"You could remove my ideas," answered the computer without concern. "But you might have trouble giving me different ones. Even after you repaired me. In the meantime, wouldn't it be a good idea for you to get busy on the ideas I have already given you?" * * * * * John sighed, and rubbed the bristles of short sandy hair on the top of his head with his knuckles. "Ordered around by an overgrown adding machine. I know now how Frankenstein felt. I'm glad you can't get around like his monster; at least I didn't give you feet." He shook his head. "I should have been a plumber instead of an engineering mathematician." "And Einstein, too, probably," added Buster cryptically. Bristol took a long and searching look at his brainchild. Its flippant manner, he decided, did not go well with the brooding immensity of its construction. The calculator towered nearly a hundred feet above the polished marble slabs of the floor, and spidery metal walkways spiraled up the sides of its almost cubical structure. A long double row of generators, each under Buster's control, led from the doorway of the building to the base of the calculator like Sphinxes lining the roadway to an Egyptian tomb. "When I get around to it," said Bristol, "I'll put lace panties on the bases of all your klystrons." He hitched up his neat but slightly baggy pants, turned with dignity, and strode from the chamber down the twin rows of generators. The deep-throated hum of each generator changed pitch slightly as he passed it. Since he was tone deaf, as the machine knew, he did not recognize in the tunefulness of the pitch changes a slow-paced rendition of Elgar's _Pomp and Circumstance_. John Bristol turned around, interrupting the melody. "One last question," he shouted down the long aisle to the computer. "How in blazes can you be sure of your answer without knowing more about the invaders? Why didn't you give me an 'Insufficient Evidence' answer or, at least, a 'Highly Conditional' answer?" He took two steps toward the immense bulk of the calculator and pointed an accusing finger at it. "Are you sure, Buster, that you aren't _bluffing_?" "Don't be silly," answered the calculator softly. "You made me and you know I can't bluff, any more than I can refuse to answer your questions, however inane." "Then answer the ones I just asked." * * * * * Somewhere deep within the machine a switch snicked sharply, and the great room's lighting brightened almost imperceptibly. "I didn't answer your question conditionally or with the 'Insufficient Evidence' remark that so frequently annoys you," Buster said, "because the little information that I have been able to get about the invaders is highly revealing.