Unwise Child

e Angel had to run when he came in the next morning after having spent the night at a hotel. There was a mixed and ragged chorus of "Good morning, Mr. Gabr

ace. She had a figure like an ironing board and the soul of a Ramsden

ened here?" She waved at the warped door and the ribbons o

nge of expression. "I'm very glad you weren't hurt," she said whe

e two-hundred-year-old Cathedral of St. John the Divine. "Get Larry Beasley on the phone, Helen. I've forgotten his number, but you'll find him liste

e gestured toward the broken wind

ike went on, "see if you can get Bishop Bre

ir," sh

sslike brain made estimates. Mike had also reached an agreement with the bishop whereby special vaultlike doors would be fitted into the stairwells leading up to the towers at Mike's expense. They

me a thoroughfare, Mike the Angel retired to his bedroom to think. He took wit

ch," he said aloud to the stack, "you ha

cond place, they were so difficult to get, even on the black market, that the few that came into Old Harry's hands went into the defenses of his own shop. Mike th

rocryotrons. There was something defi

s firm-which meant Mike the Angel himself-to design the power drive and the thrust converters for a spaces

han any that had ever before been built on the ground. Usually, an interstellar vessel that large was built in orbit around the Earth, where the designers didn't have to worry about gravitational pull. Such a ship

, there was also the magnetic field of the planet to consider. The drive tubes tended to w

: Why wasn't the Branch

another, it was heavily insulated. For a third, it was built like a tank for holding liquids. All very well and good; possibly

at didn't exactly jibe with Mike the Angel's ideas of the proper way to build a spaceship. It was not quite the same as

y was the Branchell being b

ion Three: What wa

d in the specs as being one-point-seven-two-six grams per cubic centimeter. And that, Mike happened to know, was th

le connections within it were factorial one hundred thousand. All it needed was to be immersed in

a stack. The robot was designed to play poker. He had fed in all the rules of play and added all the

erfect memory and could compute faster than Mike could. But it would not, could no

er about bluffing. That would have made it easy for Mike. All he'd

o rules whatsoever to go by to judge whether Mike was bluffing or not. It finally decided to make its decisions b

m circuits that Mike's friend had had to spen

a brain as gigantic as the one in Cargo Ho

ept turning over and over in Mike's mind. And, like the

an neither be shut off nor dismantled. Not, that is, unless you

ind why-just suppose.) And suppose they wanted to take it off Earth, but didn't want t

it off Earth, and if the data in it was so precious that the brain could not be

y

ed at the microcryo

nyone want a brain that big? And wha

k said n

, and his secretary's face appeared on the screen.

," said Mik

I see you're still alive," he said. "What

, "just the usual sort of JD stuff we have to put up wi

killed," Walling

inanity. "Thanks to your phone call, I was as safe as i

llingford said grimly. "I can

ished. "What do

Jack Wong turned his car over yesterday at a hundred and seventy miles a

himself racing." He knew Wong and liked him. They had serve

ay-the matter I called you on last ni

s Wallingford's face vanished. When the girl's face came on, he said: "Helen, g

as merely a matter of straightening out some cost estimates-but since it had to do with

he hell is going on down

paceship," said Walli

l ignored the hint. "I'd sort of gathered that," he said dryly. "But what I want to know is:

for a full two seconds. "And just how did you come ac

cs," said Mike the Angel, t

llingford's voic

idden. To compute the thrust stresses, I had to know the density of the contents of Cargo

"I keep forgetting you're too bright for your own good." Then a

e asked otherwi

you're just t

ibs, and he had the uncomfortable feeling that the person who had stab

d in a smooth, too oily voice. "Since the Engineering Officer of the Branchell, Jack

elt that ghostly

"I haven't been a ship'

lant," Wallingford said sweetly. "If you

s worth a great dea

ice officer," Basil Wallingford s

I'll win," said Mike. He didn't know how lo

t arm to find out. I know you, Golden Wings, and I know how that mind of yours works. And I tell you this: Unless you take this job, you'

like that of some Grecian god contemplating the Universe, or an archangel contempla

ulate,"

mpressed. "Damn right you do,