He reached for a sandwich and then, after a while, said between sips of coffee, "We eat well, at least, as we discuss the greatest mass murder in history."

Affare looked critically at his own half-eaten sandwich. "This is not eating well. Egg salad on white bread of indifferent freshness is not eating well, and I would change whatever coffee shop supplied this, if I were you." He sighed.

"Well, in a world of famine, one should not waste food," and he finished the sandwich.

Rodman watched the others and then reached for the last remaining sandwich on the tray. "I thought," he said, "that perhaps some of you might suffer a loss of appetite in view of the subject matter of discussion, but I see none of you did. Each one of you has eaten."

"As did you," said Mare impatiently. "You are still eating."

"Yes, I am," said Rodman, chewing slowly. "And I apologize for the lack of freshness in the bread. I made the sandwiches myself last night and they are fifteen hours old."

"You made them yourself?" said Mare.

"I had to, since I could in no other way be certain of introducing the proper LP."

"What are you talking about?"

"Gentlemen, you tell me it is necessary to kill some to save others. Perhaps you are right. You have convinced me. But in order to know exactly what it is we are doing we should perhaps experience it ourselves. I have engaged in a little triage on my own, and the sandwiches we have all just eaten are an experiment in that direction."

Some of the officials were rising to their feet. "We're poisoned?" gasped the Secretary.

Rodman said, "Not very effectively. Unfortunately, I don't know your biochemistries thoroughly, so I can't guarantee the seventy per cent death rate you would like."

They were staring at him in frozen horror, and Dr. Rodman's eyelids drooped. "Still, it's likely that two or three of you will die within the next week or so, and you need only wait to see who it will be. There's no cure or antidote, but don't worry. It's a quite painless death, and it will be the finger of God, as one of you told me. It's a good lesson, as another of you said. For those of you who survive, there may be new views on triage."

Affare said, "This is a bluff. You've eaten the sandwiches yourself."

Rodman said, "I know. I matched the LP to my own biochemistry, so I will go fast. " His eyes closed. "You'll have to carryon without me-those of you who survive."

 The next story has rather a sad history, though I myself emerged unscathed. Here's how it goes.

 In January 1975, Naomi Gordon, a very charming woman from Philadelphia, visited me and explained what I thought was a delightful idea for an anthology. It was to be entitled The Bicentennial Man; It was to contain ten stories by top authors, with each one built about that phrase; and it was to be published in connection with the Bicentennial. The well known science fiction enthusiast Forrest J. Ackerman was to do the editing. Naomi also had rather grandiose notions of preparing a very limited, very expensive edition.

 I pointed out it would be difficult to write science fiction if the stories were to be centered on the Bicentennial, but Naomi said that the stories could be anything at all provided they could be seen to have arisen out of the phrase "The Bicentennial Man."

 I was intrigued and agreed to do it. I was handed half the advance at once. The deadline was April 1, 1975, and by March 14 I was finished. I was a little rueful about the story at first, for the agreement had called for a 7,500-word story and I had been unable to stop it before it had reached 15,000 -the longest story I had written below the level of a novel in seventeen years. I write an apologetic covering letter, assuring Naomi that there would be no extra charge and she wrote back to say the extra wordage would be fine. Pretty soon, the remaining half of the advance arrived..

 But then everything went wrong. Naomi was beset by family and medical problems; some writers who it had been hoped would participate, couldn't; others who promised stories didn't deliver them; those who did deliver them did not turn out entirely satisfactory products.

 Of course, I didn't know anything about this. It never even occurred to me that anything might go wrong. Actually, my only large interest is in writing. Selling is a minor interest, and what happens afterward is of almost no interest.

 There was, however, Judy-Lynn del Rey and her enormous awareness of everything that goes on in science fiction. She knew that I had written a story for this anthology.

 "How is it," she asked dangerously, "that you wrote a story for that anthology, yet when I ask you for one you're always too busy?"*

 "Well, " I said apologetically, for Judy-Lynn is a frightening creature when she is moved, "the idea of the anthology interested me."

 "How about my suggestions about a robot that has to choose between buying its own liberty and improving its -body? I thought you said that was interesting."

 At that point, I must have turned approximately as white as talcum powder. A long time before, she had mentioned such things and I had forgotten. I said, "Oh, my goodness, I included something of the sort in the story."

 "Again?" she shrieked. "Again you're using my ideas for other people? Let me see that story. Let me see it!"

 So I brought her a carbon copy the next day and the day after that she called me. She said, "I tried hard not to like the story, but I didn't manage. I want it. Get the story back."

 "I can't do that," I said. "I sold it to Naomi and it's hers. I'll write you a different story."

 "1'11 bet you anything you like," said Judy-Lynn, "that that anthology isn't going to go through. Why don't you call and ask?'.

 I called Naomi and, of course, it wasn't going through. She agreed to send me back the manuscript and grant me permission to sell the story elsewhere, and I sent back the advance she had given me. (After all, she had lost considerable money on the venture, and I didn't want any of that loss to represent a profit to me.)

 The story was then transferred to Judy-Lynn, who used it in her anthology of originals entitled Stellar Science Fiction #2, which appeared in February 1976. And I like the story so much myself that I not only am including it here, but am using its title for the book as a whole.

 (Incidentally, after this book was put together, Judy-Lynn suggested I change my manuscript to make it jibe with the version in Stellar. Apparently, she had introduced numerous minor changes that improved it, she said. Well, I am not Harlan Ellison, so I don't mind, but I think that in my own collection, I'll let the story stand as I wrote it. Judy-Lynn will be annoyed, but she can't do worse than kill me.) *This was during the Passover Seder, over which Lester del Rey presides every year with enormous effectiveness, since he is the best cook in science fiction.

The Bicentennial Man