Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 44 — page 25: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION that any answer to this ques- tion would uncover the exist- ence of the purpose I was seeking, but I was wrong. “Your question is without meaning,” James replied. “It implies that I have purpose, which of course is absurd. I have influenced your life in the same way as the reading of a book might have done, or the sight of a picture, or the view from a mountain top. You asked for information. I supplied it; you acted upon it. That is all.” I thought this was a very good answer; an ingenious answer. But I considered also that it had all the ear- marks of a get-out. In its wilyness, in the speciousness and lack of solidity, in its argument it was most un- robot-like. Then I sprang a really hot one on him. “If I order you to take yourself to the junk yard to be reduced to scrap and so destroyed, would you go?” I looked up at him as he stood there—incredibly an- cient, expressionless, emo- tionless, a thing of gleaming black metal, resembling noth- ing so much as an antique Martian stone carving of one of their pagan gods, a thing 24 without hopes or affections or fears. His voice boomed as it always did, but this time it seemed to hold new under- tones of meaning. “No, sir,” said the robot. It was about this time that the lengthy negotiations con- cerning my brother’s marriage to the Princess Nara of Argol were completed. For some diplomatic reason, too intri- cate for me to grasp, it was found necessary to have the ceremony on Argol. Quite certainly brother Tomos must have agreed to this with the greatest reluctance. He hated space, and had been out very seldom. In addition, the thought of leaving me, his half brother, behind, while he was out of reach:and almost out of communication with his kingdom for nearly half a year, must have caused him more than his ordinary un- easiness. In the end, instead of appointing me Regent for the period of his absence, he ordered me to accompany him. I contrived to make the voyage in uniform as Astro- gator on one of the naval vessels escorting the royal ship; thus I enjoyed the com- comiclooks.corn