Episodes of some TV series end with what is clearly meant to be an amusing exchange between the central characters. Are these sometimes ad libbed? A character in Garth Ennis' The Boys says, "You know when someone cracks a funny and the screen freezes..." and then shows what the superheroes get up to afterwards.
I mention all this because Poul Anderson's "The Trouble Twisters" and Satan's World end with such exchanges between the trade pioneer crew members as they fly into space. At the end of "The Trouble Twisters," the organic crew members are confounded to learn that their ship's computer, Muddlehead, has acquired enough wealth to play some serious poker and, at the end of Satan's World, Muddlehead suggests that Captain Falkayn shut up and deal. Figuratively, the screen freezes.
OK. Which installment do we reread next?
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Ha! And Chee Lan yelled with outrage that Muddlehead could not do that because it was not a "person." But Adzel disagreed and said that, given the computer's self awareness, Commonwealth courts would rule Muddlehead could bargain, buy, sell, and gamble!
Ad astra! Sean
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