Suit yourself, Mac. I get recharged no matter who ’ s driving.The car’s positronic brain went back into idle mode, and Basalom once more resumed the task of trying to create a private security partition in his brain.

Erecting an encrypted buffer without verbally thinking about how he was doing it was a ticklish job, though. When he thought that he’d succeeded, he moved the stack of pointers that represented his consciousness into the secured partition and initiated a new thought stream. What in the name of Wendell Avery were the supervisors thinking of when they decided to create this mass of argumentative positrons, anyhow?

They were thinking of what Dr. Anastasi said in Tunnel Station# I 7, Personal Vehicle One answered, as clearly as ever. As she was returning via tunnel to the spaceport after her first meeting with Central, she said-and I quote: “Frost, Basalom, look at what the air blast has done to my hair. Why can ’ t they have some decent groundcars in this city?” She had but to speak, and voila! I was created.

Basalom gave up in defeat. Yes, you certainly were. But tell me, whatever possessed them to decide to give you a simulated personality?

A slight drop in voltage on pin 16-the positronic equivalent of a shrug-came through the data bus. Dunno. Humans are rare here, all right? Guess they thought the doc might be happier with a little simulated companionship.

“Well,” Basalom said out loud, “they got that wrong. ”

In the back seat, Dr. Anastasi peered over the top edge of the papers she was reading. “Did you say something to me, Basalom?”

“No, madam. I was exchanging information with the vehicle’s onboard computer. ”

“Oh. Very well. ” She looked back to the papers and then glanced out the side window. ‘. Basalom? How much longer ‘til we get to the Compass Tower?”

Basalom called up an internal image of the city map, plotted their present position, and factored in the rate at which they were traveling.,. Approximately five minutes and twenty-three seconds, madam. ”

Iknow a shortcut,Personal Vehicle One broke in on the data bus.

I have had enough of your “shortcuts,”Basalom answered.

But this one ’ s really simple,the car protested. All you gotta do is turn east at the gasket factory -

The Compass Tower is to our south and west,Basalom pointed out.

Trust me. Hang a left at the gasket factory, go two blocks over, then up the freight ramp and catch the#204 southbound slidewalk -

You want me to drive on the slidewalk?Basalom’s shock was expressed as a sudden surge in amplitude on bus circuits 24 and 57.

Ow! Not so loud! Yeah, you drive on the slidewalk. There ’ s a bend to the west in about two kilometers; you get on here and it ’ s a nonstop shot to the tower plus you pick up25 KPH from the moving pavement. What do you think? Neat, eh?

Basalom managed to redirect what he was thinking into a null buffer and flush it before Personal Vehicle I had a chance to intercept the words.

The limousine rolled on. A few blocks later, Janet folded the sheet she was reading, pursed her lips, and frowned.

“Basalom?”

“Yes, madam?”

“You’ve been in fairly frequent contact with the city robots over the last few days, haven’t you?”

“The term ‘frequent’ is an imprecise expression, madam. I have had 124 separate audio and commlink conversations at intervals ranging from 15 picoseconds to 6 hours. ”

“Oh. Well, in your conversations, have you noticed that the robots seem a little… odd?”

“ ‘Odd’ is a judgmental term, madam. In order to determine that behavior is odd, you must first establish a base level of normal behavior against which to judge. ”

Janet wrinkled her nose in a frown. “I don’t understand. ”

“Madam, since we have arrived here I have been unable to determine what is ‘normal’ behavior for these robots. Hence I am unable to adjudge anything as being ‘odd. ’ “

Dr. Anastasi smiled and shook her head. “I see. Serves me right for asking a vague question. Let’s try again.

“Basalom, in your conversations with the local robots, have you noticed anything that might lead you to believe that the city supervisors have developed a sense of humor?”

Basalom was silent a moment as he sorted through all his recorded sense impressions, searching for correlating patterns.

Okay, it ’ s coming up,the limousine broke in. Left at the next corner. Basalom ignored the data stream and tried to concentrate on carrying out Dr. Anastasi’s instructions.

“Madam, while I would prefer to build my judgment on a larger experience base-”

Hey, what ’ s the matter with you? You ’ re not slowing down.

“Based on the observations that I have made to date-”

It ’ s this corner. That big circular building is the gasket factory.

“I must conclude that the city supervisors have not developed a sense of humor-”

Left! Oh, fer cryin ’ out loud, you missed the turn.

“But I hasten to add that many of the city robots have developed significant aberrations and eccentricities. ”

For a moment there was blessed silence on the data bus. Then the limousine’s thought stream kicked back in. Oh, so I ’ m eccentric, am I? Well let ’ s just see how you like handling this rig alone. There was a brief surge of DC voltage accompanied by a drop in positronic potentials across the entire width of the data bus. Basalom tried a few exploratory probe pulses and was surprised to come to an inescapable conclusion: Personal Vehicle One had physically switched itself out of the data bus.

Basalom fired off one more round of sampling pulses and then allowed himself a moment of pleasure. What a pity 1 didn ’ t think of this three days ago!

He checked his realtime clock. Close to a quarter-second had elapsed since he’d delivered his findings to Dr. Anastasi, and she was preparing to make a response.

“Darn. I was hoping you’d say yes. ” She picked up the sheaf of fax pages and waved them at Basalom. “If you’d said that the supervisors were capable of intentional humor, I’d say that this was a pretty good practical joke. ”

Dr. Anastasi bit her lower lip. “But if they’re completely serious about this… ”

Basalom swiveled his head around to face Dr. Anastasi and scaled his optics up to a higher magnification, but he was unable to make out the content of the fax sheets. “Serious about what, madam?”

She looked at the papers again and then waved them at Basalom. “This is their proposed plan for modifying the city to suit the needs of the local inhabitants. It’s not just silly. It’s not just stupid. In fact, I think it even transcends ridiculous and scales the heights to pure idiocy. ”

Basalom scanned the papers again,-but his optical character recognition routine still couldn’t read the words through the paper.

“Madam?”

Janet unfolded the papers and looked at them. “We have got to talk the supervisors out of this. It’s insulting. ” She peeled off a sheet and threw it aside. “Condescending. ” She peeled off another and threw it with greater vigor. “Degrading. ” She lifted the entire sheaf and threw it down on the seat beside her. “And possibly immoral. ”

She looked up sharply. “Basalom, I need you to help me reach them. I can build robots. I can order them around. But I’ve never had to try to reason with an Avery model before. You’re going to have to help me understand a city supervisor’s conception of logic. ”

Confused potentials darted through Basalom’s brain. “Understand, madam? What’s to understand? Logic is logic. ”