'How did all this happen?'

'All what?' said the Board Master coldly. 'Sit down. I want to ask you some questions.'

'No. You first answer me,'

'Sit down!'

Realo sat. His eyes were brimming. 'They're going to destroy the robot world.'

'Don't worry about that.'

'But you said they could if the robots discovered interstellar travel. You said so. You fool. Don't you see -' He was choking.

The Board Master frowned uneasily. 'Will you calm down and talk sense?'

The albino gritted his teeth and forced the words out. 'But they'll have interstellar travel before long.'

And the two psychologists shot toward the little man.

'What!!'

'Well… well, what do you think?' Realo sprang upward with all the fury of desperation. 'Did you think I landed in a desert or in the middle of an ocean and explored a world all by myself? Do you think life is a storybook? I was captured as soon as I landed and taken to the big city. At least, I think it was a big city. It was different from our kind. It had - But I won't tell you.'

'Never mind the city,' shrieked the Board Master. 'You were captured. Go ahead.'

'They studied me. They studied my machine. And then, one night, I left, to tell the Federation. They didn't know I left. They didn't want me to leave.' His voice broke. 'And I would have stayed as soon as not, but the Federation had to know.'

'Did you tell them anything about your ship?'

'How could I? I'm no mechanic. I don't know the theory or construction. But I showed them how to work the controls and let them look at the motors. That's all.'

Brand Gorla said, to himself mostly, 'Then they'll never get it. That isn't enough.'

The albino's voice raised itself in sudden shrieking triumph. 'Oh, yes, they will. I know them. They're machines, you know. They'll work on that problem. And they'll work. And they'll work. And they'll never quit. And they'll get it. They got enough out of me. I'll bet they got enough.'

The Board Master looked long, and turned away - wearily. 'Why didn't you tell us?'

'Because you took my world away from me. I discovered it -by myself - all by myself. And after I had done all the real work, and invited you in, you threw me out. All you had for me was complaints that I had landed on the world and might have ruined everything by interference. Why should I tell you? Find out for yourselves if you're so wise, that you could afford to kick me around.'

The Board Master thought bitterly, 'Misfit! Inferiority complex! Persecution mania! Nice! It all fits in, now that we've bothered to take our eyes off the horizon and see what was under our nose. And now it's all ruined.'

He said, 'All right, Realo, we all lose. Go away.'

Brand Gorla said tightly, 'All over? Really all over?'

The Board Master answered, 'Really all over. The original experiment, as such, is over. The distortions created by Realo's visit will easily be large enough to make the plans we are studying here a dead language. And besides - Murry is right. If they have interstellar travel, they're dangerous.'

Realo was shouting, 'But you're not going to destroy them. You can't destroy them. They haven't hurt anyone.'

There was no answer, and he raved on, 'I'm going back. I'll warn them. They'll be prepared. I'll warn them.'

He was backing toward the door, his thin, white hair bristling, his red-rimmed eyes bulging.

The Board Master did not move to stop him when he dashed out.

'Let him go. It was his lifetime. I don't care any more.'

Theor Realo smashed toward the robot world at an acceleration that was half choking him.

Somewhere ahead was the dustspeck of an isolated world with artificial imitations of humanity struggling along in an experiment that had died. Struggling blindly toward a new goal of interstellar travel that was to be their death sentence.

He was heading toward that world, toward the same city in which he had been 'studied' the first time. He remembered it well. Its name was the first words of their language he had learned.

New York!

 On July 26, 1943, which was a Monday, I had one of the rare days off I could take during wartime. (It was, after all, my first wedding anniversary.) I was in New York that day, and I visited Campbell just as in the good old days. I discussed with him another story in the 'Foundation' series, as well as another in the 'positronic robot' series. From then on, I always saw Campbell on the rare days when I was in New York on a weekday, and of course we corresponded regularly.

 I was definitely back at writing. Output was low, but during the remaining war years I wrote two positronic robot stories, 'Catch That Rabbit' and 'Paradoxical Escape,' which appeared in the February 1944 and August 1945 issues of Astounding, respectively. Both were eventually included in I, Robot. (The latter story appears in /, Robot under the title of 'Escape.' The word 'Paradoxical' had been added by Campbell in one of his few title changes, and I didn't like it.)

 I also wrote no less than four stories of the 'Foundation' series during those same years. These were 'The Big and the Little,' 'The Wedge,' 'Dead Hand' and 'The Mule.' All appeared in Astounding, of course, the first three in the August 1944, October 1944, and April 1945 issues, respectively.

 'The Mule' set several records for me. It was the longest story I had ever written up to that time - fifty thousand words long. Yet even so, and despite the fact that I had to work on it in small scraps of time left over from job and marriage, I managed to complete it in three and a half months. It was submitted on May 21, 1945, and was accepted on the twenty-ninth. (Indeed, throughout the war I never got a single rejection, or even a delayed acceptance. Nor did I submit to anyone but Campbell.)

 What's more, at the beginning of 1944 Campbell raised his basic rate to one and a half cents a word and some months later to a cent and three quarters. For 'The Mule' I received a check at the higher rate, for $875. It was by far the largest check I ever received for a single story. By the end of the war, in fact, I was making half as much money writing in my spare time as I was making at my N.A.E.S. job, even though I had been promoted and was receiving sixty dollars a week by the end of the war.

 Then, too, 'The Mule' was the first story I ever had published as a serial. It appeared in two parts in the November and December 1945 issues of Astounding.

 Of the wartime 'Foundation' stories, 'The Big and the Little' and 'The Wedge' are included in Foundation, while 'Dead Hand' and 'The Mule,' together, make up all of Foundation and Empire.

 During the two years between mid-1943 and mid-1945, I wrote only one story that was neither one of the 'Foundation' series nor one of the 'Positronic robot' series, and that one was inspired directly by the N.A.E.S. This story was 'Blind Alley,' which was written during September and early October of 1944. It was submitted to Campbell on October 10, and accepted on the twentieth.