ed one of the punch cards
into the transmitter head, which fingered the holes and told ICWEA
what the problem was. ICWEA began drawing a curve on the curve tracer.
It would have taken Norm or anyone else days to arrive at the answer.
"See? Skips here and there, but I can ink in the gaps."

"Looks like the pen catches on the paper a little. I'll grind the
point while I'm at it. Say, that thing really thinks, doesn't it?"

"In a way. Generally, the digitals have it all over the analogues when
it comes to reasoning, but I built an extra brain into her."

"Where?"

"The 'Y' path. Remember? Tries several appropriate methods in
succession. I analyzed my own methods of attack, and built the same
methods into her. She's an electronic _me_, except faster and more
accurate."

"I bet. She's more alive than you are. Why don't you step out a
little? First thing you know, you'll be getting old, and it'll be too
late."

"Leave the match-making to the women. I may be old, but I'm not an old
fool. It's fall, not spring."

"Yeah? All you need to be an old fool is just a little more time."

* * * * *

Norm ignored him, and took a card from his desk. It seemed to be an
extra, not with the pack. He put it in the machine. The curve-tracer
began to draw a rather abrupt curve, which meandered half across the
sheet before Norm realized what it was. Suddenly, an image leaped to
his mind's eye and he watched with fascination while the pen traced
this mathematical impossibility to the far end of the paper, and in
obedience to several successive negative factors in the problem
retraced in the opposite direction a little lower down.

A head, a slightly lifted elbow, full rounded breast, a knee
luxuriously drawn up, a dangling arm, all in one continuous line.
There was nothing obvious about it; it was formalized, but with the
individual style that is the artist's signature. Once seen, the image
persisted.

"Hey, Charley, look at this!"

"Yeah. What about it?"

"What about it! You ever see anything like it?"

"Sure. It's a closed loop, like a hysteresis curve."

"_An_ hysteresis curve. But this isn't one. Look closely."

"Of course, it has harmonics and variables in it. Might be one of
those gas-discharge curves, if the gas tube happened to be defective.
I've seen some funny...."

"Look! It's a reclining figure, with the head turned toward
you--see?--and the forearm over the head--_here_. Breast, k