ng_ for a Feckle Freezer!" Burckhardt
reached his floor and left the elevator in the middle of the last one.
It left him a little uneasy. The commercials were not for familiar
brands; there was no feeling of use and custom to them.

But the office was happily normal--except that Mr. Barth wasn't in.
Miss Mitkin, yawning at the reception desk, didn't know exactly why.
"His home phoned, that's all. He'll be in tomorrow."

"Maybe he went to the plant. It's right near his house."

She looked indifferent. "Yeah."

A thought struck Burckhardt. "But today is June 15th! It's quarterly
tax return day--he has to sign the return!"

Miss Mitkin shrugged to indicate that that was Burckhardt's problem,
not hers. She returned to her nails.

Thoroughly exasperated, Burckhardt went to his desk. It wasn't that he
couldn't sign the tax returns as well as Barth, he thought
resentfully. It simply wasn't his job, that was all; it was a
responsibility that Barth, as office manager for Contro Chemicals'
downtown office, should have taken.

* * * * *

He thought briefly of calling Barth at his home or trying to reach him
at the factory, but he gave up the idea quickly enough. He didn't
really care much for the people at the factory and the less contact he
had with them, the better. He had been to the factory once, with
Barth; it had been a confusing and, in a way, a frightening
experience. Barring a handful of executives and engineers, there
wasn't a soul in the factory--that is, Burckhardt corrected himself,
remembering what Barth had told him, not a _living_ soul--just the
machines.

According to Barth, each machine was controlled by a sort of computer
which reproduced, in its electronic snarl, the actual memory and mind
of a human being. It was an unpleasant thought. Barth, laughing, had
assured him that there was no Frankenstein business of robbing
graveyards and implanting brains in machines. It was only a matter, he
said, of transferring a man's habit patterns from brain cells to
vacuum-tube cells. It didn't hurt the man and it didn't make the
machine into a monster.

But they made Burckhardt uncomfortable all the same.

He put Barth and the factory and all his other little irritations out
of his mind and tackled the tax returns. It took him until noon to
verify the figures--which Barth could have done out of his memory and
his private ledger in ten minutes, Burckhardt resentfully reminded
him