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Noel Meyerhof consulted the list he had prepared and chose which item was to be first As usual, he relied mainly on intuition

He arfed by the h only the smallest portion of the latter was in view That didn&039;t matter He spoke with the offhand confidence of one who thoroughly kneas master

"Johnson," he said, "came home unexpectedly from a business trip to find his wife in the arered back and said, &039;Max! I&039;m married to the lady so I have to But why you?&039; "

Meyerhof thought: Okay, let that trickle down into its guts and gurgle about a bit

And a voice behind him said, "Hey"

Meyerhof erased the sound of thatinto neutral He whirled and said, "I&039; Don&039;t you knock?"

He did not s Timothy Whistler, a senior analyst hom he dealt as often as with any He frowned as he would have for an interruption by a stranger, wrinkling his thin face into a distortion that see it ed He wore his white lab coat with his fists pressing doithin its pockets and creasing it into tense vertical lines "I knocked You didn&039;t answer The operations signal wasn&039;t on"

Meyerhof grunted It wasn&039;t at that He&039;d been thinking about this new project too intensively and he was forgetting little details

And yet he could scarcely bla was important

He didn&039;t knohy it was, of course Grand Masters rarely did That&039;s what made them Grand Masters; the fact that they were beyond reason How else could the hu lump of solidified reason that men called Multivac, the most complex co Is there so that can&039;t be postponed There are a few holes in the answer on the hyperspatial - " Whistler did a double take and his face took on a rueful look of uncertainty "Working?"

"Yes What about it?"

"But - " He looked about, staring into the crannies of the shallow room that faced the banks upon banks of relays that formed a small portion of Multivac "There isn&039;t anyone here at that"

"Who said there was, or should be?"

"You were telling one of your jokes, weren&039;t you?"

"And?"

Whistler forced a s a joke to Multivac?"

Meyerhof stiffened "Why not?"

"Were you?"

"Yes"

"Why?"

Meyerhof stared the other down "I don&039;t have to account to you Or to anyone"

"Good Lord, of course not I was curious, that&039;s all But then, if you&039;re working, I&039;ll leave" He looked about once

"Do so," said Meyerhof His eyes followed the other out and then he activated the operations signal with a savage punch of his finger

He strode the length of the roo himself in hand Damn Whistler! Damn them all! Because he didn&039;t bother to hold those technicians, analysts and mechanics at the proper social distance, because he treated theh they, too, were creative artists, they took these liberties

He thought grimly: They can&039;t even tell jokes decently

And instantly that brought hiain Devil take them all

He threw the proper Multivac circuit back into operation and said, "The ship&039;s steward stopped at the rail of the ship during a particularly rough ocean crossing and gazed compassionately at the man whose sluaze toward the depths betokened all too well the ravages of seasickness

"Gently, the steward patted the man&039;s shoulder &039;Cheer up, sir,&039; he murmured &039;I know it seems bad, but really, you know, nobody ever dies of seasickness&039; "The afflicted gentleasped in hoarse accents, &039;Don&039;t say that, man For Heaven&039;s sake, don&039;t say that It&039;s only the hope of dying that&039;s keeping me alive&039; "

Timothy Whistler, a bit preoccupied, nevertheless smiled and nodded as he passed the secretary&039;s desk She sht, was an archaic item in this computer-ridden world of the twenty-first century, a human secretary But then perhaps it was natural that such an institution should survive here in the very citadel of coantic world corporation that handled Multivac With Multivac filling the horizons, lesser computers for trivial tasks would have been in poor taste

Whistler stepped into Abraovern a pipe; his dark eyes flicked in Whistler&039;s direction and his beaked nose stood out sharply and prole ofbehind him

"Ah, there, Whistler Sit down Sit down"

Whistler did so "I think we&039;ve got a problem, Trask"

Trask half-smiled "Not a technical one, I hope I&039;m just an innocent politician" (It was one of his favorite phrases) "It involves Meyerhof"

Trask sat down instantly and looked acutely miserable "Are you sure?"

"Reasonably sure"

Whistler understood the other&039;s sudden unhappiness well Trask was the governe of the Division of Computers and Automation of the Department of the Interior He was expected to deal withthe human satellites of Multivac, just as those technically trained satellites were expected to deal with Multivac itself

But a Grand Master was more than just a satellite More, even, than just a human

Early in the history of Multivac, it had beco procedure Multivac could answer the problem of humanity, all the probleful questions But as knowledge accumulated at an ever-faster rate, it becaful questions

Reason alone wouldn&039;t do What was needed was a rare type of intuition; the sarand master at chess A h the quadrillions of chess patterns to find the one best move, and do it in a matter of minutes

Trask ?"

"He&039;s introduced a line of questioning that I find disturbing"

"Oh, come on, Whistler Is that all? You can&039;t stop a Grand Master fro he chooses Neither you nor I are equipped to judge the worth of his questions You know that I know you know that"

"I do Of course But I also know Meyerhof Have you ever met him socially?"

"Good Lord, no Does anyone meet any Grand Master socially?"

"Don&039;t take that attitude, Trask They&039;re huht what it must be like to be a Grand Master; to know there are only some twelve like you in the world; to know that only one or two coeneration; that the world depends on you; that a thousand ists and physical scientists wait on you?"

Trask shrugged andof the world"

"I don&039;t think you would," said the senior analyst i They have no equal to talk to, no sensation of belonging Listen, Meyerhof never ether with the boys He isn&039;t married, naturally; he doesn&039;t drink; he has no natural social touch - yet he forces himself into coets together with us, and that&039;s at least once a week?"

"I haven&039;t the least idea," said the government man "This is all new to me"

"He&039;s a jokester"

"What?"

"He tells jokes Good ones He&039;s terrific He can take any story, however old and dull, and ood It&039;s the way he tells it He has a flair"

"I see Well, good"

"Or bad These jokes are important to him" Whistler put both elbows on Trask&039;s desk, bit at a thumbnail and stared into the air "He&039;s different, he knows he&039;s different and these jokes are the one way he feels he can get the rest of us ordinary schh, e clap hiet he&039;s a Grand Master It&039;s the only hold he has on the rest of us"

"This is all interesting I didn&039;t know you were such a psychologist Still, where does this lead?"

"Just this What do you suppose happens if Meyerhof runs out of jokes?"

"What?" The govern hi less heartily, or stops laughing altogether? It&039;s his only hold on our approval Without it, he&039;ll be alone and then ould happen to him? After all, Trask, he&039;s one of the dozenhappen to his We can&039;t even let hiht affect his intuition?"

"Well, has he started repeating himself?"

"Not as far as I know, but I think he thinks he has"

"Why do you say that?"

"Because I&039;ve heard hi jokes to Multivac"

"Oh, no"

"Accidentally! I walked in on hiood-natured enough, and I consider it a bad sign that he was so upset at the intrusion But the fact re a joke to Multivac, and I&039;m convinced it was one of a series"

"But why?"

Whistler shrugged and rubbed a hand fiercely across his chin "I have a thought about that I think he&039;s trying to build up a store of jokes in Multivac&039;s et back new variations You see what Ia mechanical jokester, so that he can have an infinite nu out"

"Good Lord!"

"Objectively, there n when a Grand Master starts using Multivac for his personal problems Any Grand Master has a certain inherent mental instability and he should be watched Meyerhofa borderline beyond which we lose a Grand Master"

Trask said blankly, "What are you suggesting I do?"

"You can check ing humans isn&039;t my particular talent, anyway You&039;re a politician; it&039;shumans, perhaps, not Grand Masters"

"They&039;re human, too Besides, who else is to do it?"

The fingers of Trask&039;s hand struck his desk in rapid succession over and over like a slow and muted roll of drums

"I suppose I&039;ll have to," he said

Meyerhof said to Multivac, "The ardent swain, picking a bouquet of wildflowers for his loved one, was disconcerted to find hie bull of unfriendly appearance which, gazing at hia farmer on the other side of a fairly distant fence, shouted, &039;Hey, mister, is that bull safe?&039; The farmer surveyed the situation with critical eye, spat to one side and called back, &039;He&039;s safe as anything&039; He spat again, and added, &039;Can&039;t say the sah"

"

Meyerhof was about to pass on to the next when the summons came

It wasn&039;t really a sume that Division Head Trask would like very much to see Grand Master Meyerhof if Grand Master Meyerhof could spare hiht, with ie to one side and continued hatever he was doing He was not subject to discipline

On the other hand, were he to do that, they would continue to bother him - oh, very respectfully, but they would continue to bother him

So he neutralized the pertinent circuits of Multivac and locked thenal on his office so that no one would dare enter in his absence and left for Trask&039;s office

Trask coughed and felt a bit intimidated by the sullen fierceness of the other&039;s look He said, "We have not had occasion to know one another, Grand Master, to ret"

"I have reported to you," said Meyerhof stiffly

Trask wondered what lay behind those keen, wild eyes It was difficult for hiht hair, his intense air, even unbending long enough to tell funny stories