e Honorable Mr. du
Fresne." He waited while they were brought to him, scanned them, smiled,
said, "No the fault was not with Giac. Nor was it consciously with Mr.
du Fresne. The question was loaded.

"You see, I happen to know that your Minister's belief in computers is
such that he suffers an involuntary reaction when he hears them defamed.
I defamed computers both in my preliminary address and in my question.
And when he had to transfer to tape the phrase '--or, should the
Governors of Mars permit their planet to suffer because of computer
illogic in the name of a highly doubtful status quo on the parent
planet?'--when he transferred that sentence to tape he was physically
unable to write the phrase 'computer illogic'.

"Involuntarily he changed it to 'computer logic' with the result that
the question was utterly meaningless and caused Giac's tubes to short
circuit. None of the recent computer failures was the fault of the
machines--it was the fault of the men who fed them material to digest.

"So I believe it is safe to say that you may rely upon your
computers--as long as they do not deal with problems affecting
yourselves and ourselves. For those you need human speculation, human
debate, above all human judgment!"

President Giovannini, able politician that he was, had joined Lindsay at
the microphone, put an arm across his shoulders, said, "I feel
humble--yes, humble--in the great lesson this great envoy from our
sister planet had taught us. What they can do on Mars we can do on
Earth."

When at last they were clear of the vidar cameras Lindsay grinned and
said, "Nice going, Johnny--you'll have more voters than ever come next
election."

Giovannini simply stared at him. His eyes began to water, his nose to
run and he turned away, groping for an evapochief.

Lindsay looked after him and shook his head. He said to Nina, who had
rejoined him, "How about that? Johnny's in tears."

"Of course he is," snapped Nina. "He's allergic to the word 'voters'.
Night soil, but you're simple!"

Lindsay felt his own eyes water. He sneezed, violently, for the first
time since coming to Earth. Concerned, Nina said, "What's wrong,
darling? Have I done something?"

"If you ever say 'night soil' again..." he began. Then,
"Krra_chooooo_!" He felt as if the top of his head were missing.

Nina hugged him, grinning like a gamine. "I'll save it for _very_
special occasions," she promised.

End of the Project Gutenberg