"The general was quite pleased with the barracks, the battlements, and the base as a whole, but he became quite distressed when he and the attache turned a corner and saw hitched up to a post the sorriest, most pathetic, swaybacked, fly-infested old mare in the history of mankind. 'What-what is that-?' the general asked.

"'That is a mare,' said the attache.

" 'And why is it here'? Why is it not stuffed and standing out in the field, scaring away the hawks and crows?'

"'Because the men need it, sir,' said the attache.

" 'Need it? What could they possibly need it for?'

" 'Well, as you know, sir, the nearest civilian settlement is over a hundred kilometers away.'

"'Yes.'

"'And you know that, for security reasons, the only means of travel permitted for enlisted men between here and there is strictly bipedal.'

"'Yes, but I fail to see what any of that has to do with that failed genetic experiment.'

"'Well, then, surely you also know that men must be men. They have needs, you know. Needs that must be tended to.'

"The general looked in horror at the mare. He could not believe what he was hearing. The information was in grave danger of causing him severe psychological harm. 'You mean, the men-they-with that old mare?'

"The attache nodded gravely. 'Yes. The urge builds up. There is nothing else they can do.'

"The general was on the verge of hyperventilating. He became so dizzy that he had to steady himself by leaning on the attache. 'On my honor as a soldier,' said the general, 'I will never become that desperate.'

"But as his tour of duty wore on, the urge built and built, until one day he had no choice but to admit he was exactly that desperate. Finally he could take it no more, and he said to the attache, 'Bring the mare to my quarters at once.'

"'To your quarters?' the attache asked, evidently a little confused over something.

"'Yes, to my quarters,' said the general. 'You remember what you said, about the men-and the mare?'

"'Yes, sir!' said the attache, saluting.

"The attache did as he was told. By now the mare was, if anything, a mere shadow of her former decrepit self. Recently she had fallen off a cliff, and had been lucky to survive with only mildly crippling injuries, and her body had been ravaged by disease. So the attache was quite horrified, stunned to the core of his being, in fact, when the general took off his trousers and began to have his "v ay with the pathetic beast.

"'Sir!?' exclaimed the attache, 'what are you doing?'

"'Is it not obvious what I am doing, sir?' said the general. 'Just as the men do!'

"'Sir, I fail to grasp your meaning,' said the attache. 'Never, never have I seen such a sight.'

"'But, but, you said the men-their urges-and the, mare…

"'Sir, the men have their urges, it is true, but I meant that when the urges become too much for them, they climb on top of the mare and ride her to the nearest settlement.,

"There. Does that make everything clearer?" finished Harry.

"Wha' is he talkin' abou'?" mumbled Wolruf.

"Now I'm totally confused," whispered Derec. "At least his narrative technique is improving."

Ariel, meanwhile, couldn't stop laughing. "That-is the-silliest-thing I've ever heard," she said between breaths.

Harry remained in place on the stage as he awaited his audience's verdict. The robots had greeted the end of the joke with a kind of stony silence that only metal could summon. To a one, they stared straight ahead at Harry for several moments.

Then the robot that had asked the question that prompted the joke turned to its comrade on the right and said, "Yes, that makes sense."

"I understand," said another.

"As translucent as a gong," said a third.

"Mysterious, absolutely mysterious," said Canute.

The ebony was in the minority, however, as most of the robots seemed to be satisfied with Harry's explanation.

Derec waited for Ariel to stop laughing and asked her, "Just what do you think is going on here?"

She turned toward him, took him by the arm, and whispered in a conspiratorial tone, "The robots are beginning to learn about the world of Man the way we do-through jokes."

"That does not compute," replied Derec.

"Hmm. Let me put it this way. When you're growing up on Aurora in the schools, one of the great mysteries in life is what's commonly known as the birds and bees."

"Yes, I know that phrase, but I don't recall how I learned about it."

"That's because you have amnesia. Now, listen, while we received a lot of classroom instruction in the scientific sense, we still had certain…anxieties. You don't remember yours, but you've probably still got a lot. Not that I'm being personal or anything, it's just a fact."

"Thank you. Go on.”

"And one of the ways we kids relieved ourselves of our anxieties, and found out a little bit about reality, was through the artistic vehicle known throughout the galaxy as the dirty joke."

"And that's what's going on here?" Derec couldn't explain why, but he felt his face turning red. "This is an outrage! Should I put a stop to it?"

"Oh, you're such a prude. Of course not. This is all part of the learning experience. You know the old saying, 'Nobody approves of a dirty joke-except from someone who knows how to tell it."'

"Then why am I going through all this effort to put on this big production? Why don't I just ask you to strip for them?"

"You'd like it, but they wouldn't care. They're not listening to these jokes for cheap thrills, but because they want to learn more about us."

"They really do. They really want to understand what it means to be human, don't they?"

"I think it's a lot different than that. Personally, though, I also think you should keep your mind on what's happening now, because Harry's launched into another joke."

Sure enough, the robot had. "The last man on Earth sat alone in a room," he was saying. "Suddenly, there was a knock on the door-"

"All right, you're a success, Harry." Waving his arms, Derec rushed up to him and put his hand over his speaker grill. A symbolic gesture, to be sure, but no less an effective one. "Just join your comrades backstage until I call for you, okay?”

“Yes, Mister Director," replied Harry, briskly walking away.

"Where were we? Oh, it doesn't matter. Let's talk about the play. 'The play's the thing,' Hamlet says, 'wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king. ' Hamlet's uncle Claudius has murdered Hamlet's father, the King of Denmark, then taken his brother's place on the throne. To solidify his claim, Claudius has married Hamlet's mother, Gertrude. When Hamlet returns home from school, he has found the throne, which should be his, usurped, and while he suspects his uncle of foul play, he has no proof but the word of a ghost from beyond the grave.

"To secure this proof, Hamlet hires a traveling troupe of actors to perform a play that mirrors the crime that he believes Claudius has committed. He hopes that by watching his uncle during the performance, he'll see the guilt, the uncovered knowledge of the crime, written on his uncle's face.

"Claudius, meanwhile, suspects Hamlet of faking madness in search of this proof, and so he is stalking his nephew even as Hamlet is stalking him. The play is about the duel of wits between the two, and the means men will take to have what they want-be it a throne, revenge, or justice."

Derec turned to Mandelbrot and nodded. Mandelbrot stood and said, "The Mister Director wishes to thank you for volunteering and submitting to the interview process." Mandelbrot gestured toward Canute's way. "And for following orders. No doubt many orders will be curtly given you in the days to come, and Mister Director wishes to thank you in advance. As most of you know, Mister Director will assault the part of Hamlet, while Miss Ariel will impersonate the doomed, lamented Ophelia. I will now communicate on comlink wavelengths your assignments in the cast and crew categories."