The Humanoid Institute

cover art by Tony Fiyalko

Two years ago when I was commenting on The Last Starship from Earth by John Boyd, I mentioned the 1966 novel Colossus, the basis for a 1970 movie "Colossus: The Forbin Project". I'm thinking about The Forbin Project at this time because I've been following online commentary about the television adaptation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation saga. The one thing I've heard about Apple TV's Foundation show (TVF) that I originally liked the sound of was including Eto Demerzel in the story, with the character appearing in the very first episode.

But... As far as I can tell, when creating the first 10 hours of TVF there was no attempt to faithfully bring the details of Asimov's story to the screen. In Asimov's story, positronic robots (particularly Daneel) were able to hide their identity as robots from the people of the Galactic Empire. The TVF Eto Demerzel is depicted as serving for many centuries as an aide to a clone dynasty of Emperors. Asimov included no clones in his Foundation saga.

Weird Tales, December 1924

Although every detail of the Foundation saga has seemingly been changed and morphed for this new television show, I still wonder if the TVF will hold to the overall story arc that Asimov created.

Warning. Here in this blog post, I'm going to travel back to the late 1920s in search of the origins of Asimov's ideas about robots and transmutation of elements. Asimov's family came to the United States from Russia just before the 1924 Immigration Act. If you follow me into the jungle of 1920s science fiction, be prepared to see blatant racism and sexism in some of the stories. Nobody can truly escape from the clutches of their cultural environment and it is not my business here to condemn any writers of the past for their words... no matter how bad they sound from the perspective of 2021.

in the Ekcolir Reality

Slow down. Taking decades or centuries to travel around the galaxy is not something that existed in Asimov's Foundation saga. Did the folks making TVF decided to make such radical changes to the story (vastly increasing travel times) just so that they could put characters in cryosleep and have them appear again hundreds of years later? Very lame. An old fan of Asimov's Foundation saga (like me) might shrug off clones and hibernation, but how can a positronic robot be depicted as killing a human being when ordered to do so? Will we eventually get some explanation in season 7 that involves the Zeroth Law?

In TVland, at some point you risk a transition from being "inspired" by Asimov's Foundation saga to simply not respecting fundamental core principles that are part of Asimov's legacy as a science fiction story teller. Daneel as a religious robot? Is this TVF or WTF? Asimov must be spinning in his grave.

Daneel: the metal (wo)man.

 Travel at the speed of thought. I previously suggested that a Foundation television program should speed things up and get to the Mule by episode 3. Sadly, TVF went in the other direction and after 10 episodes there is still no Mule. While thinking about story telling pace and interstellar travel speeds, I must mention in passing that I've long attributed the idea of a spaceship moving at the speed of thought to E. E. Smith (also used by Simak). 

First in Fantasy. However, in the December 1924 issue of Weird Tales, Carroll Michener's story "The Earth Girl" featured the magical teleportation of Hattie from Chicago to a distant planet by means of the "ninth ray" which "has the speed of thought". Here (below) is a passage from Michener's story, spoken by an alien named Halvad to the titular "Earth Girl" Hattie La Salle:

Halvad's warning about women from "The Earth Girl".

 I like to imagine that in an alternate Reality (the Ekcolir Reality) female authors dominated the science fiction genre when it became established in the early 20th century. Maybe in such an alternate Reality, the female characters would be heroic, not harbingers of doom. Do the female characters in TVF improve upon Asimov's characters such as Bayta and Arkady?

Daneel

Telepathy. In Asimov's version of Foundation, Daneel had telepathic abilities and could deploy other robots, all disguised as humans, for the purpose of guiding Humanity into the future. Daneel's actions were controlled by the Laws of Robotics, including the Zeroth Law which says: "A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm." 

Gaia and Galaxia. Daneel had a big problem with humanity: how could he know what was best for humanity and what might cause it harm? Daneel carried out two big projects, each lasting for thousands of years. First, his Gaia project developed telepathic humans with the goal of creating the group mind, Galaxia. Also, from a time long before the formation of a Galactic Empire, Daneel worked to create a science of Psychohistory that could predict the future of human civilization.

Psychohistory

I have to believe that by the time of Hari Seldon, Daneel had long been using Psychohistory to help understand the unwinding course of Humanity. With Daneel's secret Gaia project nearing completion, Daneel needed to start preparing the people of the galaxy for a future in which the vast telepathic group mind of Galaxia would dominate the galaxy. I believe that it was Daneel who worked to engineer the fall of the first Galactic Empire. Hari Seldon was both the catalyst for that fall (predicting the disintegration of the Empire by means of Psychohistory) and the public architect of the Foundation, a foundation for creation of the new Empire to come that would welcome human telepaths and lead to the creation of Galaxia.

Sadly, so far, I've seen no mention of either the Laws of Robotics or telepathy in TVF. Maybe these plot elements are yet to come if the makers of the show are able to reach their goal of 80 episodes.

cover art by William Timmins

 Horror. Television shows such as The Forbin Project are the opposite of Asimov's Foundation saga. Shows like The Forbin Project are horror stories, like Frankenstein by Mary Shelly. If you want to know how little Asimov's ideas about robots are appreciated in Hollywood, just look at the 2004 film I, Robot. For a wider perspective on what happens if you try to depict robots as peaceful and helpful, consider the 1974 television show "The Questor Tapes". That show could have led to a successful television series about robots, but with no killer robots in the show, it was a Hollywood dead-end.

I'm now fearful that TVF will end up depicting Asimov's robots as sources of horror. If so, then I can't think of a better way for Apple TV to disrespect Asimov's life-time effort to depict robots as useful and carefully engineered technology that can help Humanity. This dismal possibility is what has me thinking about The Forbin Project.

cover by Ralph McQuarrie

And having been put in mind of The Forbin Project, I went back and re-read "With Folded Hands", a Jack Williamson story from 1947 that reads like a reaction to Asimov's 1946 story "Evidence". In all fairness to the TVF project, I suppose I must consider this question: if Williamson could turn Asimov's view of robots on its head, then why shouldn't the folks making TVF? I own a copy of Williamson's story as it appeared in Great Tales of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. I also went back to look at the internal art that was in the 1947 magazine where "With Folded Hands" was first published.

cover art by Frank Paul

Transmutation. Asimov depicted a trip across the galaxy as taking perhaps a month or two, at most, due to the wonders of hyperdrive. Do the folks at TVF have any interest in following Asimov's lead in the depiction of imaginary future technology? One of the plot elements in Asimov's original Foundation saga was the idea of transmutation of elements. Yes, one of the strangest parts of Asimov's Galactic Empire was the "futuristic" economics. Try to picture a galaxy-spanning civilization where the capital world is powered by geothermal energy obtained through the hard work of a poverty stricken population of "heat sinkers". 

Hollywood is disgusting.

Economics 101. In Asimov's future Galactic Empire (many thousands of years in our future) you can bribe high officials with precious iridium... that is, unless the high officials believe that you have the secret of transmutation of elements. If they do, then they will try to obtain that secret so that they can convert iron into iridium for themselves.

In Search of Asimov's Inspiration. Since Jack Williamson's first published story "The Metal Man" was about transmutation, I could not resist getting in my time machine and going back to 1928 to read that story. 

detail from the cover of the July 1947 issue of Astounding Science Fiction

 

interior art by Hugh Rankin

Building Robots. When Isaac Asimov began writing stories about robots, he was reacting against previously published stories that depicted "mechanical men" as clanking murderous villains. Asimov's robots were carefully engineered and crafted as useful helpers for humans. Legend has it that Asimov began reading pulp magazines in 1929.

As an example of a murderous robot, look at the illustration to the right on this page. There is the "mechanical man" from the 1929 story, "The Chemical Brain". The "mechanical man" has just murdered chemist Walter Parsons. 

Pasadena

"The Chemical Brain" is told from the perspective of John Lester, a skilled machinist who helped Parsons and Captain Rowan build the "mechanical man" in a laboratory located on the grounds of the Captain's luxurious estate in Pasadena. 

Having seen "the hideous Robot, driving its short, arm-like pistons into Parson's quivering flesh", John smashes the robot's head.

from the January 1929 issue of Weird Tales

 

the machine man; art by Frank Paul

 False Flagg. I'm always pleased to come across new (to me) stories about "mechanical men" that might have influenced Isaac Asimov and contributed to his thinking about robots. As examples, I'll discuss "The Chemical Brain" and "The Machine Man of Ardathia" which were both published in the late 1920s under the pen-name "Francis Flagg". Some sources give Flagg's real name as George Henry Weiss and others say Henry George Weiss. 

In "The Chemical Brain", readers were "treated" to a "mechanical man" who murders one of the men who created it. For his robot stories, Asimov used "positronic brains" that were made of platinum and iridium. While a computer uses electrical circuits, a positronic brain has "positronic pathways". In Asimov's imagination, a sprawling robotics industry would be needed on Earth in order to construct humanoid robots, but in Weiss' story, a robot is quickly built by three men working in a home laboratory.

Figure 1. the chemical brain is poured in

 The Wonders of Chemistry. As the title of the story implies, Weiss' robot had a "chemical brain". One key component of the robot was crystals of piezoelectric Rochelle salt. According to Weiss, each crystal could receive and send messages along 200 circuits in the robot's complex electrical system. However, at the last step of the robot's construction, Parsons simply pours a gloppy liquid into the machine's head which then magically congeals and forms a functioning brain.

in the Ekcolir Reality

In the passage shown above (Figure 1), the Captain is red in the face because at the exciting moment of completing the robot, he is having a heart attack.

During the construction of the robot, Lester, Parsons and Captain Rowan engage in discussions of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, Lucian Larkin's idea of a cosmic mind, "automatic writing" and the play R.U.R.; the later is described by Weiss as being about "mechanical men", but in Karel Čapek's 1920 play, the robots are artificial biological organisms. The Captain (an electrical engineer) likes the idea that upon death of your body, your mind can live on.

Lester, upon realizing that he is helping build a thinking robot, is not pleased and he says: "...such inventions fly in the face of nature. They can bring humanity no good." However, because of... [plot]..... he continues to work on the robot, only slowly coming to understand the nature of the "experiment" in artificial life that Rowan and Parsons intend to perform.

Figure 2. Interior art
  depicting an Ardathian

Stay in the Kitchen, Woman! Everything might have turned out fine for the robot that was built by Lester, Parsons and Captain Rowan, but sadly, Weiss did not heed Halvad's warning and a woman was able to sneak into the story. She is Genevieve, the sister of Captain Rowan, who quietly serves as housekeeper and cook for the three men. Parsons is a materialist (he likes the work of John B. Watson) and he has no patience for mystical ideas; he is only concerned with material things such as chemicals and Genevieve. Parsons and Genevieve fall in love, but when Genevieve tells the Captain about her romantic yearnings for the cute chemist, Captain Rowan flies into a rage. With simmering sexual tension now hanging over the robot construction project, their work is completed, but just at the moment of success, Captain Rowan drops dead. ☠

We are told that upon his death, Captain Rowan's mind magically transferred into the "chemical brain" of the robot and the mind of Rowan then used the powerful robot body to murder Parsons. Having spent months helping construct the robot, John does not hesitate to smash its brain and as the robot "dies" we get to wonder what might be the next destination for Captain Rowan's magically migrating mind.

blurb for "The Machine Man of Ardathia"

"The Machine Man of Ardathia" is a time travel story. 30,000 years in the future, humans have become cyborgs (see Figure 2, above) and they are learning how to travel through Time. Like much science fiction from the "rockets and rayguns" era, whenever the Ardathians need to do anything, they make use of a magic ray.

in the Ekcolir Reality

"The Machine Man of Ardathia" goes into amazing detail about how human society evolved in the 30,000 years that separate us from the "machine men" of Ardathia. Sadly, the story ends after the first ever visit by an Ardathian time traveler to the 20th century. We are left wondering if maybe a temporal paradox has been triggered in which a new future is created, one where further time travel is impossible. Alternatively, the people of the future might have realized that it is not safe for them to visit the past and so we will never have any more Ardathians visiting us.

I like to imagine that in an alternate Reality there may have been female analogues of famous science fiction story tellers like Weiss and Williamson. I can't stop myself from imagining an alternative version of "The Machine Man" that might have been called "The Machine Woman".

making an android copy of Kirk

 Mind Transfer. Both of Weiss' stories avoid the challenging task of creating and programming an artificial robotic brain. For his story in Weird Tales, a human mind is depicted as magically jumping into a waiting robotic receptacle. "The Chemical Brain" reminds me of the Star Trek episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" Asimov eventually imagined the robot Daneel transferring his memories into a biological brain. For the Exode Saga, I imagine mind transfer in the opposite direction: the first positronic robot was "programmed" by imprinting the structure of a human mind upon positronic circuits. 

In "The Machine Man of Ardathia", there is no manufactured artificial brain, only a human brain functioning as part of a cyborg system.

Detail from the cover art for "With Folded Hands"; humanoid robots at work.

internal art by William Timmins

 With Folded Hands. I read this story back in the 1970s and tried to forget it as quickly as possible. It includes some of my least favorite Sci Fi plot elements such as a Super Genius™ scientist: Mr. Sledge, from the distant planet Wing IV, who invents fantastic technology in his basement and in so doing causes the collapse of civilization.

Mr. Sledge is an expert in the field of rhodomagnetics. In Williamson's fictional science, elements such as rhodium are subject to the "universal force" known as the rhodomagnetic force. Rhodomagnetic signals are like electromagnetic signals on steroids: rhodomagnetic signals travel at infinite velocity. One of the uses of rhodomagnetic signals is to destabilize atomic nuclei; a type of "artificial fission" can be triggered by rhodomagnetic signals. Yes, almost anything becomes possible with rhodomagnetics, including rapid interstellar travel (sadly, not at infinite speed, but "many times the speed of light").

Central; internal art by William Timmins

So you ask, in Mr. Sledge's wonderful world of rhodomagnetics, what could go wrong? Sledge created robots known as "humanoids" and equipped them with rhodomagnetics and the Prime Directive. The Prime Directive forces the humanoids to serve humans and protect them from harm. Now, humans under the care of the humanoids are not allowed to do anything that involves the least bit of danger. 

Mind-Altering. As told in "With Folded Hands" the humanoids are rapidly spreading from planet to planet, trapping every human of the galaxy in their protective and stifling grasp. Any human who does not like the new robot regime is mentally adjusted so as to make them be perfectly happy doing absolutely nothing all day long. The humanoid robots do all the work.

using rhodomagnetics to destroy Central

Williamson tells his readers that Mr. Sledge got into the robot business when he was "swept along with a fad for general semantics". One thing led to another and soon Sledge builds the "perfect humanoid" and a Central Base for coordinating all of the individual humanoids. Now having come to Earth, Sledge is trying to destroy robot Central and liberate Humanity from the humanoids. He fails and at the end of the story we are left with the prospect of humans forever under the watchful eye and heavy protective thumbs of the humanoids: "Bitter futility, imprisoned in empty splendor. The humanoids were too efficient, with their care for the safety and happiness of men, and there was nothing left for men to do."

the end: humanoids stop all resistance

 Back to Asimov's Robots. Isaac Asimov included two positronic robots in his Foundation saga. One was Daneel (who for a time served in the roll of Demerzel, assistant to the Emperor). The other positronic robot became the wife of Seldon. 

Seldon knew that Demerzel and his wife were robots, but through Daneel's telepathic mind control, Seldon could not speak to anyone about his knowledge of robots. Seldon's wife served Daneel as Seldon's bodyguard and protector. She meets her doom when while acting to protect Seldon, she kills a human. Positronic robots are programmed to never harm a human, so causing the death of a human destroys her positronic brain.

all the old robot companies of Earth
are put out of business by the humanoids

I was goaded into thinking about The Forbin Project and "With Folded Hands" when I read that in the Foundation TV show (episode 8), Demerzel was ordered to kill a human. I suppose I will eventually have to watch the Foundation television show just to find out if it adheres to Asimov's general story arc or if it is a completely different story using the same name and a few scattered ideas from Asimov's saga.

interior art by Frank R. Paul

 Transmutation. Asimov's idea that iridium would be particularly valuable in the far future of a Galactic Empire has not stood the test of time. Iridium is rare in the crust of planets like Earth only because it associates with other metals that have been concentrated in the core of planets. If you wanted iridium in large quantities, you could go mine a convenient asteroid. In Foundation, the idea of creating iridium by transmutation is a "magic trick" that is used to entice a high-ranking official of the Empire into a rash act. During the fall of the First Galactic Empire, science stagnated and technology wilted. The First Foundation was a center of science and in the dark times of the crumbling Empire, it was possible to believe that the First Foundationers might have Super Hi Tek such as a means of transmuting elements.

true science or very much mistaken? - The Moon Pool

 Mistake. What about Williamson's 1928 story "The Metal Man"? Williamson's transmutation story is very silly. While searching for a good source of radium, a remote mountain domain of magical mutations is found where the bodies of animals can be transmuted into metal, including the unfortunate titular "metal man".

original cover art
by Robert E. Schulz

 Related Reading: Gladiator,
            Salvage and
           The Metal Monster

See Also: "Death Sentence"

And: Season One of Foundation.

Next: Part 4 of "The Telepaths of Site Q"

Allyn and Sara and Olyv

in the Ekcolir Reality

Below on this blog page is Part 3 of the science fiction story "Telepaths of Site Q". In Part 2, Grean the Kac'hin began investigating Irhit, a tryp'At agent working within Observer Base. Irhit will soon be caught up in an attempt to create a new type of alien-human hybrids with telepathic abilities, humans who will be able to make use of the Bimanoid Interface for technology-assisted telepathy in the Final Reality of Earth's Reality Chain.

Irhit has become romantically involved with Betty Dryswyn, the youngest daughter of Allyn Dryswyn and his wife, Sara. After abandoning her story writing "career", Sara has become the first archivist of the Writers Block. Allyn is an artist who now "enjoys" illustrating the old science fiction stories that Sara finds in the archives of the Writers Block, particularly stories from Deep Time; the Realities that came before the Ekcolir Reality.

in the Ekcolir Reality

Allyn and Sara share an unusual telepathic linkage that was created by Manny the bumpha. Sara has a large number of Ek'col and Asterothrope gene patterns that make her a strong telepath, but her mind and telepathic abilities are tuned to Allyn and, to a lesser extent, to the minds of her children.

Manny has made an effort to prevent Grean from interfering in the life of Irhit, who will soon impregnate Yenti, an Asterothrope who was just teleported into Observer Base for Manny's telepathic hybrid breeding experiment. However, Grean discovers that she is free to investigate Betty. Grean want's to know if Betty has a telepathic connection to the mind of Irhit, but first she must become familiar with Betty's unusual family...

Part 3 of Telepaths of Site Q (Part 1)(Part 2)

Allyn, Sara and their daughter Betty were returning to the core district of Observer Base after a week spent at Yaddo, one of the artists colonies on the fringes of the space-time bubble that was once known as Eternity. Allyn and Sara were seated across from Betty in their little tram car as it raced along through the subway tunnel. Sara was telepathically linked to both Allyn and Betty. Allyn was thinking about how he and Sara would celebrate their anniversary that evening, but Sara was paying more attention to Betty's thoughts.

Something strange was going on. Over the course of the past week, Betty had increasingly become involved with the social life of Yaddo and as the girl's mood had brightened, her thoughts had become increasingly accessible to Sara. Sara had become optimistic that Betty had mostly recovered from her rather disappointing sexual encounter with her boyfriend Irhit. But now, with each passing minute, Betty's mind seemed to be further receding from telepathic contact with her mother as if disappearing into a telepathy-opaque cloud. Suddenly Betty pushed the button that would make the tram stop at the next station. She announced, "I'm going to visit Catski. I'll be home about ten." She got to her feet and grabbed a hand strap near the door.

 Sara asked, "Does she know to expect you?"

The tram car slowed and stopped. "Since when does that matter?" The door opened and Betty stepped through. Speaking over her shoulders she said, "Happy anniversary and have fun you two!" Then she was gone, walking off towards her long-time school friend Catski's house.

source

The tram car resumed its progress towards the city center and Allyn took hold of Sara's hand. He asked, "Where should we go tonight for our celebration?"

Sara was still thinking about her daughter. Maybe it had been a mistake to rush home just for the anniversary. She and Allyn could have celebrated another time, or even in Yaddo. She said, "I don't care, lover... you decide."

Allyn suggested, "How about the Serothic. It is the perfect place to make use of the new kilt that you made for me."

Sara Squeezed his hand and suggested, "Alternatively, you could just model it for me in our bedroom...."

"Ha! I know you... you wouldn't even give me a chance to actually wear it before you'd start bouncing me around in bed."

"Well.... true, but I prefer you naked rather than wearing a skirt." Sara was now close enough to home to feel the mind of her oldest daughter, Hana. Sara could telepathically sense that Hana was irritated because at the last minute Sara had called and asked her to babysit for the evening and she'd had to break a date with her friend Judy. The tram pulled into their station and now they just had the short walk to their home. Walking hand-in hand, Sara could follow Allyn's thoughts about the Serothic Dance Hall and his hopes that they might find an interesting new sex partner there. Sara and Allyn were almost exclusive partners in terms of their sexual activity, but it had become a once-a-year tradition for them the go out on the town and to celebrate their anniversary by cruising the night clubs in search of a possible sexual adventure.

Arriving in their home, Allyn went to dress in the kilt and Sara checked in with her other daughter, Lany. Opening the door to Lany's suite of rooms, Sara called out, "We're home." After a week away from home, the sight of Lany's tall, skinny body was a bit of a shock to even Sara, but Sara was not really troubled since she had gone through the same stage. After three pregnancies Sara had filled out and now had an almost normal human body shape.

in the Ekcolir Reality

Lany was at work in her studio, giving careful attention to one of her Glyton sculptures, painting the dull gray surface with bright enamels. Sara commented, "Wow! That pink shock's the optic nerve!"

Lany set down her paint brush, hugged her mother and took a step back from the sculpture. This sculpture was her self-portrait and a homework assignment. While critically observing the freshly applied colors, she asked, "How was your trip?"

Sara replied, "Very nice, but Betty just ran off to visit Catski. Please keep an ear out for her... she said she'll be home about ten. If she isn't then please call Catski's house and find out what is going on."

"Okay, mom." Lany was caught up in painting the nipples of her sculpture. This particular sculpture was meant to be Lany's depiction of herself as a heroic princess, but somehow it looked like a bashful school girl, which was close to the truth except for the fact that Lany was already two years after having completed her schooling. To make the sculpture look more adult and a bit sexy, Lany was giving it bright pink nipples and some suggestive pink peeking out from among the pubic hair. Her mind now barely registering Sara's presence in the room, Lany muttered, "Fine." She picked up the brush and went back to work. Sara sighed and turned away from her daughter while wondering about the methods being used by Lany's remedial sex education instructor.

Exiting from Lany's rooms and reaching the master suite, Sara saw Allyn adjusting the kilt so as to accommodate his penis. The kilt had been carefully designed by Sara to allow her husband to comfortably dance while his rather large penis was fully erect. Sara bent down and kissed Allyn's penis then quickly changed her clothes. Still pulling on her favorite dance outfit she told Allyn, "I'll be with you in just a minute. Hana..." Quickly exiting from the master bedroom, she left the sentence incomplete, herself being rather dismayed by what Hana was doing just then. Sara was counting on Hana to help keep an eye on Betty.

After learning of her sister Betty's sexual encounter with Irhit, Hana had gotten her hands on copies of Irhit's stories. Two years previously those stories had been popular at the Writers Block. In Sara's absence, Hana had taken Sara's eprint copy of the collected works of Irhit and now had it in her room. During the past week, Hana had read most of the stories.

Inside Hana's suite of rooms the lights were dim. Sara found Hana in bed reading. A persistent buzzing filled the room which Sara recognized as coming from the big vibrator she had given Hana as present several years previously. Now, Sara was close enough to Hana to telepathically sense her daughter's pleasurable sensations as the vibrator energetically bounced around inside Hana's vagina. For a moment Sara grew nostalgic over the wonders of that particular little piece of vibrating plastic which for many years had been one of Sara's favorite sextoys... well, perhaps "little" was not the right word, but Sara's perspective was distorted by long familiarity with her husbands large penis. Hana looked up from the displayed text she had been reading and said enthusiastically, "These stories are rather wild!"

Sara felt that Irhit's stories about alien sexual practices were rather childish, but at least they were entertaining enough for Hana so that she was not complaining about her broken date with Judy. Sara kissed Hana's cheek and told her, "We're on our way out, dear." Once again Sara was frustrated by the fact that humans on Earth now carried cell phones, but that technology was not available at Observer Base. "Call the reception desk at the Serothic if there is an emergency."

Puzzled, Hana glanced over her shoulder at her mother and asked, "Emergency?"

"Betty went over to Catski's for a visit. If she is not home by midnight, do me a favor and give me a call."

"Very well. And please do me a favor, mom." Hana glanced at the device that was there on the bed beside her, glowing slightly in the dim light of the room.

Sara picked up the rather wicked looking device that had a hundred little spikes. Suddenly she realized it was another vibrator. "Judy gave you this?"

The Irhit Intervention

Hana giggled. "Judy just gives it to me with that little devil. Now, go ahead and slip it in my..." Hana spread her legs a bit and went back to reading. The story was getting into an exciting sexual encounter between an Asterothrope and a Fru'wu.

Sara picked up a tube of lubricant from the little table next to Hana's bed and started spreading big globs of the lube on the vibrator. Hana glanced over her shoulder again and said impatiently, "Don't bother with lube. Just retract the knobs." She reached over and pressed a button on the vibrator and it instantly became a sleek, thin tube, now dripping with all the lubricant that Sara had applied.

Sara wiped the vibrator between her daughter's buttocks and then gently slid the vibrator inside her anus and on up into her rectum. "Thanks, mom." Hana reached back and activated the device. Hana gasped as the spikes shot out and began vibrating then said,  "Now get out and let me... read."

Sara was intrigued by the lube that was labeled "Wild Berries" and she took it with her back to the master sweet. Depositing the tube of lubricant in a drawer full of her sextoys, Sara headed for the front door while trying not to picture events during the past week such Judy there in bed with Hana and wielding that viscous sextoy. She found Allyn waiting for her on the front steps and they went off to the dance hall. While they walked, Allyn playfully put a hand down inside the back of her skirt. He commented, "Wow, you're already dripping wet."

Sara said, "I almost jumped on you while you were getting dressed. It looked like you were wrapping up your penis as a present."

"If you want to unwrap my little gift let's just step into this dark alleyway."

"I'll take my chances at the Serothic. I want to see you stiff and hard in your kilt, dancing with me in front of a couple dozen envious ladies." In Sara's mind, this evening would be rather like going fishing and trying to net some sexy young woman...

This image made using Elf1, EllieRoom10,
SpencerPool7, NewElf8(W) and Elfy:Elf Rally by
Eclesi4stiK available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Allyn could telepathically sense that Sara was thinking about Karen, a women they had befriended a year previously while out celebrating their anniversary. Sara still occasionally had a sexual play session with Karen. Allyn said, "I can't compete with Karen's giant vibrators. In fact, the thought of you making love to Karen and using her sextoys makes me feel, well... a little... little."

Sara laughed and tried to sooth his insecurities, "Don't worry, Karen's extra-large plastic vibrators can't compete with the feel -or the taste- of your delicious penis, my love."

Now looking deeper into Sara's thoughts, Allyn could sense that it had actually been Hana masturbating that had gotten Sara so sexually excited. He muttered, "And I imagined you were responding to the site of my penis."

"Please control your insecurities, darling."

Allyn could only get so far into his wife's thought stream, particularly when she was trying to hide certain thoughts from him. "Well, how did Hana get you so excited?"

"You're better off not knowing, my love."

"Does this have something to do with... did she have that girl, Judy, in her bed again?"

"No. Hana was reading in bed... one of those silly alien sex stories that Irhit wrote back when he was living on Earth."

Allyn laughed loudly. "And that got you all hot and bothered?"

"I'm sure you remember how those stories flew around the lady porn circle two years ago."

"As I recall, those stories were not very good pornography. I mean, who really cares about fantasy alien sex organs?"

"Well, you never actually read the stories." Sara stopped walking and wiped away some of her vaginal secretions that were trickling down her leg. Now she regretted not having put on any underwear. Taking hold of Allyn's arm and as they continued walking, she said, "Some have suggested that maybe Irhit is not exactly human."

Allyn laughed again. "What does that mean?"

"All the hermaphrodites in his stories... maybe-"

Allyn interrupted and asked, "Wait, are you saying Irhit is an hermaphrodite?"

"Well, I asked Betty about that and she said no... but I wonder if she might have missed something in the heat of the moment...."

"I doubt if she could have missed the fact of Irhit having both a vagina and a penis."

"That's because you never read Irhit's stories. The hermaphrodites he wrote about, well... they often had their genitals hidden away until they were needed." They had reached the Serothic and Sara put her arms around Allyn's neck, pulled him close and kissed him passionately on the mouth. "Happy hunting, lover!" They entered the noisy dance hall and waved to some old friends who were already there. First they ate a ceremonial dinner then then they went out on the dance floor. Of course, it was a very light meal that they shared. The residents of Observer Base were continually and automatically provided with nutrients by feeding nanites, but ritual meals were still a persistent custom, consumed for the purposes of stimulating olfactory and taste receptors and also simply to create opportunities for social interactions with other people.

During their first dance, Sara immediately noticed the arrival of a dashing couple: a beautiful blond girl and a tall brunette, although Sara struggled to identify her exact hair color under the dim and exotic lights of the dance hall. As they moved across the dance floor and turned, Allyn was next to see the attractive pair and he said, "My word! I did not know that there was a girl that tall... she's even taller than you!"

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Sara ignored the tall girl, but could not keep her eyes off of the spectacular blonde. Sara began to feel an unusual telepathic presence skipping around at the fringes of her mind. She asked Allyn telepathically: Do you feel that?

Allyn could understand what Sara was asking. No. I only sense your thoughts. The dance tune ended, but Allyn kept his arms around Sara. His penis was now semi-erect inside his kilt and pressing against Sara, but his eyes were following the very tall girl.

Sara chided her husband: You'd like to ravish her, wouldn't you?

Why not? This reminds me of when I first saw you. You were so tall and beautiful, I knew you were the one...

We were telepathically linked.

As you well know, I can enjoy a sexual dalliance without any telepathic link to the girl...

A new dance tune started up and the newly-arrived flashy couple came out on the dance floor. Dozens of eyes followed the sexy bodies of the newcomers as they danced. Sara was fascinated by the way the cute blonde wiggled her hips. At the end of the dance, the blonde immediately marched off to the restroom. Sara made haste to follow, telling Allyn telepathically: get me a glass of wine.

Allyn went to the bar and ordered a bottle of wine and two glasses and then turned to watch the tall girl. There she was, at the edge of the dance floor, now talking to Irhit! Allyn could not avoid feeling consternation over the way Irhit had barged into his formerly peaceful and well-ordered life. First the boy had upset Betty and now this! Allyn could still feel Sara's thoughts as she and a half dozen other women chatted up the blond girl inside the restroom. Another song began and Irhit began to dance with the tall woman. Apparently she was named Yenti, that name having been relayed to Allyn by way of Sara's telepathic link. Just then, Sara was asking the blonde if she and Yenti would like to party with her and Allyn.

Strangely, while Allyn watched Yenti and Irhit dancing, Sara's telepathic signal seemed to be fading away. With nothing else to do Allen sipped the wine and watched Yenti's long lean body move across the dance floor. She was thin as an eel and her limbs seemed to jut out at strange angles. Still, there was no way to deny Yenti's sultry sexiness and Allyn noticed that both he and Irhit had stiff erections. Irhit's penis comically pressed out against the fabric of his pant leg while Allyn's was comfortably housed within a special compartment of the kilt that Sara had crafted for just this sort of occasion. 

Then suddenly Sara was there at Allyn's side, sipping wine and resting her hand casually on top of his swollen penis where it rose majestically upwards, covered by a thin sheath of gauze. Allyn commented, "The kilt fits perfectly, but I'm worried that I might ejaculate and ruin everything."

Sara laughed and said, "Go ahead and ejaculate... a big wet semen spot would be the perfect way to advertise your virility. I bet we could get a dozen of these young girls to introduce themselves to us if the smell of your spicy semen reached their noses." She began to stroke his erection.

Allyn rested a hand on top of Sara's and tried to prevent her from further stimulating his penis. He was not interested in performing the semen experiment. After taking another drink of wine, Allyn then looked around for the blond-haired girl. Not seeing her, Allyn tried to use his rather limited telepathic ability. He was surprised to notice that he still had no telepathic link to Sara. It was very unusual to have no telepathic link to her while their bodies were in physical contact, unless she was actively trying to shield her thoughts from him... which she seldom did. For moment he fantasized about what Sara may have done with the blonde in the restroom then he asked, "The cute blond girl refused your offer?" Feeling slightly dizzy, he looked into the bottom of his wine glass, puzzled why he had lost his telepathic link to Sara. He'd only consumed a small amount of alcohol and it could not be significantly depressing the activity of his neurons and his telepathic powers...

Olyv. Image made with
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Sara has carefully designed the kilt for just this purpose and now she was proudly showing off the profile of Allyn's big erection to several young women in the room who could not keep their eyes off his spectacular organ. As she played with his stiff erection, Sara's eyes were enjoying the provocative bulge in Allyn's kilt as much as anyone else in the dance hall. Now Sara set down her glass and let her other hand move downward along the shaft of Allyn's mighty erection, rubbing it enthusiastically through the thin fabric of the kilt. Briefly she let her hand linger on his plump testes. Part of her mind was still contemplating the lovely blonde. "She's a strange girl. She told me nothing about herself or Yenti." After a gentle squeeze of his scrotum, Sara took her eyes off of Allyn's erection and again picked up her glass. She took another taste of the wine while looking around the dance floor. "Where is Yenti?"

Allyn was relieved that Sara had stopped stroking his penis. He'd almost ejaculated, but now he was simply enjoying the feel of Sara's hand resting on the tip his stiff penis and fantasizing about the possibility of taking her into a private room and letting Sara get her mouth on his penis. Having lived for many years at the Writers Block, Sara was not inhibited from engaging in public sex acts, but Allyn had grown up within a rather conservative culture on Earth and adopted a rather prudish attitude that made him reluctant to perform sexually in front of dozens of watching people. Now looking away from Sara's glistening eyes, he looked around and could not find the sexy tall girl. He suggested, "Maybe they went to the dining area." However, there were no further sightings of the cute couple or Irhit that night. 

Half an hour later, as they danced closely together, Allyn's penis sandwiched between them, another woman cut in on Sara and with a hand on his penis she asked Allyn, "Is this really all you?"

Allyn suggested that she fully investigate and satisfy her curiosity. A few minutes later Allyn and the woman had departed from the dance floor. They had moved inside a private room with Sara who took a certain amount of pride in opening up the cleverly constructed kilt and showing off Allyn's rather spectacular genitals. Then, while Sara quickly undressed the woman she thought to ask her name.

She was a slim, short woman with big eyes that seemed to be irresistibly locked on Allyn's penis which she was excitedly stroking. She kissed Allyn's hot penis and then belatedly replied to Sara's question, "I'm Olyv." 

Sara told Olyv, "I'm Sara. You have your hands full of Allyn." Feeling that they had engaged in enough talk, Sara picked up Olyv and tossed her onto the bed and then laid down on top of the girl. Allyn came down on top of the two women and was able to slide his erection between Sara's legs and on into Olyv's hot wet vagina. With her eyes closed, Sara was still thinking about the disappearing blonde girl and deep kissing Olyv until Olyv shouted out happily as she reached her climax. Sara rolled over and laid down next to Olyv and now Allyn could fully insert his big erection into Sara's deep vagina. Olyv giggled and watch with fascination as Allyn thrust his long erection in and out of Sara's body. 

Now Sara and Allyn were able to re-synchronize their minds and as their telepathic linkage strengthened they shared a wonderful orgasm. Sara telepathically told Allyn: Thank you for that sweet orgasm, my love. Allyn now sprawled on his back beside Sara and Olyv took the opportunity to start riding him. Holding Allyn's hand, Sara again closed her eyes and began to fantasize about the blond-haired girl and where she might be found. Where did she live? Possibly in one of the outlying colonies at the fringes of Observer Base. Then while she fantasized about sexplay with the blonde, Sara was frustrated and puzzled by the fact that she could not clearly remember the exquisite features of the girl's pretty face. 

Just then, one of the robotic hostesses of the Serothic came into the private playroom. The robot told Sara, "A call from your daughter, Lany."

Sara said, "Hello? Lany?"

Lany's voice seemed to come from the robot: "Betty just got home."

"Thanks for letting me know."

Lany asked, "Who's that moaning like a cat in heat?"

"I'll see you in the morning." Sara waved to the robot who instantly broke the connection and departed from the playroom. Sara giggled. She again closed her eyes and tried to establish a telepathic link to Olyv, synchronizing her telepathic signals to the woman's happy noises as she worked herself towards another orgasm while bouncing up and down on Allyn's hot erection. Sadly, Olyv could only accommodate about half of Allyn's penis inside her rather small vagina. Still, it was a tight fit and Olyv was greatly enjoying her sexplay with Allyn. Strangely, Sara now started thinking about Wendy the robot and she fantasized about Allyn making love to Wendy. Sara shook her head and tried to again think about the cute blonde...

After a long night of dancing, drinking and additional sexplay, Sara and Allyn ended up in Olyv's bed at her house. After a leisurely breakfast and one last shared orgasm, Sara and Allyn kissed Olyv goodbye and returned to their home. Strangely, Sara had by then forgotten about the cute blonde and Allyn had no remaining conscious memory of the tall girl, Yenti. Sara was already making plans to visit Olyv again at a future time when Allyn's distracting penis would not get in the way of the two women getting to know each-other better. Sara did not even think about Irhit again until a few days later when Hana announced that she had completed her goal of reading all of Irhit's stories about aliens.

Upon arriving home, Allyn went to bed but Sara had to endure a question and answer session with Betty while the girl asked about her parent's night of sexual adventure. Sara answered the questions rather evasively while she was busy using her telepathic ability to examine the thoughts of her daughter. Something had been altered in Betty's mind since just the previous evening. Sara first suspected that maybe Betty had finally had a sexplay session with Catski, but that wasn't it. Catski had the frustratingly inconvenient notion that she could channel her sexual urges into her music, so she refused to engage in casual sexplay.

Suddenly Sara found herself thinking about her first days at Observer Base. Somehow, Grean had brought Sara over into the Ekcolir Reality from her life on Earth in the Asimov Reality. For a few days, both Grean and Wendy had helped Sara adjust to her new life at Observer Base. Then Sara had finally met Allyn face-to-face and then face-to-penis and the rest was history. Twenty years had quickly past without Sara ever thinking much about Grean, so why now? 

And exactly what had changed in Betty's mind overnight? Gone was the girlish shyness and uncertainty about her future. Now Sara could sense a firm resolve and sense of purpose in her daughter, and there was a sharpness in her clever and humorous questions about how Sara was able to take delight in sharing her husband's beautiful penis with other women. Finally Sara said, "Maybe some day this will make sense to you, but there is no need for me to feel jealousy when I see my husband with another woman. I don't own Allyn. If I can use his rather gaudy genitals to attract a few interesting new sex partners, well... why shouldn't I?"

Betty giggled and said, "I tried a similar argument on Catski last night but she did not fall for it. I guess I need lessons on how to arrange a threesome. Or a foursome. I can't believe you just walked up to Miss Olyv and propositioned her."

"You know Olyv?"

Betty replied, "She's a teacher at the school, but I never had her for a class. She teaches physical education. Actually, she's Catski's running coach."

Sara sighed. She could telepathically sense that Betty was having a little fantasy about her mother having sex with the curvaceous little Olyv. 

Betty went off to her bedroom. She was feeling the telepathic mind pattern of her sister Lany. Betty always became sexually stimulated when Lany was having sexual thoughts. 

Part 4 of Telepaths of Site Q

At that moment, Lany was putting the final touches on the painting of the breasts of her self-portrait and engaging in a twisted little fantasy about what would happen when she showed the finish sculpture to her sex education instructor. 

Betty had recently been saved from being enrolled in the remedial sex education program with Mrs. Tapsey. By having engaged in sexual intercourse with Irhit, Betty had completed the last objective of the Observer Base school curriculum. Now with Lany fantasizing about Mrs. Tapsey's reaction to the sculpture, Lany's erotic thoughts were pushing at Betty's mind and she was soon on her bed and masturbating. 

Sara went and got into bed with Allyn and ignoring her telepathic sense that was keeping her informed about the sexual antics of her daughters she was soon asleep, with strange thoughts about Grean flitting through her mind.

Related Reading: Part 4 of "Telepaths of Site Q"

Next: Asimov Foundations

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