'We trust you will make no attempt to see or speak directly to any Elseverian. And of course we hope you will avoid embarrassment by not attempting to return to Elsevere at any time in the future. A colleague of yours would be welcome if further data concerning us is needed.'
'I understand,' said Lamorak, tonelessly. Obviously, he had himself become a Ragusnik. He had handled the controls that in turn had handled the wastes; he was ostracized. He was a corpse-handler, a swineherd, an inside man at the skonk works.
He said, 'Good-bye.'
Blei's voice said, 'Before we direct you, Dr. Lamorak-. On behalf of the Council of Elsevere, I thank you for your help in this crisis.'
'You're welcome,' said Lamorak, bitterly.
Insert Knob A in Hole B
Dave Woodbury and John Hansen, grotesque in their spacesuits, supervised anxiously as the large crate swung slowly out and away from the freight-ship and into the airlock. With nearly a year of their hitch on Space Station A5 behind them, they were understandably weary of filtration units that clanked, hydroponic tubs that leaked, air generators that hummed constantly and stopped occasionally.
'Nothing works,' Woodbury would say mournfully, 'because everything is hand-assembled by ourselves.'
'Following directions,' Hansen would add, 'composed by an idiot.'
There were undoubtedly grounds for complaint there. The most expensive thing about a spaceship was the room allowed for freight so all equipment had to be sent across space disassembled and nested. All equipment had to be assembled at the Station itself with clumsy hands, inadequate tools and with blurred and ambiguous direction sheets for guidance.
Painstakingly Woodbury had written complaints to which Hansen had added appropriate adjectives, and formal requests for relief of the situation had made their way back to Earth.
And Earth had responded. A special robot had been designed, with a positronic brain crammed with the knowledge of how to assemble properly any disassembled machine in existence.
That robot was in the crate being unloaded now and Woodbury was trembling as the airlock closed behind it.
Copyright (c) 1957 by Fantasy House, Inc.
'First,' he said, 'it overhauls the Food-Assembler and adjusts the steak-attachment knob so we can get it rare instead of burnt.'
They entered the Station and attacked the crate with dainty touches of the demoleculizer rods in order to make sure that not a precious metal atom of their special assembly-robot was damaged.
The crate fell open!
And there within it were five hundred separate pieces-and one blurred and ambiguous direction sheet for assemblage.
The Up-to-Date Sorcerer
It always puzzled me that Nicholas Nitely, although a Justice of the Peace, was a bachelor. The atmosphere of his profession, so to speak, seemed so conducive to matrimony that surely he could scarcely avoid the gentle bond of wedlock.
When I said as much over a gin and tonic at the Club recently, he said, 'Ah, but I had a narrow escape some time ago,' and he sighed.
'Oh, really?'
'A fair young girl, sweet, intelligent, pure yet desperately ardent, and withal most alluring to the physical senses for even such an old fogy as myself.'
I said, 'How did you come to let her go?'
'Ihad no choice. 'He smiled gently at me and his smooth, ruddy complexion, his smooth gray hair, his smooth blue eyes, all combined to give him an expression of near-saintliness. He said, 'You see, it was really the fault of her fiance-'
'Ah, she was engaged to someone else.'
'-and of Professor Wellington Johns, who was, although an endocrinolo-gist, by way of being an up-to-date sorcerer. In fact, it was just that-' He sighed, sipped at his drink, and turned on me the bland and cheerful face of one who is about to change the subject
I said firmly, 'Now, then, Nitely, old man, you cannot leave it so. I want to know about your beautiful girl-the flesh that got away.'
He winced at the pun (one, I must admit, of my more abominable efforts)
Copyright (c) 1958 by Mercury Press, Inc.
and settled down by ordering his glass refilled. 'You understand,' he said, 'I learned some of the details later on.'
Professor Wellington Johns had a large and prominent nose, two sincere eyes and a distinct talent for making clothes appear too krge for him. He said, 'My dear children, love is a matter of chemistry.'
His dear children, who were really students of his, and not his children at all, were named Alexander Dexter and Alice Sanger. They looked perfectly full of chemicals as they sat there holding hands. Together, their age amounted to perhaps 45, evenly split between them, and Alexander said, fairly inevitably, 'Vive la chemie!'
Professor Johns smiled reprovingly. 'Or rather endocrinology. Hormones, after all, affect our emotions and it is not surprising that one should, specifically, stimulate that feeling we call love.'
'But that's so unromantic,' murmured Alice. 'I'm sure I don't need any.' She looked up at Alexander with a yearning glance.
'My dear,' said the professor, 'your blood stream was crawling with it at that moment you, as the saying is, fell in love. Its secretion had been stimulated by'-for a moment he considered his words carefully, being a highly moral man-'by some environmental factor involving your young man, and once the hormonal action had taken place, inertia carried you on. I could duplicate the effect easily.'
'Why, Professor,' said Alice, with gentle affection. 'It would be delightful to have you try,' and she squeezed Alexander's hand shyly.
'I do not mean,' said the professor, coughing to hide his embarrassment, 'that I would personally attempt to reproduce-or, rather, to duplicate- the conditions that created the natural secretion of the hormone. I mean, instead, that I could inject the hormone itself by hypodermic or even by oral ingestion, since it is a steroid hormone. I have, you see,' and here he removed his glasses and polished them proudly, 'isolated and purified the hormone.'
Alexander sat erect. 'Professor! And you have said nothing?'
'I must know more about it first.'
'Do you mean to say,' said Alice, her lovely brown eyes shimmering with delight, 'that you can make people fed the wonderful delight and heaven-surpassing tenderness of true love by means of a ... a pill?'
The professor said, 'I can indeed duplicate the emotion to which you refer in those rather cloying terms.'
'Then why don't you?'
Alexander raised a protesting hand. 'Now, darling, your ardor leads you astray. Our own happiness and forthcoming nuptials make you forget certain facts of life. If a married person were, by mistake, to accept this hormone-'
Professor Johns said, with a trace of hauteur, 'Let me explain right now
that my hormone, or my amatogenic principle, as I call it-' (for he, in common with many practical scientists, enjoyed a proper scorn for the rarefied niceties of classical philology).
'Call it a love-philtre, Professor,' said Alice, with a melting sigh.
'My amatogenic cortical principle,' said Professor Johns, sternly, 'has no effect on married individuals. The hormone cannot work if inhibited by other factors, and being married is certainly a factor that inhibits love.'
'Why, so I have heard,' said Alexander, gravely, 'but I intend to disprove that callous belief in the case of my own Alice.'
'Alexander,' said Alice. 'My love.'
The professor said, 'I mean that marriage inhibits extramarital love.'
Alexander said, 'Why, it has come to my ears that sometimes it does not.'
Alice said, shocked, 'Alexander!'
'Only in rare instances, my dear, among those who have not gone to college.'
The professor said, 'Marriage may not inhibit a certain paltry sexual attraction, or tendencies toward minor trifling, but true love, as Miss Sanger expressed the emotion, is something which cannot blossom when the memory of a stern wife and various unattractive children hobbles the subconscious.'
'Do you mean to say,' said Alexander, 'that if you were to feed your love-philtre-beg pardon, your amatogenic principle-to a number of people indiscriminately, only the unmarried individuals would be affected?'
'That is right, I have experimented on certain animals which, though not going through the conscious marriage rite, do form monogamous attachments. Those with the attachments already formed are not affected.'
'Then, Professor, I have a perfectly splendid idea. Tomorrow night is the night of the Senior Dance here at college. There will be at least fifty couples present, mostly unmarried. Put your philtre in the punch.'
'What? Are you mad?'
But Alice had caught fire. 'Why, it's a heavenly idea, Professor. To think that all my friends will feel as I feel! Professor, you would be an angel from heaven. -But oh, Alexander, do you suppose the feelings might be a trifle uncontrolled? Some of our college chums are a little wild and if, in the heat of discovery of love, they should, well, kiss-'
Professor Johns said, indignantly, 'My dear Miss Sanger. You must not allow your imagination to become overheated. My hormone induces only those feelings which lead to marriage and not to the expression of anything that might be considered indecorous.'
'I'm sorry,' murmured Alice, in confusion. 'I should remember, Professor, that you are the most highly moral man I know-excepting always dear Alexander-and
