Leda Crannon sat on the of the in Mike the Angel’s stateroom, the cigarette and light that Mike had proffered, and waited while Mike a of cups of coffee from the insul-jug on his desk.
“I wish I offer you something stronger, but I’m not much of a myself, so I don’t take of the officer’s to aboard,” he said as he her the cup.
She up at him. “That’s all right; I drink, and when I do, it’s either or a very highball. Right now, this coffee will do me more good.”
Mike the companionway. He out through the door, which he had left open. Ensign Vaneski walked by, in, grinned, and on his way. The kid had good sense, Mike thought. He any other passers-by would out while he talked to Leda.
“Does a thing like that often?” the girl asked. “Not the fast solution; I the note.”
“No,” said Mike the Angel. “Once the is stabilized, the to keep each other in line. But of that very tendency, an won’t itself for a while. The to keep the ones in phase in of themselves. But one of them of rebels, and that any of the others that are offbeat, so the ones all at once and we can spot them. When we all the ones adjusted, the for the life of the system.”
“And that’s the purpose of a cruise?”
“One of the reasons,” Mike. “If the are going to act up, they’ll do it in the five hundred hours—except in cases. That’s one of the that me about the way this was together.”
Her widened. “I this was a well-built ship.”
“Oh, it is, it is—all considered. It isn’t dangerous, if that’s what you’re about. But it sure as the is wasteful.”
She and at her coffee. “I know that. But I don’t see any other way it have been done.”
“Neither do I, right off the bat,” Mike admitted. He took a good of the liquid in his cup and said: “I wanted to ask you two questions. First, what was it that Snookums was doing just he came into the Power Section? Black Bart said he’d been all over the ship, with you at his heels.”
Her came back. “He was playing seismograph. He was the of the at different points in the ship. That gave him part of the data he needed to tell you which of the were acting up.”
“I’m to think,” said Mike, “that we’ll have to start a big brain every ship—that is, if we can learn about such from Snookums.”
“What was the other question?” Leda asked.
“Oh.... Well, I was just why you are with this project. What a have to do with robots? If you’ll my ignorance.”
This time she laughed softly, and Mike of the of bells. He on the of his mind as she started her explanation.
“I’m a in child psychology, Mike. Actually, I was as an experiment—or, rather, as the result of a wild that to work. You see, the two times Snookums’ brain was activated, the disoriented.”
“You mean,” said Mike the Angel, “they nuts.”
She laughed again. “Don’t let Fitz you say that. He’ll tell you that ‘the their limit.’”
Mike grinned, the time he had a brain by it at poker. “How did that happen?”
“Well, we don’t know all the details, but it to have something to do with the slow that’s necessary for learning. Do you know anything about Lagerglocke’s Principle?”
“Fitzhugh mentioned something about it in the we got take-off. Something about a of learning being an rebound.”
“That’s it. You take a ball, for instance, and it on a plate from a of three or four feet. It bounces—almost perfect elasticity. The next time you it, it the same thing. It hasn’t learned anything.
“But if you a lead ball, it doesn’t as much, and it will at the point of contact. The next time it on that side, its will be different. It has learned something.”
Mike the of an over his chin. “These are of the mind?”
“That’s right. Some people have minds like balls. They can learn, but you have to them hard to make them do it. On the other hand, some people have minds like balls: They can’t learn at all. If you them hard to make a impression, they shatter.”
“All right. Now what has this got to do with you and Snookums?”
“Patience, boy, patience,” Leda said with a grin. “Actually, the lead-ball is much too simple. An mind has to have time to recover, you see. Hit it with too many shocks, one right after another, and it either or to learn or both.
“The two times the brain was activated, the just data into the thing as though it were an ordinary machine. They were it to learn too fast; they weren’t it time to from the of learning.
“Just as in the being, there is a a robot’s brain and a robot’s mind. The brain is a physical thing—a of in a bath. But the mind is the total of all the data and patterns and so that have been into the brain or by it.
“The brain didn’t have an opportunity to from the learning when the data was in too fast, so the mind cracked. It couldn’t take it. The insane.
“Each time, the had to the brain, it of all data, and start over. After the second time, Dr. Fitzhugh they were going about it wrong, so they on a different tack.”
“I see,” said Mike the Angel. “It had to be slowly, like a child.”
“Exactly,” said Leda. “And who would know more about teaching a child than a child psychologist?” she added brightly.
Mike looked at his coffee cup, the of the surface as it up the light from the panels. He had this girl to his (he told himself) to about Snookums. But now he that about the girl herself was more important.
“How long have you been with Snookums?” he asked, without looking up from his coffee.
“Over eight years,” she said.
Then Mike looked up. “You know, you look old enough. You don’t look much older than twenty-five.”
She smiled—a little shyly, Mike thought. “As Snookums says, ‘You’re nice.’ I’m twenty-six.”
“And you’ve been with Snookums since you were eighteen?”
“Uh-huh.” She looked, very suddenly, much than the twenty-five Mike had at. She to be more like a teen-ager who had been in a convent. “I was what they call an ‘exceptional child.’ My mother died when I was seven, and Dad ... well, he just didn’t know what to do with a girl, I guess. He was a man, and I think he loved me, but he just didn’t know what to do with me. So when the that I was ... ... than the average, he put me in a special in Italy. Said he didn’t want my mind by being to to the norm. Maybe he that himself.
“And, too, he didn’t approve of public education. He had a of odd ideas.
“Anyway, I saw him and to the of the year. He took me all over the world when I was with him, and the were people; I’m not sorry that I was up that way. It was a little different from the education that most children have, but it gave me a to use my mind.”
“I know the school,” said Mike the Angel. “That’s the one under the Cesare Alfieri Institute in Florence?”
“That’s it; did you go there?” There was an odd, look in her eyes.
Mike his head. “Nope. But a friend of mine did. Ever know a guy named Paulvitch?”
She with delight, as though she’d been pinched. “Sir Gay? You Serge Paulvitch, the Fiend of Florence?” She the name properly: “Sair-gay,” of “surge,” as too many people were to do.
“Sounds like the same man,” Mike admitted, grinning. “As evil-looking as Satanas himself?”
“That’s Sir Gay, all right. Half the girls were of him, and I think all the boys were. He’s about three years older than I am, I guess.”
“Why call him Sir Gay?” Mike asked. “Just of his name?”
“Partly. And he was always such a gentleman. A guy, if you know what I mean. Do you know him well?”
“Know him? Hell, I couldn’t my without him.”
“Your business?” She blinked. “But he for—” Then her very wide, her mouth opened, and she pointed an at Mike. “Then you ... you’re Mike the Angel! M. R. Gabriel! Sure!” She started laughing. “I it up! My golly, my golly! I you were just another Space Service commander! Mike the Angel! Well, I’ll be darned!”
She her breath. “I’m sorry. I was just so surprised, that’s all. Are you the M. R. Gabriel, of M. R. Gabriel, Power Design?”
Mike was as close to being as he to be. “Sure,” he said. “You you didn’t know?”
She her head. “No. I Mike the Angel was about sixty years old, a old a desk, as as a comet’s orbit, and than Croesus. You’re just not what I pictured, that’s all.”
“Just wait a more decades,” Mike said, laughing. “I’ll try to live up to my reputation.”
“So you’re Serge’s boss. How is he? I haven’t him since I was sixteen.”
“He’s a beard,” said Mike.
“No!”
“Fact.”
“My God, how horrible!” She put her hand over her in horror.
“Let’s talk about you,” said Mike. “You’re much than Serge Paulvitch.”
“Well, I should so! But really, there’s nothing to tell. I to school. B.S. at fourteen, M.S. at sixteen, Ph.D. at eighteen. Then I to work for C.C. of E., and I’ve been there since. I’ve been engaged, I’ve been married, and I’m still a virgin. Anything else?”
“No runs, no hits, no errors,” said Mike the Angel.
She impishly. “I haven’t been up to yet, Commander Gabriel.”
“Then I you some of to yourself, I’m going to be in there pitching.”
The on her faded, to be replaced by a look that was neither surprise, but of both.
“You that, don’t you?” she asked in a voice.
“I do,” said Mike the Angel.
Commander Peter Jeffers was in the Control Bridge when Mike the Angel in through the door. Jeffers was with his to the door, the bank of that gave him a picture of the condition of the whole ship.
Overhead, the great of the ship’s nose allowed the points of light from the star ahead to on those through the heavy, of the and the screen of the field.
Mike walked over and Pete Jeffers on the shoulder.
“Busy?”
Jeffers around slowly and grinned. “Hullo, old soul. Naw, I ain’t busy. Nothin’ but stars, and we don’t on gettin’ too close to ’em right off the bat. What’s the beef?”
“I have,” said Mike the Angel succinctly, “goofed.”
Jeffers’ over Mike the Angel’s face. “You want a drink? I a spot o’ aboard, and just by coincidence, there’s a bottle right over there in the housing.” Without waiting for an answer, he away from Mike and walked toward the cabinet that the speaker. Meantime, he right on talking.
“Great stuff, brandy. French call it de vie, and that, in case you don’t know it, means ‘water of life.’ You want a little, eh, ol’ buddy? Sure you do.” By this time, he’d come with the bottle and a pair of and was a good into each one. “On the other hand, the Irish gave us our name for whisky. Comes from uisge-beatha, and by some coincidence, that also means ‘water of life.’ So you just set right here and some life into you.”
Mike sat at the computer table, and Jeffers sat across from him. “Now you just drink on up, buddy-buddy and then tell your ol’ Uncle Pete what the the trouble is.”
Mike looked at the for a full minute. Then, with one quick of his and a movement of his gullet, he it.
Then he took a and said: “Do I look as as all that?”
“Worse,” said Jeffers complacently, meanwhile Mike’s glass. “While we were on active service together, I’ve you go through all of and look like this. What is it? Reaction from this afternoon’s—or, me—yesterday afternoon’s emergency?”
Mike up at the chronometer. It was two-thirty in the morning, Greenwich time. Jeffers the from midnight till noon, while Black Bart had the to midnight shift.
Still, Mike hadn’t that it was as late as all that.
He looked at Jeffers’ lean, face. “Reaction? No, it’s not that. Look, Pete, you know me. Would you say I was a guy?”
“Sure.”
“My old man always said, ‘Never make an enemy accidentally,’ and I think he was right. So I think over what I say I open my big mouth, don’t I?”
Again Jeffers said, “Sure.”
“I wouldn’t call myself over-cautious,” Mike persisted, “but I think a thing through I act—that is, if I have time. Right?”
“I’d say so,” Jeffers admitted. “I’d say you were about the only guy I know who the right thing more than 90 of the time. And says the right thing more than 99 of the time. So what do you want? Back-patting, or just hero worship?”
Mike took a small taste of the brandy. “Neither, you jerk. But about eight hours ago I said something that I hadn’t planned to say. I to Leda Crannon without I was going to.”
Peter Jeffers didn’t laugh. He said, “How’d it happen?”
Mike told him.
When Mike had finished, one drink later, Peter Jeffers the for the third time and in his chair. “Tell me one thing, ol’ buddy, and think about it you answer. If you had a to out of it gracefully, would you take what you said?”
Mike the Angel it over. The hand on the its times he answered. Then, at last, he said: “No. No, I wouldn’t.”
Jeffers his lips, then said judicially: “In that case, you’re not doing at all. There’s nothing with you the that you’re in love.”
Mike the third drink fast and up. “Thanks, Pete,” he said. “That’s what I was of.”
“Wait just one stinkin’ minute,” said Jeffers firmly. “Sit down.”
Mike sat.
“What do you to do about it?” Jeffers asked.
Mike the Angel at him. “What the else can I do but and win the wench?”
Jeffers at him. “I you know you got competition, huh?”
“You Jake Liegnitz?” Mike’s darkened. “I have the he’s looking for something that doesn’t a marriage certificate.”
“Love sure makes a man noble,” said Jeffers philosophically. “If you that all he wants is to Leda into the sack, you’re prob’ly right. Normal reaction, I’d say. Can’t Jake for that.”
“I don’t,” said Mike. “But that doesn’t I can’t his guns.”
“Course not. Again, a normal reaction.”
“What about Lew Mellon?” Mike asked.
“Lew?” Jeffers his eyebrows. “I dunno. I think he to talk to her, is all. But if he is interested, he’s well serious. He’s a Anglo-Catholic, like yourself.”
I’m not as as I ought to be, Mike thought. “I he had a air about him,” he said aloud.
Jeffers chuckled. “Yeah, but I don’t think he’s so that he wouldn’t marry.” His broadened. “Now, if we were still at ol’ Chilblains, you’d have competition. After all, you can’t that a who’s ... me ... who has the physical and of Leda Crannon to her life bein’ ignored, now can you?”
“Nope,” said Mike the Angel.
“Now, I figger,” Jeffers said, “that you can much about Lew Mellon. But Jakob Liegnitz is a equine, indeed.”
Mike his vigorously, as if to clear away the fog. “Pfui! Let’s the subject. My mind has been by a pair of eyes. I need my up.”
“I have a limerick,” said Jeffers lightly. “It’s about a named Mike, who said: ‘I can do as I like!’ And to prove his quip, he took a trip, clear to Sirius B on a bike. Or, the of the pirate, Black Bart, was as hard as his heart. When he found—”
“Enough!” Mike the Angel up a hand. “That of old has us silly. Good night. I’m going to some sleep.” He up and at Jeffers. “And thanks for while I your ear.”
“Any time at all, ol’ amoeba. And if you you need some from an ol’ married man, why you just right round, and I’ll give you of advice.”
“At least you’re honest,” Mike said. “Night.”
Mike the Angel left the as Commander Jeffers was the in its place.
Mike to his quarters, the sack, and less than five minutes to sleep. There was nothing him now.
He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep when he a noise in the of his room that him up in bed, awake. The under him a little, but there was no noise. The room was silent.
In the of the room, Mike the Angel see nothing, and he nothing but the all-pervading of the ship’s engines. But he still and smell.
He in his memory, trying to place the that had him. It hadn’t been loud, unusual. It had been a noise that shouldn’t have been in the stateroom. It had been a sound, really, but for the life of him, Mike couldn’t what it had like.
But the of his nerves told him there was someone else in the room himself. Somewhere near him, something was heat; it was definitely in the air-conditioned of his room. And, too, there was the of warm oil—machine oil. It was faint, but it was unmistakable.
And then he what the noise had been.
The soft of against the floor!
Casually, Mike the Angel moved his hand to the and touched it lightly. The lights came on, and subdued.
“Hello, Snookums,” said Mike the Angel gently. “What are you here for?”
The little just there for a second or two, unmoving, his hands in of his chest. Mike to Heaven that the something that Mike read.
“I came for data,” said Snookums at last, in the voice that so the voice of the woman who had him.
Mike started to say, “At this time of night?” Then he at his wrist. It was after seven-thirty in the morning, Greenwich time—which was also ship time.
“What is it you want?” Mike asked.
“Can you dance?” asked Snookums.
“Yes,” said Mike dazedly, “I can dance.” For a moment he had the wild idea that Snookums was going to ask him to do a about the floor.
“Thank you,” said Snookums. His whirred, he as though on a pivot, to the door, opened it, and was gone.
Mike the Angel at the door as though trying to see it, into the of the robot’s brain itself.
“Now just what was that all about?” he asked aloud.
In the of the stateroom, there wasn’t an echo to answer him.
