Who or what was the scoundrel that kept these couriers from the swift completion of their handsomely appointed rondos? On Tenthmonth 1, 2457 A.D., at exactly 9 A.M. Planetary Federation Time—but with a permissible error of a millionth of a second either way—in the fifth sublevel of NewNew York Robot Postal Station 68, Black Sorter gulped down ten thousand pieces of first-class mail. This breakfast tidbit did not agree with the mail-sorting machine. It was as if a robust dog had been fed a large