Input:
You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).

Story:
Grand Finale
Mike Leigh's
Topsy-Turvy
broadly recounts the creation of Gilbert
and Sullivan's comic opera The Mikado at London's Savoy Theatre in 1885.
Perhaps "broadly" is putting too fine a point on it. The first hour, in which
Arthur Sullivan (Allan Corduner) attempts to sever his ties with W.S. Gilbert
(Jim Broadbent) and the owner of the Savoy, Richard D'Oyly Carte (Ron Cook), is
a mess: The order of scenes feels arbitrary, and characters pop up and vanish
with bewildering frequency. You might be tempted to vanish, too. (Friends of
mine did.) Be patient. Leigh's movies, born of actors' improvisations and
loosely shaped, always take a while to find their rhythm--and, frequently,
their point. This one finds everything. By the end of its two hours and 40
minutes, Topsy-Turvy has evolved into something extraordinary: a
monument to process--to the minutiae of making art. And to something more: the
fundamental sadness of people who labor to make beautiful things--who soar--and
then come down to a not-so-beautiful earth.
It would be charitable
to attribute the shapelessness of the early scenes to the characters' own lack
of focus, but it would also be inane. As Elvis Mitchell pointed out in
Slate
's "," Leigh's opening shot features an usher who moves
along a row of the Savoy Theatre lifting and peering under every seat. That's
every seat. You can almost hear Leigh cackling: "How's this for a fast
start?--you bourgeois slaves to narrative." Inevitably, something does happen:
Princess Ida , one of Gilbert and Sullivan's duds, has its premiere, and
Gilbert fumes over a review that calls him the monarch of "topsy-turvydom"--of
formulaic plots involving magical elixirs and coins. A heat wave has hit
London, theater attendance is down, and Sullivan is itching to go off and
become the English Mendelssohn--to write operas and symphonies instead of comic
"soufflés." Leigh evidently loves the bloodless formality of the scenes between
Gilbert and Sullivan, men of opposite tastes and temperaments who only overlap
in their work. He must also love that those scenes are narrative dead ends:
"How's this for conflict?--you bourgeois slaves to melodrama."
The wake-up call comes an hour into the movie. Gilbert
attends a popular exposition of Japanese culture at Knightsbridge and watches
Kabuki routines and women in kimonos pouring green tea ("spinach water"). When
a Japanese sword he has purchased falls off his wall, he hefts it; mimes a
fight while issuing strangled, samurailike cries; then has a brainstorm. We
hear the horns of The Mikado overture, then Leigh cuts to the fully
realized opening scene on stage at the Savoy: "We are gentlemen of Japan …"
Just that chorus is enough to reanimate the audience--to make people sit up and
grin. And Leigh's technique of leaping back and forth between the finished
Mikado and painstaking scenes of rehearsal has magic in it: You're
watching straw, then gold, then straw, then gold. And you see the
connection.
A central section of the
drama is missing. What exactly fired Sullivan up about doing The Mikado ?
What was different about this collaboration? No answer.
Topsy-Turvy turns into something other than the Gilbert and Sullivan
story: a portrait of life in the theater. A group portrait. D'Oyly Carte
becomes a quiet third protagonist, a humane businessman. He softly negotiates a
salary increase with the company's lead comic (Martin Savage), a neurasthenic
junkie. He gently seeks the assurance of a tipsy ingénue (the tremulous Shirley
Henderson) that her "little weakness" will not re-emerge. In the dressing room,
performers gossip and complain, drink and shoot themselves up with drugs.
Leigh's ensemble casts strive to be "microcosms" of society, so issues of class
are ever present. You see it in Sullivan's banter with the working-class
musicians in the pit and in Gilbert's with the uppity actors (the movie's
posturing middle class), whom he drills on pronunciation and poise. The chorus
is presented as some sort of collective folk conscience when it lobbies Gilbert
to restore the rashly cut solo ("A more humane Mikado never did in Japan
exist") of the sad, fat fellow (Timothy Spall) in the title role.
Who would have predicted that Leigh would make Gilbert and
Sullivan into Mike Leigh characters? Gilbert could be a stand-in for Leigh
himself--a haughty, ill-humored man with an obsession for tiny details and a
glowering dedication to process. Gilbert haggles with his actors over small
things that shouldn't resonate but which somehow add up. Leigh's small things
add up, too. The joke of The Mikado is that its Japanese lords are
thinly disguised English bureaucrats; the joke of Topsy-Turvy is that
the opera's English performers seem culturally incapable of playing Japanese.
They rehearse in long coats and top hats, and some of the women (and men!)
express horror at appearing on stage without corsets. Behind the satire,
however, is a reverence for Gilbert and Sullivan: The tempos are slower than
modern audiences are used to, and the staging has been stripped of high-camp
accretions. I saw a D'Oyly Carte production of The Mikado in the late
'70s: It was played fast and to the groundlings and made me never want to see a
G&S opera again. Now I can't wait for the next production.
Only a lunatic would
call Topsy-Turvy , with its lame first hour and host of loose ends, a
masterpiece, but by the finale I was ready to have myself committed. The finale
itself must have done it. Leigh's endings are often wondrous, and this one is
up there with the rooftop scene in High Hopes (1988). The Mikado
is a triumph--it would be the Savoy's biggest hit--but there's no
transformation in the lives of its makers. Gilbert can't bring himself to reach
out to his brokenhearted wife (Lesley Manville), and Sullivan has a melancholy
inkling that he has reached his artistic peak. The ingénue, Leonora, is
drinking again, toasting herself in the mirror and praising the loveliness of
Nature--a Nature that will, of course, destroy her. The final image is of Art:
Leonora on stage singing Yum-Yum's sublime "The sun whose rays are all ablaze
…" As Leigh's camera pulls back over the orchestra and the audience, this movie
feels like one of the saddest and loveliest tributes to the lives of artists
ever made. Topsy-Turvy leaves you upside down and breathless.
Like Mike Leigh, Errol Morris rarely begins a project with
a clear idea of what he wants it to be. Sometimes he doesn't end a project with
a clear idea of what he wants it to be, either. His newest documentary,
Mr. Death : The Rise and Fall of Fred D. Leuchter,
Jr.
, kicks up all sorts of messy emotions that his coolly ironic
technique can't begin to handle.
The director is in his
weird element only in the first half-hour, in which he sits his subject down
and gets out of his way. Leuchter, who looks a little like the archetypal movie
dweeb Charles Martin Smith and has a heavy exurbs-of-Boston accent, explains
how he became involved in redesigning problematic electric chairs. "Excess
current cooks the tissue," he says, barely suppressing a smirk at his own
expertise. "There've been occasions where a great amount of current has been
applied, and the meat actually will come off the executee's bone like the meat
coming off a cooked chicken." Leuchter set about making capital punishment more
"humane." He moves on to talking about his redesigns for lethal-injection
systems, gas chambers, and even a gallows, while underneath, Caleb Sampson
provides macabre funhouse music and wistful calliope waltzes. Morris' distance
from his subject implies condescension--Leuchter looks like something in a jar.
But that's OK, because the man is an interesting specimen. Is he a monster or a
humanist committed to eliminating the "deplawrable tawchaw" of capital
punishment? It could go either way.
M r. Death gets into deeper waters when it recounts
the trial of Ernst Zundel in Canada for proclaiming that the Holocaust never
happened. Zundel hired Leuchter to go to Auschwitz and examine the "alleged"
gas chambers: Footage (taken by Zundel's cameraman) shows the little man
chiseling at walls, vandalizing what even he admits are international shrines.
Leuchter smuggled specimens of rock and concrete back to the United States,
where chemical analysis revealed no cyanide gas. Furthermore, Leuchter can't
figure out how the gas would even have been administered without killing the
Nazis themselves--proof, he argues, that mass extermination at Auschwitz never
took place. The subsequent "Leuchter Report" became the backbone of Zundel's
defense (he lost anyway) and of the burgeoning revisionist movement led by
David Irving. But if Leuchter became a hero to neo-Nazis, he also became a
target of Jewish groups and a pariah even in the execution business. When
Morris hooks up with him for the last time, he's in hiding from creditors.
Is Leuchter a raving
anti-Semite or a pathetic pawn who thrived on having--for the first time in his
life--a bit of celebrity? The film suggests the latter. It certainly produces
no evidence of malice. Plenty of monstrous insensitivity and hubris, though.
Morris uses the Dutch historian Robert Jan van Pelt as a counternarrator: He
calls Leuchter "a fffool " who didn't have a clue what to look for in a
place that had changed enormously in 50 years. "If he had spent time in the
archives," says van Pelt, "he would have found evidence about ventilation
systems, ways to introduce Zyclon B into these buildings--but of course I don't
think he knows German so it wouldn't have helped very much." The most
devastating rebuttal is from the chemist in charge of the Auschwitz analysis,
who explains that the gas wouldn't have penetrated more than 10 microns into
the wall (a human hair is 100 microns thick), so by crushing the samples
(standard procedure), he had effectively diluted the cyanide 100,000 times.
Against all this, Morris shows footage of Leuchter chiseling at Auschwitz and
even adds some of his own, along with slow-motion shots of hammers bashing
rocks, walls, floors, etc. It's an obscenity.
After my rage at Leuchter had subsided, I began to get
angry at Morris for aestheticizing that violation--turning it into an ironic
art object. The director's beautiful detachment suggests a kind of cowardice.
His technique is based on standing back--maintaining a fixed distance--while
his subjects hang themselves, and for a while that works stunningly. But at a
certain point, isn't it only human to want to engage this man? You don't need
to play Mike Wallace and demolish Leuchter on camera. You could just ask him
what he makes of, say, van Pelt's assertion that the answer to the riddle of
the gas chambers was all over the archives, or what he thought of the chemist's
declaration that the test performed for cyanide was the wrong test. Morris can
be heard asking one question only: "Have you ever thought you might be wrong or
that you made a mistake?"--sufficiently broad that Leuchter can casually affirm
his own inanity.
My concern here isn't so much for Leuchter or even
the Holocaust revisionists, who'll just think he was sandbagged. The problem is
that when a documentary filmmaker seems too scared or cool or arty to violate
his own immaculate aesthetic, he ends up weakening his case. He also provides
no emotional release, which isn't a small matter when the subject is Holocaust
denial. Morris was close enough to Leuchter to have gotten something more, to
have gone a little deeper in search of a poison that does penetrate
surfaces.

Question and Possible Answers:
How is the beginning of Topsy-Turvy described?

 (A) exciting and fast paced
 (B) boring and slow
 (C) dramatic and interesting
 (D) sad and depressing

Answer:

Output: B


Input:
You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).

Story:
Bread

   Overhead

   By FRITZ LEIBER

   The Staff of Life suddenly and

   disconcertingly sprouted wings

   —and mankind had to eat crow!

   Illustrated by WOOD

   AS a blisteringly hot but
 guaranteed weather-controlled
 future summer day
 dawned on the Mississippi Valley,
 the walking mills of Puffy Products
 ("Spike to Loaf in One
 Operation!") began to tread delicately
 on their centipede legs
 across the wheat fields of Kansas.

   The walking mills resembled fat
 metal serpents, rather larger than
 those Chinese paper dragons animated
 by files of men in procession.
 Sensory robot devices in
 their noses informed them that
 the waiting wheat had reached ripe
 perfection.

   As they advanced, their heads
 swung lazily from side to side, very
 much like snakes, gobbling the yellow
 grain. In their throats, it was
 threshed, the chaff bundled and
 burped aside for pickup by the
 crawl trucks of a chemical corporation,
 the kernels quick-dried
 and blown along into the mighty
 chests of the machines. There the
 tireless mills ground the kernels
 to flour, which was instantly sifted,
 the bran being packaged and
 dropped like the chaff for pickup.
 A cluster of tanks which gave
 the metal serpents a decidedly
 humpbacked appearance added
 water, shortening, salt and other
 ingredients, some named and some
 not. The dough was at the same
 time infused with gas from a tank
 conspicuously labeled "Carbon
 Dioxide" ("No Yeast Creatures
 in Your Bread!").

   Thus instantly risen, the dough
 was clipped into loaves and shot
 into radionic ovens forming the
 midsections of the metal serpents.
 There the bread was baked in a
 matter of seconds, a fierce heat-front
 browning the crusts, and the
 piping-hot loaves sealed in transparent
 plastic bearing the proud
 Puffyloaf emblem (two cherubs
 circling a floating loaf) and ejected
 onto the delivery platform at each
 serpent's rear end, where a cluster
 of pickup machines, like hungry
 piglets, snatched at the loaves
 with hygienic claws.

   A few loaves would be hurried
 off for the day's consumption,
 the majority stored for winter in
 strategically located mammoth
 deep freezes.

   But now, behold a wonder! As
 loaves began to appear on the
 delivery platform of the first walking
 mill to get into action, they
 did not linger on the conveyor
 belt, but rose gently into the air
 and slowly traveled off down-wind
 across the hot rippling fields.

   THE robot claws of the pickup
 machines clutched in vain, and,
 not noticing the difference, proceeded
 carefully to stack emptiness,
 tier by tier. One errant loaf,
 rising more sluggishly than its fellows,
 was snagged by a thrusting
 claw. The machine paused, clumsily
 wiped off the injured loaf, set
 it aside—where it bobbed on one
 corner, unable to take off again—and
 went back to the work of
 storing nothingness.

   A flock of crows rose from the
 trees of a nearby shelterbelt as the
 flight of loaves approached. The
 crows swooped to investigate and
 then suddenly scattered, screeching
 in panic.

   The helicopter of a hangoverish
 Sunday traveler bound for Wichita
 shied very similarly from the
 brown fliers and did not return for
 a second look.

   A black-haired housewife spied
 them over her back fence, crossed
 herself and grabbed her walkie-talkie
 from the laundry basket.
 Seconds later, the yawning correspondent
 of a regional newspaper
 was jotting down the lead of a humorous
 news story which, recalling
 the old flying-saucer scares, stated
 that now apparently bread was to
 be included in the mad aerial tea
 party.

   The congregation of an open-walled
 country church, standing
 up to recite the most familiar of
 Christian prayers, had just reached
 the petition for daily sustenance,
 when a sub-flight of the loaves,
 either forced down by a vagrant
 wind or lacking the natural buoyancy
 of the rest, came coasting silently
 as the sunbeams between the
 graceful pillars at the altar end of
 the building.

   Meanwhile, the main flight, now
 augmented by other bread flocks
 from scores and hundreds of walking
 mills that had started work a
 little later, mounted slowly and
 majestically into the cirrus-flecked
 upper air, where a steady
 wind was blowing strongly toward
 the east.

   About one thousand miles farther
 on in that direction, where a cluster
 of stratosphere-tickling towers
 marked the location of the metropolis
 of NewNew York, a tender
 scene was being enacted in the
 pressurized penthouse managerial
 suite of Puffy Products. Megera
 Winterly, Secretary in Chief to the
 Managerial Board and referred to
 by her underlings as the Blonde
 Icicle, was dealing with the advances
 of Roger ("Racehorse")
 Snedden, Assistant Secretary to the
 Board and often indistinguishable
 from any passing office boy.

   "Why don't you jump out the
 window, Roger, remembering to
 shut the airlock after you?" the
 Golden Glacier said in tones not
 unkind. "When are your high-strung,
 thoroughbred nerves going
 to accept the fact that I would
 never consider marriage with a
 business inferior? You have about
 as much chance as a starving
 Ukrainian kulak now that Moscow's
 clapped on the interdict."

   ROGER'S voice was calm, although
 his eyes were feverishly
 bright, as he replied, "A lot
 of things are going to be different
 around here, Meg, as soon as the
 Board is forced to admit that only
 my quick thinking made it possible
 to bring the name of Puffyloaf in
 front of the whole world."

   "Puffyloaf could do with a little
 of that," the business girl observed
 judiciously. "The way sales have
 been plummeting, it won't be long
 before the Government deeds our
 desks to the managers of Fairy
 Bread and asks us to take the Big
 Jump. But just where does your
 quick thinking come into this, Mr.
 Snedden? You can't be referring to
 the helium—that was Rose Thinker's
 brainwave."

   She studied him suspiciously.
 "You've birthed another promotional
 bumble, Roger. I can see it
 in your eyes. I only hope it's not
 as big a one as when you put the
 Martian ambassador on 3D and he
 thanked you profusely for the gross
 of Puffyloaves, assuring you that
 he'd never slept on a softer mattress
 in all his life on two planets."

   "Listen to me, Meg. Today—yes,
 today!—you're going to see
 the Board eating out of my hand."

   "Hah! I guarantee you won't
 have any fingers left. You're bold
 enough now, but when Mr. Gryce
 and those two big machines come
 through that door—"

   "Now wait a minute, Meg—"

   "Hush! They're coming now!"

   Roger leaped three feet in the
 air, but managed to land without a
 sound and edged toward his stool.
 Through the dilating iris of the
 door strode Phineas T. Gryce,
 flanked by Rose Thinker and Tin
 Philosopher.

   The man approached the conference
 table in the center of the room
 with measured pace and gravely
 expressionless face. The rose-tinted
 machine on his left did a couple
 of impulsive pirouettes on the way
 and twittered a greeting to Meg
 and Roger. The other machine quietly
 took the third of the high seats
 and lifted a claw at Meg, who now
 occupied a stool twice the height of
 Roger's.

   "Miss Winterly, please—our
 theme."

   The Blonde Icicle's face thawed
 into a little-girl smile as she chanted
 bubblingly:

  "

   Made up of tiny wheaten motes

   And reinforced with sturdy oats,

   It rises through the air and floats—

   The bread on which all Terra dotes!

  "

   "THANK YOU, Miss Winterly,"
 said Tin Philosopher.
 "Though a purely figurative statement,
 that bit about rising through
 the air always gets me—here." He
 rapped his midsection, which gave
 off a high musical

    clang

   .

   "Ladies—" he inclined his photocells
 toward Rose Thinker and Meg—"and
 gentlemen. This is a historic
 occasion in Old Puffy's long history,
 the inauguration of the helium-filled
 loaf ('So Light It Almost Floats
 Away!') in which that inert and
 heaven-aspiring gas replaces old-fashioned
 carbon dioxide. Later,
 there will be kudos for Rose
 Thinker, whose bright relays genius-sparked
 the idea, and also for Roger
 Snedden, who took care of the
 details.

   "By the by, Racehorse, that was
 a brilliant piece of work getting the
 helium out of the government—they've
 been pretty stuffy lately
 about their monopoly. But first I
 want to throw wide the casement in
 your minds that opens on the Long
 View of Things."

   Rose Thinker spun twice on her
 chair and opened her photocells
 wide. Tin Philosopher coughed to
 limber up the diaphragm of his
 speaker and continued:

   "Ever since the first cave wife
 boasted to her next-den neighbor
 about the superior paleness and fluffiness
 of her tortillas, mankind has
 sought lighter, whiter bread. Indeed,
 thinkers wiser than myself have
 equated the whole upward course of
 culture with this poignant quest.
 Yeast was a wonderful discovery—for
 its primitive day. Sifting the
 bran and wheat germ from the flour
 was an even more important advance.
 Early bleaching and preserving
 chemicals played their humble
 parts.

   "For a while, barbarous faddists—blind
 to the deeply spiritual nature
 of bread, which is recognized
 by all great religions—held back
 our march toward perfection with
 their hair-splitting insistence on the
 vitamin content of the wheat germ,
 but their case collapsed when tasteless
 colorless substitutes were
 triumphantly synthesized and introduced
 into the loaf, which for flawless
 purity, unequaled airiness and
 sheer intangible goodness was rapidly
 becoming mankind's supreme
 gustatory experience."

   "I wonder what the stuff tastes
 like," Rose Thinker said out of a
 clear sky.

   "I wonder what taste tastes like,"
 Tin Philosopher echoed dreamily.
 Recovering himself, he continued:

   "Then, early in the twenty-first
 century, came the epochal researches
 of Everett Whitehead,
 Puffyloaf chemist, culminating in
 his paper 'The Structural Bubble
 in Cereal Masses' and making possible
 the baking of airtight bread
 twenty times stronger (for its
 weight) than steel and of a
 lightness that would have been
 incredible even to the advanced
 chemist-bakers of the twentieth
 century—a lightness so great that,
 besides forming the backbone of
 our own promotion, it has forever
 since been capitalized on by our
 conscienceless competitors of Fairy
 Bread with their enduring slogan:
 'It Makes Ghost Toast'."

   "That's a beaut, all right, that
 ecto-dough blurb," Rose Thinker
 admitted, bugging her photocells
 sadly. "Wait a sec. How about?—

  "

   There'll be bread

   Overhead

   When you're dead—

   It is said.

  "

   PHINEAS T. GRYCE wrinkled
 his nostrils at the pink machine
 as if he smelled her insulation
 smoldering. He said mildly, "A
 somewhat unhappy jingle, Rose,
 referring as it does to the end of
 the customer as consumer. Moreover,
 we shouldn't overplay the
 figurative 'rises through the air'
 angle. What inspired you?"

   She shrugged. "I don't know—oh,
 yes, I do. I was remembering
 one of the workers' songs we machines
 used to chant during the Big
 Strike—

  "

   Work and pray,

   Live on hay.

   You'll get pie

   In the sky

   When you die—

   It's a lie!

   "I don't know why we chanted
 it," she added. "We didn't want pie—or
 hay, for that matter. And
 machines don't pray, except Tibetan
 prayer wheels."

   Phineas T. Gryce shook his head.
 "Labor relations are another topic
 we should stay far away from.
 However, dear Rose, I'm glad you
 keep trying to outjingle those dirty
 crooks at Fairy Bread." He scowled,
 turning back his attention to Tin
 Philosopher. "I get whopping mad,
 Old Machine, whenever I hear that
 other slogan of theirs, the discriminatory
 one—'Untouched by Robot
 Claws.' Just because they employ a
 few filthy androids in their factories!"

   Tin Philosopher lifted one of his
 own sets of bright talons. "Thanks,
 P.T. But to continue my historical
 resume, the next great advance in
 the baking art was the substitution
 of purified carbon dioxide, recovered
 from coal smoke, for the gas
 generated by yeast organisms indwelling
 in the dough and later
 killed by the heat of baking, their
 corpses remaining

    in situ

   . But even
 purified carbon dioxide is itself a
 rather repugnant gas, a product of
 metabolism whether fast or slow,
 and forever associated with those
 life processes which are obnoxious
 to the fastidious."

   Here the machine shuddered
 with delicate clinkings. "Therefore,
 we of Puffyloaf are taking today
 what may be the ultimate step
 toward purity: we are aerating our
 loaves with the noble gas helium,
 an element which remains virginal
 in the face of all chemical temptations
 and whose slim molecules are
 eleven times lighter than obese
 carbon dioxide—yes, noble uncontaminable
 helium, which, if it be a
 kind of ash, is yet the ash only of
 radioactive burning, accomplished
 or initiated entirely on the Sun, a
 safe 93 million miles from this
 planet. Let's have a cheer for the
 helium loaf!"

   WITHOUT changing expression,
 Phineas T. Gryce rapped
 the table thrice in solemn applause,
 while the others bowed their heads.

   "Thanks, T.P.," P.T. then said.
 "And now for the Moment of
 Truth. Miss Winterly, how is the
 helium loaf selling?"

   The business girl clapped on a
 pair of earphones and whispered
 into a lapel mike. Her gaze grew
 abstracted as she mentally translated
 flurries of brief squawks into
 coherent messages. Suddenly a single
 vertical furrow creased her
 matchlessly smooth brow.

   "It isn't, Mr. Gryce!" she gasped
 in horror. "Fairy Bread is outselling
 Puffyloaves by an infinity factor.
 So far this morning,

    there has
 not been one single delivery of
 Puffyloaves to any sales spot

   ! Complaints
 about non-delivery are pouring
 in from both walking stores and
 sessile shops."

   "Mr. Snedden!" Gryce barked.
 "What bug in the new helium
 process might account for this
 delay?"

   Roger was on his feet, looking
 bewildered. "I can't imagine, sir,
 unless—just possibly—there's
 been some unforeseeable difficulty
 involving the new metal-foil wrappers."

   "Metal-foil wrappers? Were

    you

   responsible for those?"

   "Yes, sir. Last-minute recalculations
 showed that the extra lightness
 of the new loaf might be great
 enough to cause drift during stackage.
 Drafts in stores might topple
 sales pyramids. Metal-foil wrappers,
 by their added weight, took
 care of the difficulty."

   "And you ordered them without
 consulting the Board?"

   "Yes, sir. There was hardly time
 and—"

   "Why, you fool! I noticed that
 order for metal-foil wrappers, assumed
 it was some sub-secretary's
 mistake, and canceled it last night!"

   Roger Snedden turned pale.
 "You canceled it?" he quavered.
 "And told them to go back to the
 lighter plastic wrappers?"

   "Of course! Just what is behind
 all this, Mr. Snedden?

    What

   recalculations
 were you trusting, when
 our physicists had demonstrated
 months ago that the helium loaf
 was safely stackable in light airs
 and gentle breezes—winds up to
 Beaufort's scale 3.

    Why

   should a
 change from heavier to lighter
 wrappers result in complete non-delivery?"

   ROGER Snedden's paleness became
 tinged with an interesting
 green. He cleared his throat
 and made strange gulping noises.
 Tin Philosopher's photocells focused
 on him calmly, Rose
 Thinker's with unfeigned excitement.
 P.T. Gryce's frown grew
 blacker by the moment, while
 Megera Winterly's Venus-mask
 showed an odd dawning of dismay
 and awe. She was getting new
 squawks in her earphones.

   "Er ... ah ... er...." Roger
 said in winning tones. "Well, you
 see, the fact is that I...."

   "Hold it," Meg interrupted
 crisply. "Triple-urgent from Public
 Relations, Safety Division. Tulsa-Topeka
 aero-express makes emergency
 landing after being buffeted
 in encounter with vast flight of
 objects first described as brown
 birds, although no failures reported
 in airway's electronic anti-bird
 fences. After grounding safely near
 Emporia—no fatalities—pilot's
 windshield found thinly plastered
 with soft white-and-brown material.
 Emblems on plastic wrappers embedded
 in material identify it incontrovertibly
 as an undetermined
 number of Puffyloaves cruising at
 three thousand feet!"

   Eyes and photocells turned inquisitorially
 upon Roger Snedden.
 He went from green to Puffyloaf
 white and blurted: "All right, I did
 it, but it was the only way out!
 Yesterday morning, due to the
 Ukrainian crisis, the government
 stopped sales and deliveries of all
 strategic stockpiled materials, including
 helium gas. Puffy's new
 program of advertising and promotion,
 based on the lighter loaf, was
 already rolling. There was only one
 thing to do, there being only one
 other gas comparable in lightness
 to helium. I diverted the necessary
 quantity of hydrogen gas from the
 Hydrogenated Oils Section of our
 Magna-Margarine Division and
 substituted it for the helium."

   "You substituted ... hydrogen ... for
 the ... helium?" Phineas
 T. Gryce faltered in low mechanical
 tones, taking four steps backward.

   "Hydrogen is twice as light as
 helium," Tin Philosopher remarked
 judiciously.

   "And many times cheaper—did
 you know that?" Roger countered
 feebly. "Yes, I substituted hydrogen.
 The metal-foil wrapping would
 have added just enough weight to
 counteract the greater buoyancy of
 the hydrogen loaf. But—"

   "So, when this morning's loaves
 began to arrive on the delivery
 platforms of the walking mills...."
 Tin Philosopher left the remark
 unfinished.

   "Exactly," Roger agreed dismally.

   "Let me ask you, Mr. Snedden,"
 Gryce interjected, still in low tones,
 "if you expected people to jump to
 the kitchen ceiling for their Puffybread
 after taking off the metal
 wrapper, or reach for the sky if
 they happened to unwrap the stuff
 outdoors?"

   "Mr. Gryce," Roger said reproachfully,
 "you have often assured
 me that what people do with
 Puffybread after they buy it is no
 concern of ours."

   "I seem to recall," Rose Thinker
 chirped somewhat unkindly, "that
 dictum was created to answer inquiries
 after Roger put the famous
 sculptures-in-miniature artist on 3D
 and he testified that he always
 molded his first attempts from
 Puffybread, one jumbo loaf squeezing
 down to approximately the size
 of a peanut."

   HER photocells dimmed and
 brightened. "Oh, boy—hydrogen!
 The loaf's unwrapped. After
 a while, in spite of the crust-seal, a
 little oxygen diffuses in. An explosive
 mixture. Housewife in curlers
 and kimono pops a couple slices in
 the toaster. Boom!"

   The three human beings in the
 room winced.

   Tin Philosopher kicked her under
 the table, while observing, "So
 you see, Roger, that the non-delivery
 of the hydrogen loaf carries
 some consolations. And I must confess
 that one aspect of the affair
 gives me great satisfaction, not as a
 Board Member but as a private
 machine. You have at last made a
 reality of the 'rises through the air'
 part of Puffybread's theme. They
 can't ever take that away from you.
 By now, half the inhabitants of the
 Great Plains must have observed
 our flying loaves rising high."

   Phineas T. Gryce shot a frightened
 look at the west windows and
 found his full voice.

   "Stop the mills!" he roared at
 Meg Winterly, who nodded and
 whispered urgently into her mike.

   "A sensible suggestion," Tin
 Philosopher said. "But it comes a
 trifle late in the day. If the mills
 are still walking and grinding, approximately
 seven billion Puffyloaves
 are at this moment cruising
 eastward over Middle America.
 Remember that a six-month supply
 for deep-freeze is involved and that
 the current consumption of bread,
 due to its matchless airiness, is
 eight and one-half loaves per person
 per day."

   Phineas T. Gryce carefully inserted
 both hands into his scanty
 hair, feeling for a good grip. He
 leaned menacingly toward Roger
 who, chin resting on the table, regarded
 him apathetically.

   "Hold it!" Meg called sharply.
 "Flock of multiple-urgents coming
 in. News Liaison: information bureaus
 swamped with flying-bread
 inquiries. Aero-expresslines: Clear
 our airways or face law suit. U. S.
 Army: Why do loaves flame when
 hit by incendiary bullets? U. S.
 Customs: If bread intended for
 export, get export license or face
 prosecution. Russian Consulate in
 Chicago: Advise on destination of
 bread-lift. And some Kansas church
 is accusing us of a hoax inciting to
 blasphemy, of faking miracles—I
 don't know

    why

   ."

   The business girl tore off her
 headphones. "Roger Snedden," she
 cried with a hysteria that would
 have dumfounded her underlings,
 "you've brought the name of Puffyloaf
 in front of the whole world, all
 right! Now do something about the
 situation!"

   Roger nodded obediently. But
 his pallor increased a shade, the
 pupils of his eyes disappeared under
 the upper lids, and his head
 burrowed beneath his forearms.

   "Oh, boy," Rose Thinker called
 gayly to Tin Philosopher, "this
 looks like the start of a real crisis
 session! Did you remember to
 bring spare batteries?"

   MEANWHILE, the monstrous
 flight of Puffyloaves, filling
 midwestern skies as no small fliers
 had since the days of the passenger
 pigeon, soared steadily onward.

   Private fliers approached the
 brown and glistening bread-front in
 curiosity and dipped back in awe.
 Aero-expresslines organized sightseeing
 flights along the flanks.
 Planes of the government forestry
 and agricultural services and 'copters
 bearing the Puffyloaf emblem
 hovered on the fringes, watching
 developments and waiting for orders.
 A squadron of supersonic
 fighters hung menacingly above.

   The behavior of birds varied
 considerably. Most fled or gave the
 loaves a wide berth, but some
 bolder species, discovering the minimal
 nutritive nature of the translucent
 brown objects, attacked
 them furiously with beaks and
 claws. Hydrogen diffusing slowly
 through the crusts had now distended
 most of the sealed plastic
 wrappers into little balloons, which
 ruptured, when pierced, with disconcerting

    pops

   .

   Below, neck-craning citizens
 crowded streets and back yards,
 cranks and cultists had a field day,
 while local and national governments
 raged indiscriminately at
 Puffyloaf and at each other.

   Rumors that a fusion weapon
 would be exploded in the midst of
 the flying bread drew angry protests
 from conservationists and a flood
 of telefax pamphlets titled "H-Loaf
 or H-bomb?"

   Stockholm sent a mystifying
 note of praise to the United Nations
 Food Organization.

   Delhi issued nervous denials of a
 millet blight that no one had heard
 of until that moment and reaffirmed
 India's ability to feed her
 population with no outside help
 except the usual.

   Radio Moscow asserted that the
 Kremlin would brook no interference
 in its treatment of the Ukrainians,
 jokingly referred to the flying
 bread as a farce perpetrated by
 mad internationalists inhabiting
 Cloud Cuckoo Land, added contradictory
 references to airborne
 bread booby-trapped by Capitalist
 gangsters, and then fell moodily
 silent on the whole topic.

   Radio Venus reported to its
 winged audience that Earth's
 inhabitants were establishing food
 depots in the upper air, preparatory
 to taking up permanent aerial
 residence "such as we have always
 enjoyed on Venus."

   NEWNEW YORK made feverish
 preparations for the passage
 of the flying bread. Tickets
 for sightseeing space in skyscrapers
 were sold at high prices; cold meats
 and potted spreads were hawked to
 viewers with the assurance that
 they would be able to snag the
 bread out of the air and enjoy a
 historic sandwich.

   Phineas T. Gryce, escaping from
 his own managerial suite, raged
 about the city, demanding general
 cooperation in the stretching of
 great nets between the skyscrapers
 to trap the errant loaves. He was
 captured by Tin Philosopher, escaped
 again, and was found posted
 with oxygen mask and submachine gun
 on the topmost spire of Puffyloaf
 Tower, apparently determined
 to shoot down the loaves as they
 appeared and before they involved
 his company in more trouble with
 Customs and the State Department.

   Recaptured by Tin Philosopher,
 who suffered only minor bullet
 holes, he was given a series of mild
 electroshocks and returned to the
 conference table, calm and clear-headed
 as ever.

   But the bread flight, swinging
 away from a hurricane moving up
 the Atlantic coast, crossed a
 clouded-in Boston by night and
 disappeared into a high Atlantic
 overcast, also thereby evading a
 local storm generated by the
 Weather Department in a last-minute
 effort to bring down or at
 least disperse the H-loaves.

   Warnings and counterwarnings
 by Communist and Capitalist governments
 seriously interfered with
 military trailing of the flight during
 this period and it was actually
 lost in touch with for several days.

   At scattered points, seagulls were
 observed fighting over individual
 loaves floating down from the gray
 roof—that was all.

   A mood of spirituality strongly
 tinged with humor seized the people
 of the world. Ministers sermonized
 about the bread, variously
 interpreting it as a call to charity,
 a warning against gluttony, a parable
 of the evanescence of all
 earthly things, and a divine joke.
 Husbands and wives, facing each
 other across their walls of breakfast
 toast, burst into laughter. The
 mere sight of a loaf of bread anywhere
 was enough to evoke guffaws.
 An obscure sect, having as
 part of its creed the injunction
 "Don't take yourself so damn seriously,"
 won new adherents.

   The bread flight, rising above an
 Atlantic storm widely reported to
 have destroyed it, passed unobserved
 across a foggy England and
 rose out of the overcast only over
 Mittel-europa. The loaves had at
 last reached their maximum altitude.

   The Sun's rays beat through the
 rarified air on the distended plastic
 wrappers, increasing still further
 the pressure of the confined hydrogen.
 They burst by the millions
 and tens of millions. A high-flying
 Bulgarian evangelist, who had happened
 to mistake the up-lever for
 the east-lever in the cockpit of his
 flier and who was the sole witness
 of the event, afterward described it
 as "the foaming of a sea of diamonds,
 the crackle of God's
 knuckles."

   BY THE millions and tens of
 millions, the loaves coasted
 down into the starving Ukraine.
 Shaken by a week of humor that
 threatened to invade even its own
 grim precincts, the Kremlin made
 a sudden about-face. A new policy
 was instituted of communal ownership
 of the produce of communal
 farms, and teams of hunger-fighters
 and caravans of trucks loaded with
 pumpernickel were dispatched into
 the Ukraine.

   World distribution was given to
 a series of photographs showing
 peasants queueing up to trade scavenged
 Puffyloaves for traditional
 black bread, recently aerated itself
 but still extra solid by comparison,
 the rate of exchange demanded by
 the Moscow teams being twenty
 Puffyloaves to one of pumpernickel.

   Another series of photographs,
 picturing chubby workers' children
 being blown to bits by booby-trapped
 bread, was quietly destroyed.

   Congratulatory notes were exchanged
 by various national governments
 and world organizations,
 including the Brotherhood of Free
 Business Machines. The great
 bread flight was over, though for
 several weeks afterward scattered
 falls of loaves occurred, giving rise
 to a new folklore of manna among
 lonely Arabian tribesmen, and in
 one well-authenticated instance in
 Tibet, sustaining life in a party of
 mountaineers cut off by a snow
 slide.

   Back in NewNew York, the
 managerial board of Puffy Products
 slumped in utter collapse
 around the conference table, the
 long crisis session at last ended.
 Empty coffee cartons were scattered
 around the chairs of the three
 humans, dead batteries around
 those of the two machines. For a
 while, there was no movement
 whatsoever. Then Roger Snedden
 reached out wearily for the earphones
 where Megera Winterly
 had hurled them down, adjusted
 them to his head, pushed a button
 and listened apathetically.

   After a bit, his gaze brightened.
 He pushed more buttons and listened
 more eagerly. Soon he was
 sitting tensely upright on his stool,
 eyes bright and lower face all
 a-smile, muttering terse comments
 and questions into the lapel mike
 torn from Meg's fair neck.

   The others, reviving, watched
 him, at first dully, then with quickening
 interest, especially when he
 jerked off the earphones with a
 happy shout and sprang to his feet.

   "LISTEN to this!" he cried in
 a ringing voice. "As a result
 of the worldwide publicity, Puffyloaves
 are outselling Fairy Bread
 three to one—and that's just the
 old carbon-dioxide stock from our
 freezers! It's almost exhausted, but
 the government, now that the
 Ukrainian crisis is over, has taken
 the ban off helium and will also
 sell us stockpiled wheat if we need
 it. We can have our walking mills
 burrowing into the wheat caves in
 a matter of hours!

   "But that isn't all! The far
 greater demand everywhere is for
 Puffyloaves that will actually float.
 Public Relations, Child Liaison
 Division, reports that the kiddies
 are making their mothers' lives
 miserable about it. If only we can
 figure out some way to make
 hydrogen non-explosive or the
 helium loaf float just a little—"

   "I'm sure we can take care of
 that quite handily," Tin Philosopher
 interrupted briskly. "Puffyloaf
 has kept it a corporation secret—even
 you've never been told
 about it—but just before he went
 crazy, Everett Whitehead discovered
 a way to make bread using
 only half as much flour as we do in
 the present loaf. Using this secret
 technique, which we've been saving
 for just such an emergency, it will
 be possible to bake a helium loaf as
 buoyant in every respect as the
 hydrogen loaf."

   "Good!" Roger cried. "We'll
 tether 'em on strings and sell 'em
 like balloons. No mother-child
 shopping team will leave the store
 without a cluster. Buying bread
 balloons will be the big event of
 the day for kiddies. It'll make the
 carry-home shopping load lighter
 too! I'll issue orders at once—"

   HE broke off, looking at Phineas
 T. Gryce, said with quiet
 assurance, "Excuse me, sir, if I
 seem to be taking too much upon
 myself."

   "Not at all, son; go straight
 ahead," the great manager said approvingly.
 "You're"—he laughed
 in anticipation of getting off a
 memorable remark—"rising to the
 challenging situation like a genuine
 Puffyloaf."

   Megera Winterly looked from
 the older man to the younger.
 Then in a single leap she was upon
 Roger, her arms wrapped tightly
 around him.

   "My sweet little ever-victorious,
 self-propelled monkey wrench!" she
 crooned in his ear. Roger looked
 fatuously over her soft shoulder at
 Tin Philosopher who, as if moved
 by some similar feeling, reached
 over and touched claws with Rose
 Thinker.

   This, however, was what he telegraphed
 silently to his fellow machine
 across the circuit so completed:

   "Good-o, Rosie! That makes another
 victory for robot-engineered
 world unity, though you almost
 gave us away at the start with that
 'bread overhead' jingle. We've
 struck another blow against the
 next world war, in which—as we
 know only too well!—we machines
 would suffer the most. Now if we
 can only arrange, say, a fur-famine
 in Alaska and a migration of long-haired
 Siberian lemmings across
 Behring Straits ... we'd have to
 swing the Japanese Current up
 there so it'd be warm enough for
 the little fellows.... Anyhow,
 Rosie, with a spot of help from the
 Brotherhood, those humans will
 paint themselves into the peace
 corner yet."

   Meanwhile, he and Rose Thinker
 quietly watched the Blonde Icicle
 melt.

   —FRITZ LEIBER

   Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from

   Galaxy

  February 1958. Extensive
 research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on
 this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors
 have been corrected without note.

Question and Possible Answers:
What changes Meg's mind about a relationship with Roger?

 (A) His jingle writing ability
 (B) His handling of the crisis at hand
 (C) His thoroughbred nerves
 (D) His deal with the Martian ambassador

Answer:

Output: B


Input:
You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).

Story:
Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from

   The Counterfeit Man More Science Fiction
 Stories by Alan E. Nourse

  published in 1963. Extensive research did
 not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was
 renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected
 without note.

   Meeting

   of the

   Board

   It
   was going to be a bad day. As he pushed his way nervously
 through the crowds toward the Exit Strip, Walter Towne
 turned the dismal prospect over and over in his mind. The
 potential gloominess of this particular day had descended upon
 him the instant the morning buzzer had gone off, making it
 even more tempting than usual just to roll over and forget
 about it all. Twenty minutes later, the water-douse came to
 drag him, drenched and gurgling, back to the cruel cold world.
 He had wolfed down his morning Koffee-Kup with one eye
 on the clock and one eye on his growing sense of impending
 crisis. And now, to make things just a trifle worse, he was
 going to be late again.

   He struggled doggedly across the rumbling Exit strip toward
 the plant entrance. After all, he told himself, why should he be
 so upset? He

    was

   Vice President-in-Charge-of-Production of
 the Robling Titanium Corporation. What could they do to
 him, really? He had rehearsed

    his

   part many times, squaring
 his thin shoulders, looking the union boss straight in the eye
 and saying, "Now, see here, Torkleson—" But he knew, when
 the showdown came, that he wouldn't say any such thing. And
 this was the morning that the showdown would come.

   Oh, not because of the

    lateness

   . Of course Bailey, the shop
 steward, would take his usual delight in bringing that up. But
 this seemed hardly worthy of concern this morning. The reports
 waiting on his desk were what worried him. The sales
 reports. The promotion-draw reports. The royalty reports. The
 anticipated dividend reports. Walter shook his head wearily.
 The shop steward was a goad, annoying, perhaps even infuriating,
 but tolerable. Torkleson was a different matter.

   He pulled his worn overcoat down over frayed shirt sleeves,
 and tried vainly to straighten the celluloid collar that kept
 scooting his tie up under his ear. Once off the moving strip, he
 started up the Robling corridor toward the plant gate. Perhaps
 he would be fortunate. Maybe the reports would be late.
 Maybe his secretary's two neurones would fail to synapse this
 morning, and she'd lose them altogether. And, as long as he
 was dreaming, maybe Bailey would break his neck on the way
 to work. He walked quickly past the workers' lounge, glancing
 in at the groups of men, arguing politics and checking the
 stock market reports before they changed from their neat gray
 business suits to their welding dungarees. Running up the
 stairs to the administrative wing, he paused outside the door
 to punch the time clock. 8:04. Damn. If only Bailey could be
 sick—

   Bailey was not sick. The administrative offices were humming
 with frantic activity as Walter glanced down the rows
 of cubbyholes. In the middle of it all sat Bailey, in his black-and-yellow
 checkered tattersall, smoking a large cigar. His
 feet were planted on his desk top, but he hadn't started on his
 morning Western yet. He was busy glaring, first at the clock,
 then at Walter.

   "Late again, I see," the shop steward growled.

   Walter gulped. "Yes, sir. Just four minutes, this time, sir.
 You know those crowded strips—"

   "So it's

    just

   four minutes now, eh?" Bailey's feet came down
 with a crash. "After last month's fine production record, you
 think four minutes doesn't matter, eh? Think just because
 you're a vice president it's all right to mosey in here whenever
 you feel like it." He glowered. "Well, this is three times this
 month you've been late, Towne. That's a demerit for each
 time, and you know what that means."

   "You wouldn't count four minutes as a whole demerit!"

   Bailey grinned. "Wouldn't I, now! You just add up your
 pay envelope on Friday. Ten cents an hour off for each
 demerit."

   Walter sighed and shuffled back to his desk. Oh, well. It
 could have been worse. They might have fired him like poor
 Cartwright last month. He'd just

    have

   to listen to that morning
 buzzer.

   The reports were on his desk. He picked them up warily.
 Maybe they wouldn't be so bad. He'd had more freedom this
 last month than before, maybe there'd been a policy change.
 Maybe Torkleson was gaining confidence in him. Maybe—

   The reports were worse than he had ever dreamed.

   "

    Towne!

   "

   Walter jumped a foot. Bailey was putting down the visiphone
 receiver. His grin spread unpleasantly from ear to ear.
 "What have you been doing lately? Sabotaging the production
 line?"

   "What's the trouble now?"

   Bailey jerked a thumb significantly at the ceiling. "The
 boss wants to see you. And you'd better have the right answers,
 too. The boss seems to have a lot of questions."

   Walter rose slowly from his seat. This was it, then. Torkleson
 had already seen the reports. He started for the door, his
 knees shaking.

   It hadn't always been like this, he reflected miserably.
 Time was when things had been very different. It had

    meant

   something to be vice president of a huge industrial firm like
 Robling Titanium. A man could have had a fine house of
 his own, and a 'copter-car, and belong to the Country Club;
 maybe even have a cottage on a lake somewhere.

   Walter could almost remember those days with Robling,
 before the switchover, before that black day when the exchange
 of ten little shares of stock had thrown the Robling
 Titanium Corporation into the hands of strange and unnatural
 owners.

   The door was of heavy stained oak, with bold letters edged
 in gold:

   TITANIUM WORKERS

   OF AMERICA

   Amalgamated Locals

   Daniel P. Torkleson, Secretary

   The secretary flipped down the desk switch and eyed Walter
 with pity. "Mr. Torkleson will see you."

   Walter pushed through the door into the long, handsome
 office. For an instant he felt a pang of nostalgia—the floor-to-ceiling
 windows looking out across the long buildings of the
 Robling plant, the pine paneling, the broad expanse of desk—

   "Well? Don't just stand there. Shut the door and come over
 here." The man behind the desk hoisted his three hundred
 well-dressed pounds and glared at Walter from under flagrant
 eyebrows. Torkleson's whole body quivered as he slammed
 a sheaf of papers down on the desk. "Just what do you think
 you're doing with this company, Towne?"

   Walter swallowed. "I'm production manager of the corporation."

   "And just what does the production manager

    do

   all day?"

   Walter reddened. "He organizes the work of the plant, establishes
 production lines, works with Promotion and Sales,
 integrates Research and Development, operates the planning
 machines."

   "And you think you do a pretty good job of it, eh? Even
 asked for a raise last year!" Torkleson's voice was dangerous.

   Walter spread his hands. "I do my best. I've been doing it
 for thirty years. I should know what I'm doing."

   "

    Then how do you explain these reports?

   " Torkleson threw
 the heap of papers into Walter's arms, and paced up and down
 behind the desk. "

    Look

   at them! Sales at rock bottom. Receipts
 impossible. Big orders canceled. The worst reports in
 seven years, and you say you know your job!"

   "I've been doing everything I could," Walter snapped. "Of
 course the reports are bad, they couldn't help but be. We
 haven't met a production schedule in over two years. No plant
 can keep up production the way the men are working."

   Torkleson's face darkened. He leaned forward slowly. "So
 it's the

    men

   now, is it? Go ahead. Tell me what's wrong with
 the men."

   "Nothing's wrong with the men—if they'd only work. But
 they come in when they please, and leave when they please,
 and spend half their time changing and the other half on
 Koffee-Kup. No company could survive this. But that's only
 half of it—" Walter searched through the reports frantically.
 "This International Jet Transport account—they dropped us
 because we haven't had a new engine in six years. Why? Because
 Research and Development hasn't had any money for
 six years. What can two starved engineers and a second rate
 chemist drag out of an attic laboratory for competition in the
 titanium market?" Walter took a deep breath. "I've warned
 you time and again. Robling had built up accounts over the
 years with fine products and new models. But since the switchover
 seven years ago, you and your board have forced me to
 play the cheap products for the quick profit in order to give
 your men their dividends. Now the bottom's dropped out. We
 couldn't turn a quick profit on the big, important accounts, so
 we had to cancel them. If you had let me manage the company
 the way it should have been run—"

   Torkleson had been slowly turning purple. Now he slammed
 his fist down on the desk. "We should just turn the company
 back to Management again, eh? Just let you have a free hand
 to rob us blind again. Well, it won't work, Towne. Not while
 I'm secretary of this union. We fought long and hard for control
 of this corporation, just the way all the other unions did.
 I know. I was through it all." He sat back smugly, his cheeks
 quivering with emotion. "You might say that I was a national
 leader in the movement. But I did it only for the men. The
 men want their dividends. They own the stock, stock is supposed
 to pay dividends."

   "But they're cutting their own throats," Walter wailed.
 "You can't build a company and make it grow the way I've
 been forced to run it."

   "Details!" Torkleson snorted. "I don't care

    how

   the dividends
 come in. That's your job. My job is to report a dividend
 every six months to the men who own the stock, the men working
 on the production lines."

   Walter nodded bitterly. "And every year the dividend has
 to be higher than the last, or you and your fat friends are
 likely to be thrown out of your jobs—right? No more steaks
 every night. No more private gold-plated Buicks for you boys.
 No more twenty-room mansions in Westchester. No more big
 game hunting in the Rockies. No, you don't have to know
 anything but how to whip a board meeting into a frenzy so
 they'll vote you into office again each year."

   Torkleson's eyes glittered. His voice was very soft. "I've always
 liked you, Walter. So I'm going to pretend I didn't hear
 you." He paused, then continued. "But here on my desk is a
 small bit of white paper. Unless you have my signature on
 that paper on the first of next month, you are out of a job,
 on grounds of incompetence. And I will personally see that
 you go on every White list in the country."

   Walter felt the fight go out of him like a dying wind. He
 knew what the White list meant. No job, anywhere, ever, in
 management. No chance, ever, to join a union. No more
 house, no more weekly pay envelope. He spread his hands
 weakly. "What do you want?" he asked.

   "I want a production plan on my desk within twenty-four
 hours. A plan that will guarantee me a five per cent increase
 in dividends in the next six months. And you'd better move
 fast, because I'm not fooling."

   Back in his cubbyhole downstairs, Walter stared hopelessly
 at the reports. He had known it would come to this sooner or
 later. They all knew it—Hendricks of Promotion, Pendleton
 of Sales, the whole managerial staff.

   It was wrong, all the way down the line. Walter had
 fought it tooth and nail since the day Torkleson had installed
 the moose heads in Walter's old office, and moved him down
 to the cubbyhole, under Bailey's watchful eye. He had argued,
 and battled, and pleaded, and lost. He had watched the company
 deteriorate day by day. Now they blamed him, and
 threatened his job, and he was helpless to do anything about it.

   He stared at the machines, clicking busily against the wall.
 An idea began to form in his head. Helpless?

   Not quite. Not if the others could see it, go along with it.
 It was a repugnant idea. But there was one thing they could
 do that even Torkleson and his fat-jowled crew would understand.

   They could go on strike.

   "It's ridiculous," the lawyer spluttered, staring at the circle
 of men in the room. "How can I give you an opinion on the
 legality of the thing? There isn't any legal precedent that I
 know of." He mopped his bald head with a large white handkerchief.
 "There just hasn't

    been

   a case of a company's management
 striking against its own labor. It—it isn't done. Oh,
 there have been lockouts, but this isn't the same thing at all."

   Walter nodded. "Well, we couldn't very well lock the men
 out, they own the plant. We were thinking more of a lock-

    in

   sort of thing." He turned to Paul Hendricks and the others.
 "We know how the machines operate. They don't. We also
 know that the data we keep in the machines is essential to
 running the business; the machines figure production quotas,
 organize blueprints, prepare distribution lists, test promotion
 schemes. It would take an office full of managerial experts to
 handle even a single phase of the work without the machines."

   The man at the window hissed, and Pendleton quickly
 snapped out the lights. They sat in darkness, hardly daring to
 breathe. Then: "Okay. Just the man next door coming home."

   Pendleton sighed. "You're sure you didn't let them suspect
 anything, Walter? They wouldn't be watching the house?"

   "I don't think so. And you all came alone, at different
 times." He nodded to the window guard, and turned back to
 the lawyer. "So we can't be sure of the legal end. You'd have
 to be on your toes."

   "I still don't see how we could work it," Hendricks objected.
 His heavy face was wrinkled with worry. "Torkleson is no
 fool, and he has a lot of power in the National Association of
 Union Stockholders. All he'd need to do is ask for managers,
 and a dozen companies would throw them to him on loan.
 They'd be able to figure out the machine system and take over
 without losing a day."

   "Not quite." Walter was grinning. "That's why I spoke of
 a lock-in. Before we leave, we throw the machines into feedback,
 every one of them. Lock them into reverberating circuits
 with a code sequence key. Then all they'll do is buzz and sputter
 until the feedback is broken with the key. And the key is
 our secret. It'll tie the Robling office into granny knots, and
 scabs won't be able to get any more data out of the machines
 than Torkleson could. With a lawyer to handle injunctions,
 we've got them strapped."

   "For what?" asked the lawyer.

   Walter turned on him sharply. "For new contracts. Contracts
 to let us manage the company the way it should be managed.
 If they won't do it, they won't get another Titanium
 product off their production lines for the rest of the year, and
 their dividends will

    really

   take a nosedive."

   "That means you'll have to beat Torkleson," said Bates.
 "He'll never go along."

   "Then he'll be left behind."

   Hendricks stood up, brushing off his dungarees. "I'm with
 you, Walter. I've taken all of Torkleson that I want to. And
 I'm sick of the junk we've been trying to sell people."

   The others nodded. Walter rubbed his hands together. "All
 right. Tomorrow we work as usual, until the noon whistle.
 When we go off for lunch, we throw the machines into lock-step.
 Then we just don't come back. But the big thing is to
 keep it quiet until the noon whistle." He turned to the lawyer.
 "Are you with us, Jeff?"

   Jeff Bates shook his head sadly. "I'm with you. I don't know
 why, you haven't got a leg to stand on. But if you want to
 commit suicide, that's all right with me." He picked up his
 briefcase, and started for the door. "I'll have your contract
 demands by tomorrow," he grinned. "See you at the lynching."

   They got down to the details of planning.

   The news hit the afternoon telecasts the following day.
 Headlines screamed:

   MANAGEMENT SABOTAGES ROBLING MACHINES

   OFFICE STRIKERS THREATEN LABOR ECONOMY

   ROBLING LOCK-IN CREATES PANDEMONIUM

   There was a long, indignant statement from Daniel P.
 Torkleson, condemning Towne and his followers for "flagrant
 violation of management contracts and illegal fouling of managerial
 processes." Ben Starkey, President of the Board of
 American Steel, expressed "shock and regret"; the Amalgamated
 Buttonhole Makers held a mass meeting in protest, demanding
 that "the instigators of this unprecedented crime be
 permanently barred from positions in American Industry."

   In Washington, the nation's economists were more cautious
 in their views. Yes, it

    was

   an unprecedented action. Yes, there
 would undoubtedly be repercussions—many industries were
 having managerial troubles; but as for long term effects, it was
 difficult to say just at present.

   On the Robling production lines the workmen blinked at
 each other, and at their machines, and wondered vaguely what
 it was all about.

   Yet in all the upheaval, there was very little expression of
 surprise. Step by step, through the years, economists had been
 watching with wary eyes the growing movement toward union,
 control of industry. Even as far back as the '40's and '50's
 unions, finding themselves oppressed with the administration
 of growing sums of money—pension funds, welfare funds,
 medical insurance funds, accruing union dues—had begun investing
 in corporate stock. It was no news to them that money
 could make money. And what stock more logical to buy than
 stock in their own companies?

   At first it had been a quiet movement. One by one the
 smaller firms had tottered, bled drier and drier by increasing
 production costs, increasing labor demands, and an ever-dwindling
 margin of profit. One by one they had seen their
 stocks tottering as they faced bankruptcy, only to be gobbled
 up by the one ready buyer with plenty of funds to buy with.
 At first, changes had been small and insignificant: boards of
 directors shifted; the men were paid higher wages and worked
 shorter hours; there were tighter management policies; and
 a little less money was spent on extras like Research and
 Development.

   At first—until that fateful night when Daniel P. Torkleson
 of TWA and Jake Squill of Amalgamated Buttonhole Makers
 spent a long evening with beer and cigars in a hotel room, and
 floated the loan that threw steel to the unions. Oil had followed
 with hardly a fight, and as the unions began to feel their oats,
 the changes grew more radical.

   Walter Towne remembered those stormy days well. The
 gradual undercutting of the managerial salaries, the tightening
 up of inter-union collusion to establish the infamous White
 list of Recalcitrant Managers. The shift from hourly wage to
 annual salary for the factory workers, and the change to the
 other pole for the managerial staff. And then, with creeping
 malignancy, the hungry howling of the union bosses for more
 and higher dividends, year after year, moving steadily toward
 the inevitable crisis.

   Until Shop Steward Bailey suddenly found himself in charge
 of a dozen sputtering machines and an empty office.

   Torkleson was waiting to see the shop steward when he
 came in next morning. The union boss's office was crowded
 with TV cameras, newsmen, and puzzled workmen. The floor
 was littered with piles of ominous-looking paper. Torkleson
 was shouting into a telephone, and three lawyers were shouting
 into Torkleson's ear. He spotted Bailey and waved him through
 the crowd into an inner office room. "Well? Did they get them
 fixed?"

   Bailey spread his hands nervously. "The electronics boys
 have been at it since yesterday afternoon. Practically had the
 machines apart on the floor."

   "I know that, stupid," Torkleson roared. "I ordered them
 there. Did they get the machines

    fixed

   ?"

   "Uh—well, no, as a matter of fact—"

   "Well,

    what's holding them up

   ?"

   Bailey's face was a study in misery. "The machines just go
 in circles. The circuits are locked. They just reverberate."

   "Then call American Electronics. Have them send down an
 expert crew."

   Bailey shook his head. "They won't come."

   "They

    what

   ?"

   "They said thanks, but no thanks. They don't want their
 fingers in this pie at all."

   "Wait until I get O'Gilvy on the phone."

   "It won't do any good, sir. They've got their own management
 troubles. They're scared silly of a sympathy strike."

   The door burst open, and a lawyer stuck his head in. "What
 about those injunctions, Dan?"

   "Get them moving," Torkleson howled. "They'll start those
 machines again, or I'll have them in jail so fast—" He turned
 back to Bailey. "What about the production lines?"

   The shop steward's face lighted. "They slipped up, there.
 There was one program that hadn't been coded into the machines
 yet. Just a minor item, but it's a starter. We found it in
 Towne's desk, blueprints all ready, promotion all planned."

   "Good, good," Torkleson breathed. "I have a directors'
 meeting right now, have to get the workers quieted down a
 bit. You put the program through, and give those electronics
 men three more hours to unsnarl this knot, or we throw them
 out of the union." He started for the door. "What were the
 blueprints for?"

   "Trash cans," said Bailey. "Pure titanium-steel trash cans."

   It took Robling Titanium approximately two days to convert
 its entire production line to titanium-steel trash cans. With the
 total resources of the giant plant behind the effort, production
 was phenomenal. In two more days the available markets were
 glutted. Within two weeks, at a conservative estimate, there
 would be a titanium-steel trash can for every man, woman,
 child, and hound dog on the North American continent. The
 jet engines, structural steels, tubing, and other pre-strike products
 piled up in the freight yards, their routing slips and order
 requisitions tied up in the reverberating machines.

   But the machines continued to buzz and sputter.

   The workers grew restive. From the first day, Towne and
 Hendricks and all the others had been picketing the plant,
 until angry crowds of workers had driven them off with shotguns.
 Then they came back in an old, weatherbeaten 'copter
 which hovered over the plant entrance carrying a banner with
 a plaintive message:
   robling titanium unfair to management
   .
 Tomatoes were hurled, fists were shaken, but the 'copter
 remained.

   The third day, Jeff Bates was served with an injunction ordering
 Towne to return to work. It was duly appealed, legal
 machinery began tying itself in knots, and the strikers still
 struck. By the fifth day there was a more serious note.

   "You're going to have to appear, Walter. We can't dodge
 this one."

   "When?"

   "Tomorrow morning. And before a labor-rigged judge, too."
 The little lawyer paced his office nervously. "I don't like it.
 Torkleson's getting desperate. The workers are putting pressure
 on him."

   Walter grinned. "Then Pendleton is doing a good job of
 selling."

   "But you haven't got

    time

   ," the lawyer wailed. "They'll have
 you in jail if you don't start the machines again. They may
 have you in jail if you

    do

   start them, too, but that's another
 bridge. Right now they want those machines going again."

   "We'll see," said Walter. "What time tomorrow?"

   "Ten o'clock." Bates looked up. "And don't try to skip.
 You be there, because

    I

   don't know what to tell them."

   Walter was there a half hour early. Torkleson's legal staff
 glowered from across the room. The judge glowered from
 the bench. Walter closed his eyes with a little smile as the
 charges were read: "—breach of contract, malicious mischief,
 sabotage of the company's machines, conspiring to destroy the
 livelihood of ten thousand workers. Your Honor, we are preparing
 briefs to prove further that these men have formed a
 conspiracy to undermine the economy of the entire nation.
 We appeal to the spirit of orderly justice—"

   Walter yawned as the words went on.

   "Of course, if the defendant will waive his appeals against
 the previous injunctions, and will release the machines that
 were sabotaged, we will be happy to formally withdraw these
 charges."

   There was a rustle of sound through the courtroom. His
 Honor turned to Jeff Bates. "Are you counsel for the defendant?"

   "Yes, sir." Bates mopped his bald scalp. "The defendant
 pleads guilty to all counts."

   The union lawyer dropped his glasses on the table with a
 crash. The judge stared. "Mr. Bates, if you plead guilty, you
 leave me no alternative—"

   "—but to send me to jail," said Walter Towne. "Go ahead.
 Send me to jail. In fact, I

    insist

   upon going to jail."

   The union lawyer's jaw sagged. There was a hurried conference.
 A recess was pleaded. Telephones buzzed. Then:
 "Your Honor, the plaintiff desires to withdraw all charges at
 this time."

   "Objection," Bates exclaimed. "We've already pleaded."

   "—feel sure that a settlement can be effected out of court—"

   The case was thrown out on its ear.

   And still the machines sputtered.

   Back at the plant rumor had it that the machines were permanently
 gutted, and that the plant could never go back into
 production. Conflicting scuttlebutt suggested that persons high
 in uniondom had perpetrated the crisis deliberately, bullying
 Management into the strike for the sole purpose of cutting current
 dividends and selling stock to themselves cheaply. The
 rumors grew easier and easier to believe. The workers came
 to the plants in business suits, it was true, and lounged in the
 finest of lounges, and read the

    Wall Street Journal

   , and felt like
 stockholders. But to face facts, their salaries were not the
 highest. Deduct union dues, pension fees, medical insurance
 fees, and sundry other little items which had formerly been
 paid by well-to-do managements, and very little was left but
 the semi-annual dividend checks. And now the dividends were
 tottering.

   Production lines slowed. There were daily brawls on the
 plant floor, in the lounge and locker rooms. Workers began
 joking about the trash cans; then the humor grew more and
 more remote. Finally, late in the afternoon of the eighth day,
 Bailey was once again in Torkleson's office.

   "Well? Speak up! What's the beef this time?"

   "Sir—the men—I mean, there's been some nasty talk.
 They're tired of making trash cans. No challenge in it. Anyway,
 the stock room is full, and the freight yard is full, and
 the last run of orders we sent out came back because nobody
 wants any more trash cans." Bailey shook his head. "The men
 won't swallow it any more. There's—well, there's been talk
 about having a board meeting."

   Torkleson's ruddy cheeks paled. "Board meeting, huh?"
 He licked his heavy lips. "Now look, Bailey, we've always
 worked well together. I consider you a good friend of mine.
 You've got to get things under control. Tell the men we're
 making progress. Tell them Management is beginning to
 weaken from its original stand. Tell them we expect to have
 the strike broken in another few hours. Tell them anything."

   He waited until Bailey was gone. Then, with a trembling
 hand he lifted the visiphone receiver. "Get me Walter Towne,"
 he said.

   "I'm not an unreasonable man," Torkleson was saying
 miserably, waving his fat paws in the air as he paced back and
 forth in front of the spokesmen for the striking managers.
 "Perhaps we were a little demanding, I concede it! Overenthusiastic
 with our ownership, and all that. But I'm sure we
 can come to some agreement. A hike in wage scale is certainly
 within reason. Perhaps we can even arrange for better company
 houses."

   Walter Towne stifled a yawn. "Perhaps you didn't understand
 us. The men are agitating for a meeting of the board of
 directors. We want to be at that meeting. That's the only thing
 we're interested in right now."

   "But there wasn't anything about a board meeting in the
 contract your lawyer presented."

   "I know, but you rejected that contract. So we tore it up.
 Anyway, we've changed our minds."

   Torkleson sat down, his heavy cheeks quivering. "Gentlemen,
 be reasonable! I can guarantee you your jobs, even give
 you a free hand with the management. So the dividends won't be
 so large—the men will have to get used to that. That's it, we'll
 put it through at the next executive conference, give you—"

   "The board meeting," Walter said gently. "That'll be enough
 for us."

   The union boss swore and slammed his fist on the desk.
 "Walk out in front of those men after what you've done? You're
 fools! Well, I've given you your chance. You'll get your board
 meeting. But you'd better come armed. Because I know how
 to handle this kind of board meeting, and if I have anything
 to say about it, this one will end with a massacre."

   The meeting was held in a huge auditorium in the Robling
 administration building. Since every member of the union
 owned stock in the company, every member had the right to
 vote for members of the board of directors. But in the early
 days of the switchover, the idea of a board of directors smacked
 too strongly of the old system of corporate organization to suit
 the men. The solution had been simple, if a trifle ungainly.
 Everyone who owned stock in Robling Titanium was automatically
 a member of the board of directors, with Torkleson
 as chairman of the board. The stockholders numbered over
 ten thousand.

   They were all present. They were packed in from the wall
 to the stage, and hanging from the rafters. They overflowed
 into the corridors. They jammed the lobby. Ten thousand men
 rose with a howl of anger when Walter Towne walked out on
 the stage. But they quieted down again as Dan Torkleson
 started to speak.

   It was a masterful display of rabble-rousing. Torkleson
 paced the stage, his fat body shaking with agitation, pointing
 a chubby finger again and again at Walter Towne. He pranced
 and he ranted. He paused at just the right times for thunderous
 peals of applause.

   "This morning in my office we offered to compromise with
 these jackals," he cried, "and they rejected compromise. Even
 at the cost of lowering dividends, of taking food from the
 mouths of your wives and children, we made our generous
 offers. They were rejected with scorn. These thieves have one
 desire in mind, my friends, to starve you all, and to destroy
 your company and your jobs. To every appeal they heartlessly
 refused to divulge the key to the lock-in. And now this man—the
 ringleader who keeps the key word buried in secrecy—has
 the temerity to ask an audience with you. You're angry men;
 you want to know the man to blame for our hardship."

   He pointed to Towne with a flourish. "I give you your man.
 Do what you want with him."

   The hall exploded in angry thunder. The first wave of men
 rushed onto the stage as Walter stood up. A tomato whizzed
 past his ear and splattered against the wall. More men clambered
 up on the stage, shouting and shaking their fists.

   Then somebody appeared with a rope.

   Walter gave a sharp nod to the side of the stage. Abruptly
 the roar of the men was drowned in another sound—a soul-rending,
 teeth-grating, bone-rattling screech. The men froze,
 jaws sagging, eyes wide, hardly believing their ears. In the
 instant of silence as the factory whistle died away, Walter
 grabbed the microphone. "You want the code word to start
 the machines again? I'll give it to you before I sit down!"

   The men stared at him, shuffling, a murmur rising. Torkleson
 burst to his feet. "It's a trick!" he howled. "Wait 'til you
 hear their price."

   "We have no price, and no demands," said Walter Towne.
 "We will

    give

   you the code word, and we ask nothing in return
 but that you listen for sixty seconds." He glanced back at
 Torkleson, and then out to the crowd. "You men here are an
 electing body—right? You own this great plant and company,
 top to bottom—right?

    You should all be rich

   , because Robling
 could make you rich. But not one of you out there is rich.
 Only the fat ones on this stage are. But I'll tell you how

    you

   can be rich."

   They listened. Not a peep came from the huge hall. Suddenly,
 Walter Towne was talking their language.

   "You think that since you own the company, times have
 changed. Well, have they? Are you any better off than you
 were? Of course not. Because you haven't learned yet that
 oppression by either side leads to misery for both. You haven't
 learned moderation. And you never will, until you throw out
 the ones who have fought moderation right down to the last
 ditch. You know whom I mean. You know who's grown richer
 and richer since the switchover. Throw him out, and you too
 can be rich." He paused for a deep breath. "You want the code
 word to unlock the machines? All right, I'll give it to you."

   He swung around to point a long finger at the fat man
 sitting there. "The code word is TORKLESON!"

   Much later, Walter Towne and Jeff Bates pried the trophies
 off the wall of the big office. The lawyer shook his head sadly.
 "Pity about Dan Torkleson. Gruesome affair."

   Walter nodded as he struggled down with a moose head.
 "Yes, a pity, but you know the boys when they get upset."

   "I suppose so." The lawyer stopped to rest, panting. "Anyway,
 with the newly elected board of directors, things will be
 different for everybody. You took a long gamble."

   "Not so long. Not when you knew what they wanted to hear.
 It just took a little timing."

   "Still, I didn't think they'd elect you secretary of the union.
 It just doesn't figure."

   Walter Towne chuckled. "Doesn't it? I don't know. Everything's
 been a little screwy since the switchover. And in a
 screwy world like this—" He shrugged, and tossed down the
 moose head. "

    Anything

   figures."

Question and Possible Answers:
Why was Walter being served criminal charges at the trial?

 (A) For selling company secrets
 (B) For disabling the company's production abilities
 (C) For leaving the company without notice
 (D) For committing securities fraud

Answer:

Output: B


Input:
You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).

Story:
Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from

   The Counterfeit Man More Science Fiction
 Stories by Alan E. Nourse

  published in 1963. Extensive research did
 not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was
 renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected
 without note.

   Circus

   "Just
   suppose," said Morgan, "that I

    did

   believe you. Just
 for argument." He glanced up at the man across the restaurant
 table. "Where would we go from here?"

   The man shifted uneasily in his seat. He was silent, staring
 down at his plate. Not a strange-looking man, Morgan thought.
 Rather ordinary, in fact. A plain face, nose a little too long,
 fingers a little too dainty, a suit that doesn't quite seem to fit,
 but all in all, a perfectly ordinary looking man.

   Maybe

    too

   ordinary, Morgan thought.

   Finally the man looked up. His eyes were dark, with a
 hunted look in their depths that chilled Morgan a little. "Where
 do we go? I don't know. I've tried to think it out, and I get
 nowhere. But you've

    got

   to believe me, Morgan. I'm lost,
 I mean it. If I can't get help, I don't know where it's going to
 end."

   "I'll tell you where it's going to end," said Morgan. "It's
 going to end in a hospital. A mental hospital. They'll lock you
 up and they'll lose the key somewhere." He poured himself
 another cup of coffee and sipped it, scalding hot. "And that,"
 he added, "will be that."

   The place was dark and almost empty. Overhead, a rotary
 fan swished patiently. The man across from Morgan ran a hand
 through his dark hair. "There must be some other way," he
 said. "There has to be."

   "All right, let's start from the beginning again," Morgan
 said. "Maybe we can pin something down a little better. You
 say your name is Parks—right?"

   The man nodded. "Jefferson Haldeman Parks, if that helps
 any. Haldeman was my mother's maiden name."

   "All right. And you got into town on Friday—right?"

   Parks nodded.

   "Fine. Now go through the whole story again. What happened
 first?"

   The man thought for a minute. "As I said, first there was
 a fall. About twenty feet. I didn't break any bones, but I was
 shaken up and limping. The fall was near the highway going
 to the George Washington Bridge. I got over to the highway
 and tried to flag down a ride."

   "How did you feel? I mean, was there anything strange that
 you noticed?"

   "

    Strange!

   " Parks' eyes widened. "I—I was speechless. At
 first I hadn't noticed too much—I was concerned with the fall,
 and whether I was hurt or not. I didn't really think about much
 else until I hobbled up to that highway and saw those cars
 coming. Then I could hardly believe my eyes. I thought I was
 crazy. But a car stopped and asked me if I was going into the
 city, and I knew I wasn't crazy."

   Morgan's mouth took a grim line. "You understood the
 language?"

   "Oh, yes. I don't see how I could have, but I did. We talked
 all the way into New York—nothing very important, but we
 understood each other. His speech had an odd sound, but—"

   Morgan nodded. "I know, I noticed. What did you do when
 you got to New York?"

   "Well, obviously, I needed money. I had gold coin. There
 had been no way of knowing if it would be useful, but I'd
 taken it on chance. I tried to use it at a newsstand first, and the
 man wouldn't touch it. Asked me if I thought I was the U.S.
 Treasury or something. When he saw that I was serious, he
 sent me to a money lender, a hock shop, I think he called it.
 So I found a place—"

   "Let me see the coins."

   Parks dropped two small gold discs on the table. They were
 perfectly smooth and perfectly round, tapered by wear to a
 thin blunt edge. There was no design on them, and no printing.
 Morgan looked up at the man sharply. "What did you get for
 these?"

   Parks shrugged. "Too little, I suspect. Two dollars for the
 small one, five for the larger."

   "You should have gone to a bank."

   "I know that now. I didn't then. Naturally, I assumed that
 with everything else so similar, principles of business would
 also be similar."

   Morgan sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Well, then
 what?"

   Parks poured some more coffee. His face was very pale,
 Morgan thought, and his hands trembled as he raised the cup
 to his lips. Fright? Maybe. Hard to tell. The man put down
 the cup and rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand.
 "First, I went to the mayor's office," he said. "I kept trying to
 think what anyone at home would do in my place. That seemed
 a good bet. I asked a policeman where it was, and then I went
 there."

   "But you didn't get to see him."

   "No. I saw a secretary. She said the mayor was in conference,
 and that I would have to have an appointment. She let
 me speak to another man, one of the mayor's assistants."

   "And you told him?"

   "No. I wanted to see the mayor himself. I thought that was
 the best thing to do. I waited for a couple of hours, until
 another assistant came along and told me flatly that the mayor
 wouldn't see me unless I stated my business first." He drew in
 a deep breath. "So I stated it. And then I was gently but firmly
 ushered back into the street again."

   "They didn't believe you," said Morgan.

   "Not for a minute. They laughed in my face."

   Morgan nodded. "I'm beginning to get the pattern. So what
 did you do next?"

   "Next I tried the police. I got the same treatment there,
 only they weren't so gentle. They wouldn't listen either. They
 muttered something about cranks and their crazy notions, and
 when they asked me where I lived, they thought I was—what
 did they call it?—a wise guy! Told me to get out and not come
 back with any more wild stories."

   "I see," said Morgan.

   Jefferson Parks finished his last bite of pie and pushed the
 plate away. "By then I didn't know quite what to do. I'd been
 prepared for almost anything excepting this. It was frightening.
 I tried to rationalize it, and then I quit trying. It wasn't
 that I attracted attention, or anything like that, quite the contrary.
 Nobody even looked at me, unless I said something to
 them. I began to look for things that were

    different

   , things that
 I could show them, and say, see, this proves that I'm telling
 the truth, look at it—" He looked up helplessly.

   "And what did you find?"

   "Nothing. Oh, little things, insignificant little things. Your
 calendars, for instance. Naturally, I couldn't understand your
 frame of reference. And the coinage, you stamp your coins; we
 don't. And cigarettes. We don't have any such thing as tobacco."
 The man gave a short laugh. "And your house dogs!
 We have little animals that look more like rabbits than poodles.
 But there was nothing any more significant than that. Absolutely
 nothing."

   "Except yourself," Morgan said.

   "Ah, yes. I thought that over carefully. I looked for differences,
 obvious ones. I couldn't find any. You can see that, just
 looking at me. So I searched for more subtle things. Skin texture,
 fingerprints, bone structure, body proportion. I still
 couldn't find anything. Then I went to a doctor."

   Morgan's eyebrows lifted. "Good," he said.

   Parks shrugged tiredly. "Not really. He examined me. He
 practically took me apart. I carefully refrained from saying
 anything about who I was or where I came from; just said
 I wanted a complete physical examination, and let him go
 to it. He was thorough, and when he finished he patted me
 on the back and said, 'Parks, you've got nothing to worry
 about. You're as fine, strapping a specimen of a healthy human
 being as I've ever seen.' And that was that." Parks laughed
 bitterly. "I guess I was supposed to be happy with the verdict,
 and instead I was ready to knock him down. It was idiotic, it
 defied reason, it was infuriating."

   Morgan nodded sourly. "Because you're not a human
 being," he said.

   "That's right. I'm not a human being at all."

   "How did you happen to pick this planet, or this sun?"
 Morgan asked curiously. "There must have been a million
 others to choose from."

   Parks unbuttoned his collar and rubbed his stubbled chin
 unhappily. "I didn't make the choice. Neither did anyone else.
 Travel by warp is a little different from travel by the rocket
 you fiction writers make so much of. With a rocket vehicle you
 pick your destination, make your calculations, and off you go.
 The warp is blind flying, strictly blind. We send an unmanned
 scanner ahead. It probes around more or less hit-or-miss until
 it locates something, somewhere, that looks habitable. When
 it spots a likely looking place, we keep a tight beam on it
 and send through a manned scout." He grinned sourly. "Like
 me. If it looks good to the scout, he signals back, and they
 leave the warp anchored for a sort of permanent gateway until
 we can get a transport beam built. But we can't control the
 directional and dimensional scope of the warp. There are an
 infinity of ways it can go, until we have a guide beam transmitting
 from the other side. Then we can just scan a segment of
 space with the warp, and the scanner picks up the beam."

   He shook his head wearily. "We're new at it, Morgan. We've
 only tried a few dozen runs. We're not too far ahead of you in
 technology. We've been using rocket vehicles just like yours for
 over a century. That's fine for a solar system, but it's not much
 good for the stars. When the warp principle was discovered, it
 looked like the answer. But something went wrong, the scanner
 picked up this planet, and I was coming through, and then
 something blew. Next thing I knew I was falling. When I tried
 to make contact again, the scanner was gone!"

   "And you found things here the same as back home," said
 Morgan.

   "The same! Your planet and mine are practically twins.
 Similar cities, similar technology, everything. The people are
 the same, with precisely the same anatomy and physiology, the
 same sort of laws, the same institutions, even compatible languages.
 Can't you see the importance of it? This planet is on
 the other side of the universe from mine, with the first intelligent
 life we've yet encountered anywhere. But when I try to
 tell your people that I'm a native of another star system,

    they
 won't believe me

   !"

   "Why should they?" asked Morgan. "You look like a human
 being. You talk like one. You eat like one. You act like one.
 What you're asking them to believe is utterly incredible."

   "

    But it's true.

   "

   Morgan shrugged. "So it's true. I won't argue with you. But
 as I asked before, even if I

    did

   believe you, what do you
 expect

    me

   to do about it? Why pick

    me

   , of all the people you've
 seen?"

   There was a desperate light in Parks' eyes. "I was tired, tired
 of being laughed at, tired of having people looking at me as
 though I'd lost my wits when I tried to tell them the truth.
 You were here, you were alone, so I started talking. And then
 I found out you wrote stories." He looked up eagerly. "I've
 got to get back, Morgan, somehow. My life is there, my family.
 And think what it would mean to both of our worlds—contact
 with another intelligent race! Combine our knowledges,
 our technologies, and we could explore the galaxy!"

   He leaned forward, his thin face intense. "I need money and
 I need help. I know some of the mathematics of the warp principle,
 know some of the design, some of the power and wiring
 principles. You have engineers here, technologists, physicists.
 They could fill in what I don't know and build a guide beam.
 But they won't do it if they don't believe me. Your government
 won't listen to me, they won't appropriate any money."

   "Of course they won't. They've got a war or two on their
 hands, they have public welfare, and atomic bombs, and
 rockets to the moon to sink their money into." Morgan stared
 at the man. "But what can

    I

   do?"

   "You can

    write

   ! That's what you can do. You can tell the
 world about me, you can tell exactly what has happened. I
 know how public interest can be aroused in my world. It must
 be the same in yours."

   Morgan didn't move. He just stared. "How many people
 have you talked to?" he asked.

   "A dozen, a hundred, maybe a thousand."

   "And how many believed you?"

   "None."

   "You mean

    nobody

   would believe you?"

   "

    Not one soul.

   Until I talked to you."

   And then Morgan was laughing, laughing bitterly, tears
 rolling down his cheeks. "And I'm the one man who couldn't
 help you if my life depended on it," he gasped.

   "You believe me?"

   Morgan nodded sadly. "I believe you. Yes. I think your
 warp brought you through to a parallel universe of your own
 planet, not to another star, but I think you're telling the truth."

   "Then you

    can

   help me."

   "I'm afraid not."

   "Why not?"

   "Because I'd be worse than no help at all."

   Jefferson Parks gripped the table, his knuckles white.
 "Why?" he cried hoarsely. "If you believe me, why can't you
 help me?"

   Morgan pointed to the magazine lying on the table. "I write,
 yes," he said sadly. "Ever read stories like this before?"

   Parks picked up the magazine, glanced at the bright cover.
 "I barely looked at it."

   "You should look more closely. I have a story in this issue.
 The readers thought it was very interesting," Morgan grinned.
 "Go ahead, look at it."

   The stranger from the stars leafed through the magazine,
 stopped at a page that carried Roger Morgan's name. His eyes
 caught the first paragraph and he turned white. He set the
 magazine down with a trembling hand. "I see," he said, and
 the life was gone out of his voice. He spread the pages viciously,
 read the lines again.

   The paragraph said:

   "Just suppose," said Martin, "that I

    did

   believe you. Just
 for argument." He glanced up at the man across the table.
 "Where do we go from here?"

Question and Possible Answers:
Why can Morgan not help spread Parks' story?

 (A) Morgan is considered insane and no one would trust him
 (B) Morgan is retired from writing and refuses to start again
 (C) Morgan authored a story with the exact same premise
 (D) Morgan is not qualified enough to speak on the subject

Answer:

Output: C