Page 123 - The Perpetrations of Captain Kaga

Reforming the World of Bolix

‘‘Is your number greater than 610?” asked the first computer.
‘‘Yes,” said Captain Kaga, truthfully.
‘‘What did he say?” asked the second computer.
“He said his number is between 600 and 604,” said the first
computer, quite untruthfully.
The second immediately said: “Then your number must be 602.’’
“No, it’s not,” said Kaga, “and you’ve just lost your marbles.”
The last illuminated circle a row of seven on the second computer’s
screen went blank. Now it could still ask range finding questions and
lie to the first computer, but it could not make any more direct
guesses. The first computer had two marbles left, as was close to
getting the right answer.
Captain Kaka had been spending a lot of time working on computer
games. At the moment it was his only means of getting off Gornat IV.
He had lost almost all of his vacation money in the Melonium Scandal;
the subsequent expulsion of Pluzu Mwan from the PKU provided
little consolation to Kaga, stranded on an inhospitable planet without
an onward ticket. His only hope was to sell a computer game to the
Gorns; then he would be able to book passage on a low-acceleration
passenger ferry back to GHQ, sufficiently in time to avoid a
reprimand for tardiness.
The inhabitants of Gornat IV had a mania for electronic pastimes.
If he could come up with one that captured their imaginations, he
would be rich. “Don’t Lose Your Marbles!” was the latest in a series
of cybernetic bagatelles he had devised. It required two independent
processors, far less than the average Gorn had humming away in his
bunker; no problem there. But computer games numbered in the tens
of thousands on Gornat IV, so a new one had to have some special
feature in order to catch on. Kaga had learned that particular fact of
life the hard way, coding up elaborate strategies and dazzling displays
for his creations, only to see them flop on the market. Obviously the
Gorns were jaded, unable to appreciate the subtleties of his games!
Then one day it occurred to him to do a little research. He went to
the Exopsychology Department at Gornat University and found a
Pazoutian professor there on a visiting fellowship. The doctor turned

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