title: Asimov's Science Fiction, December 2013
author:  Henry Lien 
description: Vol. 37, No. 12, December 2013. Cover art by Alexandra Manukan illustrating Pearl Rehabilitative Colony for Ungrateful Daughters by Henry Lien. OTHER STORIES: Catalogue Note by the Artist (poem) by Ian Watson; Dignity by Jay O'Connell; The Fitter by Timons Esaias; Vox ex Machina by William Preston; Bloom by Gregory Norman Bossert; Grainers by R. Neube; Frog Watch by Nancy Kress; Entangled by Ian R. MacLeod. FEATURES: Living in a Science Fictional Universe (editorial essay) by Sheila Williams; Reflections: The Plurality of Worlds (essay) by Robert Silverberg; On Books (reviews) by Peter Heck; SF Conventional Calendar by Erwin S. Strauss.
zlib_text: LIAR!
  
  
  Astounding Science Fiction May by Isaac Asimov
  
  
  
  
  
  Alfred Lanning lit his cigar carefully, but the tips of his fingers were
  trembling slightly. His gray eyebrows hunched low as he spoke between puffs.
  
  
  “It reads minds all right-damn little doubt about that! But why?” He looked at
  Mathematician Peter Bogert, “Well?”
  
  
  Bogert flattened his black hair down with both hands, “That was the thirty-
  fourth RB model we’ve turned out, Lanning. All the others were strictly
  orthodox.”
  
  
  The third man at the table frowned. Milton Ashe was the youngest officer of U.
  S. Robot & Mechanical Men, Inc., and proud of his post.
  
  
  “Listen, Bogert. There wasn’t a hitch in the assembly from start to finish. I
  guarantee that.”
  
  
  Bogert’s thick lips spread in a patronizing smile, “Do you? If you can answer
  for the entire assembly line, I recommend your promotion. By exact count,
  there are seventy-five thousand, two hundred and thirty-four operations
  necessary for the manufacture of a single positronic