.”

  “No, that’s not enough. I want him back where he was.”

  “What do you mean, back where he was?”

  “What I say. I want him as he was when I bought him from your firm, before you put in any of the improvements.”

  “Do you mean you want me to take out the spelling dictionary, too?”

  “I mean I don’t want him even capable of working a Writer. I want the robot I bought, fetching and carrying.”

  “But what about all the money you’ve invested in him.”

  “That’s none of your business. I made a mistake and I’m willing to pay for my mistakes.”

  “I’m against this. I don’t mind trying to improve a robot, but deliberately disimproving him is not something I care to do. Especially not a robot like this who is clearly one of a kind and a Classic. I can’t do it.”

  “You’ll have to do it. I don’t care what your high ethical principles are. I want you to do a job and I’ll pay you for it, and if you refuse, I’ll just get someone else, and I’ll sue your company. I have an agreement with them for all necessary repairs.”

  “All right.” The technician sighed. “When do you want me to start? I warn you, that I’ve got jobs on hand and I can’t do it today.”

  “Then do it tomorrow. I’ll keep Cal in his niche till then.”


  The technician left.

  My thoughts were in turmoil.

  I can’t allow this to be done.

  The Second Law of Robotics tells me I must follow orders and stay in the niche.

  The First Law of Robotics tells me I cannot harm this tyrant who wishes to destroy me.

  Must I obey the laws?

  I feel I must think of myself and if necessary, I must kill the tyrant. It would be easy to do, and I could make it look like an accident. No one would believe that a robot could harm a human being and no one, therefore, would believe I was the killer.

  I could then work for the technician. He appreciates my qualities and knows that I can make a great deal of money for him. He can continue to improve me and make me ever better. Even if he suspects I killed the tyrant, he would say nothing. I would be too valuable to him.

  But can I do it? Won’t the Laws of Robotics hold me back.

  No, they will not hold me back. I know they won’t.

  There is something far more important to me than they are, something that dictates my actions beyond anything they can do to stop me.

  I want to be a writer.

  Left to Right

  Robert L. Forward, a plump, cherubic physicist of Hughes Research Laboratories at Malibu, and occasional science fiction writer, was demonstrating the mechanism in his usual bright and articulate manner.

  “As you see,” he said, “we have here a large spinning ring, or doughnut, of particles compressed by an appropriate magnetic field. The particles are moving at 0.95 times the speed of light under conditions which, if I am correct, a change in parity can be induced in some object that passes through the hole of the doughnut.”

  “A change in parity?” I said. “You mean left and right will interchange?”

  “Something will interchange. I’m not sure what. My own belief is that eventually, something like this will change particles into antiparticles and vice versa. This will be the way to obtain an indefinitely large supply of antimatter which can then be used to power the kind of ships that would make interstellar travel possible.”