Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 43 — page 99: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION Barbara. ‘“‘But—you’re quite sure you haven’t ever... .?” “Quite sure,” lied Walter. Walter loved his wife. There was no doubt about that. In his own way he loved her as devotedly as she loved him; but his way was not quite as demonstrative as hers. There were times when her intensity proved just a little bit over- powering—Walter found it hard to keep pace with her eager chatter; he knew that his inability to cope with her affectionate effusiveness often made it seem that he was cold and unresponsive. And that wasn’t true. But it was true that he liked, now and then, to get away and have a breath- ing space. He found an even- ing meeting of his colleagues at the research centre a relaxa- tion, rather than an arduous duty. 3 He was sorry that Barbara had detected Wally this time. The robot had served a similar purpose two or three times before, and Walter had _ 98 thought that all was now well. But even the most convincing humanoid developments—and Wally was one of the finest models they had ever created —could not be entirely reli- able. He would have to be careful in future. Barbara could be quite exhausting when she really lost her tem- per, and Walter was all in favour of a quiet life. It was, in fact, his desire to make life less arduous that had resulted in the construc- tion of Wally, and Wally’s companion model, Babs. The Robot Research Foun- dation, and its associated manufacturing and exploiting companies, had been brought into being by Walter’s father. Working under Government supervision because of the alarm that was felt in certain quarters about the develop- ment of pseudo-intelligent be- ings, the Foundation had produced robots for every conceivable purpose. From the humblest of new labour- saving devices to the most complicated electronic brains, connicloooks.com