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proposition, Dixon."

  I hesitated, nonplussed.

  "Come!" he said impatiently. "Look here; I will prove that anarchy isthe ideal government, or that Heaven and Hell are the same place, orthat--"

  "Prove that!" I said. "About Heaven and Hell."

  "Easily. First we will endow my robot with intelligence. I add amechanical memory by means of the old Cushman delayed valve; I add amathematical sense with any of the calculating machines; I give it avoice and a vocabulary with the magnetic-impulse wire phonograph. Nowthe point I make is this: Granted an intelligent machine, does it notfollow that every other machine constructed like it must have theidentical qualities? Would not each robot given the same insides haveexactly the same character?"

  "No!" I snapped. "Human beings can't make two machines exactly alike.There'd be tiny differences; one would react quicker than others, or onewould prefer Fox Airsplitters as prey, while another reacted mostvigorously to Carnecars. In other words, they'd have--_individuality_!"I grinned in triumph.

  "My point exactly," observed van Manderpootz. "You admit, then, thatthis individuality is the result of imperfect workmanship. If our meansof manufacture were perfect, all robots would be identical, and thisindividuality would not exist. Is that true?"

  "I--suppose so."

  "Then I argue that our own individuality is due to our falling short ofperfection. All of us--even van Manderpootz--are individuals onlybecause we are not perfect. Were we perfect, each of us would be exactlylike everyone else. True?"

  "Uh--yes."

  "But Heaven, by definition, is a place where all is perfect. Therefore,in Heaven everybody is exactly like everybody else, and _therefore_,everybody is thoroughly and completely bored! There is no torture likeboredom, Dixon, and--Well, have I proved my point?"

  I was floored. "But--about anarchy, then?" I stammered.

  "Simple. Very simple for van Manderpootz. See here; with a perfectnation--that is, one whose individuals are all exactly alike, which Ihave just proved to constitute perfection--with a perfect nation, Irepeat, laws and government are utterly superfluous. If everybody reactsto stimuli in the same way, laws are quite useless, obviously. If, forinstance, a certain event occurred that might lead to a declaration ofwar, why, everybody in such a nation would vote for war at the sameinstant. Therefore government is unnecessary, and therefore anarchy isthe ideal government, since it is the proper government for a perfectrace." He paused. "I shall now prove that anarchy is _not_ the idealgovernment--"

  "Never mind!" I begged. "Who am I to argue with van Manderpootz? But is_that_ the whole purpose of this dizzy robot? Just a basis for logic?"The mechanism replied with its usual rasp as it leaped toward somevagrant car beyond the window.

  "Isn't that enough?" growled van Manderpootz. "However,"--his voicedropped--"I have even a greater destiny in mind. My boy, van Manderpootzhas solved the riddle of the universe!" He paused impressively. "Well,why don't you say something?"

  "Uh!" I gasped. "It's--uh--marvelous!"

  "Not for van Manderpootz," he said modestly.

  "But--what is it?"

  "Eh--Oh!" He frowned. "Well, I'll tell you, Dixon. You won'tunderstand, but I'll tell you." He coughed. "As far back as the earlytwentieth century," he resumed, "Einstein proved that energy isparticular. Matter is also particular, and now van Manderpootz adds thatspace and time are discrete!" He glared at me.

  "Energy and matter are particular," I murmured, "and space and time arediscrete! How very moral of them!"

  "Imbecile!" he blazed. "To pun on the words of van Manderpootz! You knowvery well that I mean particular and discrete in the physical sense.Matter is composed of particles, therefore it is particular. Theparticles of matter are called electrons, protons, and neutrons, andthose of energy, quanta. I now add two others, the particles of space Icall spations, those of time, chronons."

  "And what in the devil," I asked, "are particles of space and time?"

  "Just what I said!" snapped van Manderpootz. "Exactly as the particlesof matter are the smallest pieces of matter that can exist, just asthere is no such thing as a half of an electron, or for that matter,half a quantum, so the chronon is the smallest possible fragment oftime, and the spation the smallest possible bit of space. Neither timenor space is continuous; each is composed of these infinitely tinyfragments."

  "Well, how long is a chronon in time? How big is a spation in space?"

  "Van Manderpootz has even measured that. A chronon is the length of timeit takes one quantum of energy to push one electron from one electronicorbit to the next. There can obviously be no shorter interval of time,since an electron is the smallest unit of matter and the quantum thesmallest unit of energy. And a spation is the exact volume of a proton.Since nothing smaller exists, that is obviously the smallest unit ofspace."

  "Well, look here," I argued. "Then what's in between these particles ofspace and time? If time moves, as you say, in jerks of one chronon each,what's between the jerks?"

  "Ah!" said the great van Manderpootz. "Now we come to the heart of thematter. In between the particles of space and time, must obviously besomething that is neither space, time, matter, nor energy. A hundredyears ago Shapley anticipated van Manderpootz in a vague way when heannounced his cosmo-plasma, the great underlying matrix in which timeand space and the universe are embedded. Now van Manderpootz announcesthe ultimate unit, the universal particle, the focus in which matter,energy, time, and space meet, the unit from which electrons, protons,neutrons, quanta, spations, and chronons are all constructed. The riddleof the universe is solved by what I have chosen to name the cosmon." Hisblue eyes bored into me.

  "Magnificent!" I said feebly, knowing that some such word was expected."But what good is it?"

  "What good is it?" he roared. "It provides--or will provide, once I workout a few details--the means of turning energy into time, or space intomatter, or time into space, or--" He sputtered into silence. "Fool!" hemuttered. "To think that you studied under the tutelage of vanManderpootz. I blush; I actually blush!"

  One couldn't have told it if he were blushing. His face was alwaysrubicund enough. "Colossal!" I said hastily. "What a mind!"

  That mollified him. "But that's not all," he proceeded. "Van Manderpootznever stops short of perfection. I now announce the unit particle ofthought--the psychon!"

  This was a little too much. I simply stared.

  "Well may you be dumbfounded," said van Manderpootz. "I presume you areaware, by hearsay at least, of the existence of thought. The psychon,the unit of thought, is one electron plus one proton, which are bound soas to form one neutron, embedded in one cosmon, occupying a volume ofone spation, driven by one quantum for a period of one chronon. Veryobvious; very simple."

  "Oh, very!" I echoed. "Even I can see that that equals one psychon."

  He beamed. "Excellent! Excellent!"

  "And what," I asked, "will you do with the psychons?"

  "Ah," he rumbled. "Now we go even _past_ the heart of the matter, andreturn to Isaak here." He jammed a thumb toward the robot. "Here I willcreate Roger Bacon's mechanical head. In the skull of this clumsycreature will rest such intelligence as not even van Manderpootz--Ishould say, as _only_ van Manderpootz--can conceive. It remains merelyto construct my idealizator."

  "Your idealizator?"

  "Of course. Have I not just proven that thoughts are as real as matter,energy, time, or space? Have I not just demonstrated that one can betransformed, through the cosmon, into any other? My idealizator is themeans of transforming psychons to quanta, just as, for instance, aCrookes tube or X-ray tube transforms matter to electrons. I will makeyour thoughts visible! And not your thoughts as they are in that numbbrain of yours, but in _ideal_ form. Do you see? The psychons of yourmind are the same as those from any other mind, just as all electronsare identical, whether from gold or iron. Yes! Your psychons"--his voicequavered--"are identical with those from the mind of--van Manderpootz!"He paused, shaken.

  "Actually?" I gasped.

  "Actu
ally. Fewer in number, of course, but identical. Therefore, myidealizator shows your thought released from the impress of yourpersonality. It shows it--ideal!"

  Well, I was late to the office again.

  * * * * *

  A week later I thought of van Manderpootz. Tips was on tour somewhere,and I didn't dare take anyone else out because I'd tried it once beforeand she'd heard about it. So, with