e
calculating machines.

The shuffling produced enough variation in the final product to
suggest novelty to the reader without actually presenting anything
strange or unexpected.

Once the cards were in the machine, they set off electronic impulses
which, by a scanning process, projected photographic images of type
and illustrations to a ribbon of paper. This ribbon ran through a
battery of xerographic machines to reproduce the exact number of
copies specified by the market indicator.

Everything worked smoothly without the necessity for thought, which,
as you know, is expensive and often wasteful.

In the second week of the Calamity, one machine after another seemed
to go put of order. I couldn't tell whether the trouble was in the
cards, in the research office, or in the machines.

First, one produced something entitled "A Critique of the Bureaucratic
Culture Pattern." Then another would give out nothing but lyric poems.
A third simply printed obvious gibberish, the letters F-R-E-E-D-O-M.
And one of our oldest machines ran off a series of limericks of a
decidedly pungent flavor.

I did all I could to straighten them out. Even our cleaning compounds
were analyzed for traces of alcohol. But we weren't able to locate the
trouble. And we didn't dare shut off the power because that would have
backed up our continuous stream of pulp and paper all the way to
Canada, Alaska and Scandinavia. There didn't seem to be anything to do
but let the publications go on through to the distribution center.

Before they were returned to the pulp mills, some of the publications
reached private hands and created something of a stir, especially the
limericks. One of them went something like this: "There was a
young...." (Passage defaced.)

2

My name is Minton, traffic officer emeritus on the Extrapolated
Parkway.

The Parkway was equipped with the usual electronic controls to propel
cars magnetically, to maintain a safe distance between all cars, and
to hold them automatically in their proper lanes. The controls also
turned cars off the Parkways at the proper exit, according to the
settings on the individual automobile's direction-finder.

On the ninth day of the Calamity, the controls became erratic. Cars
ran off the highway at the wrong exits, even though their
direction-finders seemed to be in good order. Many turned around in
circles at entrances to the Parkway and failed to enter. Drivers
abandoned cars in despair and