Through them, the course of history could be guided, the advancement of civilization accelerated. By racing through the backgrounds and capabilities of every person in the United Nations, the Calculator could find the best one to do any job, to solve any problem. Lao Protik, as he strolled into his swank Nuyork apartment building that July evening, was completely unaware that the Calculator had pointed a finger at him. Life flowed smoothly for him. Not a worry darkened the horizon. His annual salary from Consolidated Ads was five hundred thousand dols--a comfortable thirty thousand after taxes--and he maintained three mistresses in separate apartments. In the lobby, he paused to open his mailbox. Two letters fell out into his hands; he tore the envelopes neatly across the end. The first was an advertisement for the 2125 model of the Sky Swallow convertible helicar. He crumpled it and tossed it into a potted palm. He grunted in surprise as he read the second one. "Vr. Lao Protik," he read. "Our firm has been impressed with your accomplishments and growing reputation as a psycho-artist. We are in a position to offer you employment at a salary of one hundred thousand dols annually. Our representative, Vr. Casto Roche, will call on you in a few days to discuss this offer with you." The letter bore the illegible scrawl of someone who signed himself as president of Colorvue Publicity, Inc. Lao had never heard of the firm. Lao's lips curled and this missive followed the first one into the potted palm. He felt a momentary irritation at the audacity of anyone offering him a mere hundred thousand dols, then let the entire matter slip from his mind. Softly whistling the refrain of the latest hit tune, "The Clouds of Venus Can't Come Between Us," he caught the elevator and ascended to his last untroubled night for a long time to come. * * * * * A terse memorandum was waiting for Lao at his office the next morning. It was not the sort of thing any employee of Consolidated Ads could ignore--not even a Class A psycho-artist who was an officer in his union. A worried frown creasing his normally smooth forehead, Lao hurried down the corridor to the plush office of Mavo Caprin, president of the firm. Caprin was in no amiable mood. He grunted at Lao's somewhat querulous greeting. He kept his nose buried in papers, puffing ominously on a fat cigar for several minutes before looking up and waving Lao to a seat. "Perhaps you can explain these, Protik," said Caprin sharply, waving a thick fistful of letters. Lao leaned over to take them, and glanced through several of them. The phrases that met his eyes astounded and outraged him. They were such words as "this insolent effrontery," "the unwarranted audacity of the man," "a deliberate scheme to further rip away the fabric of our tottering moral code"--all applied to his own work!