by Sam Merwin
lost. So Fernando sent the necklace ascompensation."
"Quite a large compensation," said Lindsay drily.
Nina shrugged. "Not for Fernando," she told him. "After all, I pay himenough. He's my number one political boy. 'Night, darling."
* * * * *
Lindsay was on the verge of a breakdown himself by noon the next day,after Computation Minister du Fresne, looking uglier than ever, hadfinished conducting President Giovannini's official party through therooms and passages of Giac. If Nina hadn't been by his side during andafter the swift rocket trip to Death Valley, he might have collapsed.
It was she who had removed the glittering star from his breast beforebreakfast in the Sherwood Forest mansion that morning. "You neededsomething to wear for show last night," she had told him.
"Then it's not mine?" he had countered absently.
"Of course it is," she had assured him. "But Secretary General Bergozzais going to make the official investiture after the test."
Lindsay had meekly surrendered the bauble, barely noticing. His brainwas straining to recall what he could of symbolic logic--a subject thathad never particularly interested him. For some reason it kept workingback to Lewis Carroll, who, under his real name of Charles LutwidgeDodgson, had been the founder of symbolic logic back in the nineteenthcentury, along with the renowned Dr. Poole.
About all he could remember was the following problem:
(1) Every one who is sane can do Logic;
(2) No lunatics are fit to serve on a jury;
(3) None of _your_ sons can do Logic.
The Universal was "persons". The symbols were: a--able to do Logic;b--fit to serve on a jury; c--sane; d--your sons.
And the answer, of course, was: None of _your_ sons is fit to serve on ajury.
For some reason this, in turn, made him think of the ancient conundrumthat employed confusion to trip its victims: What's the differencebetween an iron dog in the side yard of a man who wants to give hislittle daughter music lessons but is afraid he can't afford them nextyear, and a man who has a whale in a tank and wants to send him for awedding present and is trying to pin a tag on him, saying how long heis, how much he weighs and where he comes from, but can't because thewhale keeps sloshing around in the tank and knocking the tag off?
This time, the answer was: One can't wag his tail, the other can't taghis whale.
"None of _your_ sons is fit to tag a whale--or wag a tail," he saidabsently.
"What was that?" Nina asked.
"Nothing, nothing at all," he replied. "Merely a man going out of hismind."
"It will never miss you," she replied brightly. But her brightnessbecame a bit strained as the day wore on. The trip, for Lindsay, wassheer nightmare. _No sane man can wag his tail_, he kept thinking.
Even such fugitive grasping at Logical straws vanished when he saw theimmense squat mass of Giac, rising like a steel-and-concrete toad fromthe wastes of the California desert. It seemed absurd even to think thatsuch an imposing and complex structure should have been reared on themathematics of the immortal author of _Alice in Wonderland_, _Throughthe Looking Glass_ and _The Hunting of the Snark_.
For Giac _was_ imposing, even to a man biased against computers frombirth. Nor did du Fresne's smugness help Lindsay's assurance a bit. Heexplained how each of the block-large preliminary feeders worked--onefor mathematical symbols, one for oral recording, a third for writtenexposition. Each worked simultaneously and in three different ways--viadrum-memory banks, via punched tapes, via the new "ear-tubes" thatresponded to sound.
Then there were the preliminary synthesizers, each of which unified invapor-plutonium tubes the findings of its three separate feeders. Next,a towering black-metal giant filling three walls of a cubical roomtwenty metres in each dimension, came the final synthesizer, whichcoordinated the findings of the preliminary synthesizers and fed theminto Giac itself.
The master machine was the least imposing of all. It stood like analabaster stele in the center of an immense chamber arranged like atheater-in-the-round. But du Fresne, peering through his strawberryspectacles, said gloatingly, "Don't be deceived by the size, ladies andgentlemen. All but what you see of Giac is underground. It is containedin an all-metal cell one million cubic metres in volume. And it isinfallible."
Fortunately Lindsay was given a half hour of final preparation in one ofthe small offices with which the above-ground building was honeycombed.Nina came with him--by request.
"I can't do it," he told her abruptly.
"Don't worry, darling, you'll think of something," she said. She triedto embrace him but he was too worried to respond. After awhile she said,"Why not put a direct question. Ask it if it's infallible."
"It could hardly tell a lie on itself," he replied.
"What if such a question involved destruction of part of itself in theanswer?" she asked.
"It might--though I presume du Fresne and his boys have prepared it forsuch jokers. And anyway, what sort of question would do that? Got anyideas?"
"That's your department," she said helpfully. "You're the computersmasher of this team."
"But that was pure luck," he said half-angrily. "One can't wag histail.... The other can't serve on a jury."
She looked alarmed. "Darling," she said, "you aren't--"
"Not yet, Honeycomb," he said, "but give me time.
"It's got to be something about this Mars-Earth problem," he went onafter a long silence. "Listen: how can Mars develop if it's in the spotof the Red Queen--has to run like hell just to stay where it is thanksto Earth's dumping policies?"
* * * * *
The door opened and closed and Maria Bergozza was with them. She said,"Apparently this is necessary." She was holding a glass-pellet gun inher hand, pointing it at Lindsay.
He said, "Why, you--!" and moved toward her. Promptly the SecretaryGeneral's daughter pointed the gun at Nina's tanned midriff. He stopped.
Maria said evenly, "It's _you_ that have done this to me, Nina. You'vehad all the fun while I've had to pour tea for papa at his damnedfunctions. You've fouled up our plans with your meddling down in NewOrleans. And now you've taken Zale, as you take everything else you takea fancy to."
"But you tried to kill him," said Nina. "Why should you care?"
"He would have been a martyr--and _you_ wouldn't have had him," saidMaria, her gun hand steady. "I know it's going to ruin me to killyou--but my whole life is ruined anyway. And this way at least I cansacrifice it for the cause."
"The cause of interplanetary war?" said Lindsay, in his turnincredulous. Hot rage rose within him, "You third-rate tramp!" Hestepped squarely into the line of fire, thrust his left breast in frontof the muzzle of her gun. Behind him Nina screamed.
But Maria didn't fire. Instead she sneezed--sneezed and sneezed again.Her gun hand gyrated wildly as she doubled in a paroxysm and Nina movedpast Lindsay to pluck the weapon from her.
"Don't call me--krrrra_shew_!--third-rate," she managed to gasp beforethe blonde sent her sprawling with a very efficient right cross to thechin.
Nina turned on Lindsay angrily. "You damned fool!" she almost shouted."You might have been killed."
He looked down, felt his knees turn to water. He said, "Omigod--Ithought I was still wearing the star. I remembered how you saved my lifein New Orleans with your diamond evening bag!"
He sat down--hard. From the floor Maria whimpered, "What are you goingto do to me?"
Nina said, "I ought to kill you, you know, but it would cause too muchof a stink. So beat it and let us think. You'll be hearing from melater. What you hear will depend on how you handle yourself from now on.Understand?"
When she had slunk out Lindsay said, "What broke her up?"
Nina dropped the gun into her bag casually, said, "Now I know you'relucky, you thin slob. You happened to stumble right onto her allergy.She can't stand being thought of as a third-rate lover. That's why she'salways been jealous of me--because I have top-model ra
ting and she couldnever make it. She's too damned concerned with pleasing herself toplease anyone else. She flunked out at fourteen."
"Then why didn't _you_ pull it?" Lindsay asked her, astonished.
"Because," Nina said thoughtfully, "I'm not conditioned to think thatway. It's horribly rude here on Earth to stir up other people'sallergies. As you reminded me last night, you rat, we're all people inglass houses."
"But I didn't even know...." muttered Lindsay.
"You hit it
