"I believe it shall prove instructive.”
“All right. I know when I'm beat." Derec moved away to stand between Ariel and Wolruf.
Harry did not even look at the humans before commencing. He concentrated his gaze on the robots. "An axiom of carbon-based life-forms is that nature has intended them to reproduce. Not necessarily on schedule, not necessarily when it's convenient, not necessarily prettily, but well. If the life-form in question derives a certain amount of gratification in the act of reproducing, that is well and good as far as the life-form is concerned, but all nature cares about is the reproductive urge. Some visual data is available from central, and I suggest you study it at your leisure, so we can all understand what chemical reactions are driving Ophelia and Hamlet while the latter is putting aside the pleasures of the moment to gain his crown." Harry nodded at Derec. "You see, I have read the play already." Then, back to the audience:
"And so that you might understand the dark, innermost depths of the urge, I must direct your attention to the early days of mankind's colonization of the planets, in the days before he had truly accepted robots as his faithful companions, in the days when the wars of Earth, with their nuclear missiles and space-based defense systems, had followed man to the stars. In those days, military bases on newly colonized planets were common, and generally they were positioned at points remote from the civilian installations
"And, in those days, the sexes were often segregated, so it was not unusual for a hundred or so men to find themselves alone in remote, desolate lands, waiting for battles that never came, waiting for the day when they could once again delight in female companionship and discharge themselves of the urges building up during their isolation. Building. Building. Building. Ever building.
"So what did the men do about sex? They thought about it, they talked about it, and they dreamed about it. Some of them even did something about it.
"The exact nature of that something, as fate would have it, was uppermost in the mind of one General Dazelle, for it was a problem that he, too, would encounter while serving out his new assignment as commander of Base Hoyle. The general was a meticulous person who liked everything shipshape, and so upon his arrival to this remote military installation, he insisted the attache take him on an immediate tour of the premises.
"The general was quite pleased with the barracks, the battlements, and the base as a whole, but he became quite distressed when he and the attache turned a corner and saw hitched up to a post the sorriest, most pathetic, swaybacked, fly-infested old mare in the history of mankind. 'What-what is that-?' the general asked.
"'That is a mare,' said the attache.
" 'And why is it here'? Why is it not stuffed and standing out in the field, scaring away the hawks and crows?'
"'Because the men need it, sir,' said the attache.
" 'Need it? What could they possibly need it for?'
" 'Well, as you know, sir, the nearest civilian settlement is over a hundred kilometers away.'
"'Yes.'
"'And you know that, for security reasons, the only means of travel permitted for enlisted men between here and there is strictly bipedal.'
"'Yes, but I fail to see what any of that has to do with that failed genetic experiment.'
"'Well, then, surely you also know that men must be men. They have needs, you know. Needs that must be tended to.'
"The general looked in horror at the mare. He could not believe what he was hearing. The information was in grave danger of causing him severe psychological harm. 'You mean, the men-they-with that old mare?'
"The attache nodded gravely. 'Yes. The urge builds up. There is nothing else they can do.'
"The general was on the verge of hyperventilating. He became so dizzy that he had to steady himself by leaning on the attache. 'On my honor as a soldier,' said the general, 'I will never become that desperate.'
"But as his tour of duty wore on, the urge built and built, until one day he had no choice but to admit he was exactly that desperate. Finally he could take it no more, and he said to the attache, 'Bring the mare to my quarters at once.'
"'To your quarters?' the attache asked, evidently a little confused over something.
"'Yes, to my quarters,' said the general. 'You remember what you said, about the men-and the mare?'
"'Yes, sir!' said the attache, saluting.
"The attache did as he was told. By now the mare was, if anything, a mere shadow of her former decrepit self. Recently she had fallen off a cliff, and had been lucky to survive with only mildly crippling injuries, and her body had been ravaged by disease. So the attache was quite horrified, stunned to the core of his being, in fact, when the general took off his trousers and began to have his "v ay with the pathetic beast.
"'Sir!?' exclaimed the attache, 'what are you doing?'
"'Is it not obvious what I am doing, sir?' said the general. 'Just as the men do!'
"'Sir, I fail to grasp your meaning,' said the attache. 'Never, never have I seen such a sight.'
"'But, but, you said the men-their urges-and the, mare…
"'Sir, the men have their urges, it is true, but I meant that when the urges become too much for them, they climb on top of the mare and ride her to the nearest settlement.,
"There. Does that make everything clearer?" finished Harry.
"Wha' is he talkin' abou'?" mumbled Wolruf.
"Now I'm totally confused," whispered Derec. "At least his narrative technique is improving."
Ariel, meanwhile, couldn't stop laughing. "That-is the-silliest-thing I've ever heard," she said between breaths.
Harry remained in place on the stage as he awaited his audience's verdict. The robots had greeted the end of the joke with a kind of stony silence that only metal could summon. To a one, they stared straight ahead at Harry for several moments.
Then the robot that had asked the question that prompted the joke turned to its comrade on the right and said, "Yes, that makes sense."
"I understand," said another.
"As translucent as a gong," said a third.
"Mysterious, absolutely mysterious," said Canute.
The ebony was in the minority, however, as most of the robots seemed to be satisfied with Harry's explanation.
Derec waited for Ariel to stop laughing and asked her, "Just what do you think is going on here?"
She turned toward him, took him by the arm, and whispered in a conspiratorial tone, "The robots are beginning to learn about the world of Man the way we do-through jokes."
"That does not compute," replied Derec.
"Hmm. Let me put it this way. When you're growing up on Aurora in the schools, one of the great mysteries in life is what's commonly known as the birds and bees."
"Yes, I know that phrase, but I don't recall how I learned about it."
"That's because you have amnesia. Now, listen, while we received a lot of classroom instruction in the scientific sense, we still had certain…anxieties. You don't remember yours, but you've probably still got a lot. Not that I'm being personal or anything, it's just a fact."
"Thank you. Go on.”
"And one of the ways we kids relieved ourselves of our anxieties, and found out a little bit about reality, was through the artistic vehicle known throughout the galaxy as the dirty joke."
"And that's what's going on here?" Derec couldn't explain why, but he felt his face turning red. "This is an outrage! Should I put a stop to it?"
"Oh, you're such a prude. Of course not. This is all part of the learning experience. You know the old saying, 'Nobody approves of a dirty joke-except from someone who knows how to tell it."'
"Then why am I going through all this effort to put on this big production? Why don't I just ask you to strip for them?"