Robot Adept

The robot was required to tell his joke first. He did so mechanically. “A smart humanoid robot was concerned that his employer was not satisfied with his performance and sought a pretext to fire him. The employer always assigned him the least rewarding tasks, such as supervising the maintenance menials. When the employer gave him an assignment to report to the robot repair annex, he feared he would be junked. So he tinkered with the wiring of a cleanup menial robot, an inferior machine, and caused it to respond to the humanoid’s identity command. Thus the menial went off to the repair annex for junking, instead of the smart humanoid!”

There was a robot in the audience who found this very funny, and two androids who smiled. But the joke fell somewhat flat for the human beings.  Now it was Fleta’s task to top it. If she could do so, she would nullify it, and leave her opponent scoreless.  She had to think quickly: what would reverse the situation in a funny manner? She thought again of Mach.  What would he say to a joke like this? That gave her the key.

“But it turned out that the robot was being sent to the repair annex not for junking, but for upgrading to superior status,” she said. “When the menial robot returned, it was much smarter than the humanoid robot, and was made the new supervisor, bossing the humanoid himself.”

Several humans laughed, and the two androids smiled.  They liked that reversal. Only the humanoid robot in the audience failed to see the humor of it. Fleta had succeeded in topping the joke.

Now it was her turn to start. She remembered a little story she had imagined as a young filly, back when she was learning to assume girlform. “A mean man of Phaze caught an innocent young unicorn in human form, when she was trying to learn the human ways so she could handle the form perfectly. He grabbed her and clapped his hand over her forehead, covering her horn button, so she could not change. ‘Now I won’t let you go unless you teach me how to change form as you do,’ he told her. ‘Teach me, or I will do something terrible for you but nice for me.’ She knew he would rape her if she did not agree, so she gave her word to help him change to equine form.

“He could not do it exactly the way she did, because he was not of her species, so she had to translate the magic to a verbal command that would work for him.  Actually it was two commands: the second to change him back to manform. He tied her to a post and tried the first spell, and lo! He became his analogy of the equine form, which was a silly ass. Immediately he tried to change back, but he only brayed, because his assform was unable to speak in the human mode. He was stuck for the rest of his life as an ass.”

There were a few smiles in the audience, but it seemed that most of the serfs had been expecting something like this, so were not surprised. It was after all a pretty weak joke.

It was the robot’s turn to top it. Unfortunately, he had found the joke hilarious: man becoming ass! That was almost as funny as having a menial robot sent off to be junked in one’s place. He tried to come up with an improvement on it, but his thought circuits were inadequate, and he could not.

But he was not completely dull. “Maybe there is no topper,” he said. “If there is no topper, then it doesn’t count!”

AGREED, the screen printed. TELLER MUST TOP OWN JOKE FOR VICTORY.

Oops! Fleta had not anticipated that! She had never devised a reversal of this one, having had no motive.  If she was a human being, and wanted to turn the joke to human account, how would she do it?

The challenge brought the response, and she had it.

It was in the form of her worst fear as a young creature.  “Then the unicorn changed to her natural form, for she was just coming into heat and needed to be far from here before the mating urge took her. But she forgot that she was still tied, and the rope was too strong for her to break. She was trapped—and there was this ass, smelling her condition, eager to—“ She was drowned out by a surge of laughter. The serfs found that fate very funny!

She had won the match—but at the cost of allowing her secret self to be raped by an ass. She was not completely pleased.

Mach visited her again. “I have located Bane,” he said. “I have explained what my father wants. He has agreed. But he says that Agape is far from here. He will have to go to her, and explain, and bring her here.  It will take at least two days.”

“Then needs must I win again on the morrow,” she said.

“You have been doing very well,” he said. “You have qualified for Round Four; you are one of the final 128 contestants. Almost 900 have been eliminated.”

“That many!” she exclaimed in wonder. “But I be just lucky!”

He shook his head. “I’m not sure of that. I think you may be cut out to be a Game player. Your instincts have been good, and your play good. Considering your unfamiliarity with this culture and your inexperience with the Game, that suggests a very good potential.”