THE
SUCCESS
MACHINE

By HENRY SLESAR

The Personnelovac winked,chittered, chortled,chuckled, and burped a cardinto the slot. Colihan pickedit up and closed his eyes inprayer.

"Oh, Lord. Let this one beall right!"

He read the card. It waspink.

"Subject #34580. Apt. Rat.34577. Psych. Clas. 45. LastPer. Vac.

"An. 3/5/98. Rat. 19.Cur. Rat. 14.

"Analysis: Subject demonstratesdecreased mechanicalcoordination. Decrease inwork-energy per man-hour.Marked increase in waste-motiondue to subject's interestin non-essential activitiessuch as horseracing. Indicationof hostility towards superiors.

"Recommendation: Firehim."

Colihan's legs went weak.He sat down and placed thecard in front of him. Then,making sure he was unobserved,he broke a companyrule and began to Think.

Something's wrong, hethought. Something is terriblywrong. Twenty-four pinkcards in the last month.Twenty-four out of forty.That's a batting average of—Hetried to figure it outwith a pencil, but gave it upas a bad job. Maybe I'll runit through the Averagovac,he thought. But why bother?It's obvious that it's high.There's obviously SOMETHINGWRONG.

The inter-com beeped.

"Ten o'clock departmenthead meeting, Mr. Colihan."

The steel brain was having more fun than people.

"All right, Miss Blanche."

He rose from his chair andtook the pink card with him.He stood before the ActionChute for a moment, tappingthe card against his teeth.Then, his back stiffened witha sense of duty, and he slippedthe card inside.

The meeting had alreadybegun when Colihan took hisappointed place. Grimswitch,the Materielovac operatorlooked at him quizzically.Damn your eyes, Grimswitch,he thought. It's no crime tobe three minutes late. Nothingbut a lot of pep talk firstfive minutes anyway.

"PEP!" said PresidentMoss at the end of the room.He slammed his little whitefist into the palm of his otherhand. "It's only a little word.It only has three little letters.P-E-P. Pep!"

Moss, standing at the headof the impressive conferencetable, leaned forward andeyed them fixedly. "But thosethree little letters, myfriends, spell out a much biggerword. A much biggerword for General Products,Incorporated. They spellPROFIT! And if you don'tknow how profit is spelled,it's M-O-N-N-E-Y!"

There was an appreciativelaugh from the assembled departmentheads. Colihan,however, was still broodingon the parade of pink cardswhich had been emergingwith frightening regularityfrom his think-machine, andhe failed to get the point.

"Naughty, naughty," Grimswitchwhispered to himarchly. "Boss made a funny.Don't forget to laugh, oldboy."

Colihan threw him a sub-zerolook.

"Now let's be serious," saidthe boss. "Because thingsare serious. Mighty serious.Somewhere, somehow, somebody'sletting us down!"

The department headslooked uneasily at each other.Only Grimswitch continuedto smile vacantly at the littleold man up front, drumminghis fingers on the glass tabletop. When the President's machine-gunningglance caughthis eyes, Colihan went white.Does