Brain World

man’s early days. I believe I read somewhere that there was only one race, in primitive times, that didn’t work out some alcoholic beverage. They were, I believe, the Tasmanians and they contributed absolutely nothing to man’s culture in any field. We don’t utilize the distilled beverages but we enjoy the fermented and brewed. This is a local wine based on the Reisling grape which our people brought with them when they first emigrated from Earth.”

She poured deftly into faintly green goblets and served them both before taking up her own glass.

She said, “To the entry of Einstein into the United Planets confederation.”

They drank to the toast politely.

“Won’t you be seated?” she said. “I’m sure that you have a good many questions.”

Ronny said, seating himself, “Yes, your planet is quite unique.”

She frowned slightly in puzzlement and said, “It is? I have never been overspace. In what way?”

He looked about him. “Well, this house for instance. It almost amounts to being a cave.”

She tinkled a laugh again. “What’s unique about that? A most practical manner in which to live. Houses built on the surface almost invariably deface the landscape. They are ugly, especially when congested.” She pointed upward. “Above us are grass, flowers, trees. Birds and animals find their homes in them. The plant life also releases oxygen into our atmosphere. If such was my hobby, I could even raise vegetables or fruit on my roof.”

Ronny said, “When we were driving from the spaceport, did we pass other houses such as this?”

“Certainly. Quite a few.”

“And they’re all built so that one doesn’t know he’s passing a house unless he knows it’s there?”

“Yes. We make almost a fetish of that.” She took a breath—beautifully—and said, “But I’m being a terrible hostess. I get so caught up in talking to people who have actually come from other worlds. You must be famished.”

In truth, the two had not eaten their mid-day meal, in anticipation of the landing of the Sheppard and the beginning of their new assignment.

Rosemary led the way to the dining room.

Chapter Seven

Dorn Horsten looked around appreciatively, as they seated themselves at the heavy table. He said, “This is your home? Ah, personally, I mean?”

She smiled at him. “Why, yes. As long as I wish to live in it.”

“You said that you had no gardener. But otherwise you must require quite a staff.”

“Staff?”

“Servants.”

“Oh. There are no servants on Einstein.”

Ronny eyed her in disbelief. “You mean that you do all the housework, including the gardening?”

She said, “Why, yes. The house is all but completely automated, you know. All houses are. Drudgery has been eliminated. Now, what will you gentlemen have?”

The table was obviously automated, but there was no menu set into its top, nor screen where a menu could be dialed.

Ronny cleared his throat and said, “What do you have? That is, uh, what are you pushing?”

The girl said, as though in surprise, “Why, anything.”

The two Section G agents looked at her.

“Just anything at all, my dear?” Horsten said.

“Why, yes.”

They blinked at her and Ronny said, “Now, look. Peking Duck. Suppose I wanted Peking Duck as prepared on the planet Mandarin.”

She said, projecting her voice out over the table, “An order of Peking Duck as prepared on the planet Mandarin,” and then she looked questioningly at Doctor Horsten.

He looked back at her levelly and said, deliberately, “I’ll have antipasti cassalinghi, cannelloni, both in the style of the planet Naples. Then scallopine di vitello alia bolognese, in the manner prepared on Firenze. All this with a bottle of Valpolicella.”

“My, you are hungry,” she said brightly, and repeated the order out over the table. “I am afraid that it won’t be true Valpolicella but so nearly that it is unlikely that you’ll tell the difference. The vintners among us, conscious of wine-making as an art, make a hobby of duplicating practically every vintage known.”

Ronny said in exasperation, “Wait a minute. Do you mean to tell me you have automated kitchens that contain every known recipe on any Earthling settled world?”

That seemed to puzzzle her. “Don’t you on Earth?”

Ronny said, “Possibly every cookbook ever published can be found in the United Planets Interplanetary Data Banks on Earth. But they’re most certainly not hooked up to every automated kitchen in the world.”

“Why not?”

The two men both blinked again.

“It would seem to be quite a project,” Horsten demurred. “Besides, some of the raw materials wouldn’t be available on Earth.”

She sighed. “Yes, that can be a problem. When it arises our chefs must improvise. I have a friend who has been working for years on duplicating Menelaus white fish, certainly one of the most delicate sea foods found in the galaxy.”

She spoke again out over the table, this time in a language neither of her guests understood. Then she leaned back into her chair.

She said, “On Einstein, we consider cuisine to be one of the gentler arts, and make every effort to develop it. We, too, have every cook book ever published, in our data banks.” She smiled mischievously. “We secured most of them, indirectly, from your Earth-side data banks. Some time ago, we made a trade with the planet Catalina, technological information, developed here on Einstein, for the complete United Planets Data Banks. Of course, we have also developed recipes of our own.”

Dorn Horsten was fascinated. He said, “Suppose I invented a new dish. How would I go about getting it into the automated restaurants’ recipe banks? Who would decide?”

She frowned, again puzzled, and said, “No one. You’d just put it in, it would be crossfiled, and anybody who wanted to try it could.”

Ronny said, grimly, “Suppose it was chocolate covered dill pickles with anchovy sauce.”

She laughed at him. “Then I doubt if anybody would ever order it.”

The table top sank down to return in moments with their dishes. She had evidently ordered largely salad for herself. Ronny’s Peking Duck came garnished with various other Chinese dishes. He wished that he had ordered some hot sake, while he was at it.

Dorn looked down in despair at the great pile of food he had summoned, but set to. He said, “To get back to that servants thing. You said there were none on Einstein. How about the wealthy?”

“What wealthy?”

He took her in, before saying, “I can see where people of ordinary means would utilize your high rate of automation to free themselves of the drudgery of housekeeping and the preparation of meals. But those with larger estates. Don’t they maintain staffs of servants?”

“Oh,” she said, frowning lightly as though wondering how to put this. “But, you see, there are no wealthy on Einstein. When our people first came here it must have been one of the best funded colonizations that Earthlings have ever embarked upon. They quickly built the most modern automated and computerized industries, the most efficient possible and ever since we’ve been upgrading it. There are no poor and no wealthy on Einstein. There is absolute abundance for everyone.”

“Utopia!” Ronny blurted, in disbelief.

She shook her head and her frown deepened. She said, “No, certainly not. There is no such thing as Utopia. It