“That,” said Morey modestly, “is the beauty of it. Look.”
He set the adjustment of the satisfaction circuit as porter robots brought in skids of gloves. The hat-manufacturing robots fought over the gloves with the same mechanical passion as they had for hats.
“And that can apply to anything we—or the robots—produce,”
Morey added. “Everything from pins to yachts. But the point is that they get satisfaction from possession, and the craving can be regulated according to the glut in various industries, and the robots show their appreciation by working harder.” He hesitated. “That’s what I did for my servant-robots. It’s a feedback, you see. Satisfaction leads to more work—and better work—and that means more goods, which they can be made to want, which means incentive to work, and so on, all around.”
“Closed cycle,” whispered the Ration Board man in awe. “A real closed cycle this time!”
And so the inexorable laws of supply and demand were irrevocably repealed. No longer was mankind hampered by inadequate supply or drowned by overproduction. What mankind needed was there. What the race did not require passed into the insatiable—and adjustable-robot maw. Nothing was wasted.
For a pipeline has two ends.
Morey was thanked, complimented, rewarded, given a ticker-tape parade through the city, and put on a plane back home. By that time, the Ration Board had liquidated itself.
Cherry met him at the airport. They jabbered excitedly at each other all the way to the house.
In their own living room, they finished the kiss they had greeted each other with. At last Cherry broke away, laughing.