 How would Sandra's journaling experience been if she had not met Doc?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, May 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Silently, so as not to shock anyone with illusions about well dressed young women, Sandra Lea Grayling cursed the day she had persuaded the Chicago Space Mirror that there would be all sorts of human interest stories to be picked up at the first international grandmaster chess tournament in which an electronic computing machine was entered. The many clocks, bedside table size, would have struck a familiar note except that they had little red flags and wheels sprinkled over their faces and they were all in pairs, two clocks to a case. That Siamese-twin clocks should be essential to a chess tournament struck Sandra as a particularly maddening circumstance. Her last assignment had been to interview the pilot pair riding the first American manned circum-lunar satellite—and the five alternate pairs who hadn't made the flight. This tournament hall seemed to Sandra much further out of the world. Samples: "They say the Machine has been programmed to play nothing but pure Barcza System and Indian Defenses—and the Dragon Formation if anyone pushes the King Pawn." "I heard the Russians have been programmed—with hypnotic cramming and somno-briefing. "Have you studied the scores of the match between Moon Base and Circum-Terra?" Sandra's chief difficulty was that she knew absolutely nothing about the game of chess—a point that she had slid over in conferring with the powers at the Space Mirror , but that now had begun to weigh on her. How wonderful it would be, she dreamed, to walk out this minute, find a quiet bar and get pie-eyed in an evil, ladylike way. "Confidentially, Doc, I was having trouble swallowing ... "As for the Machine—you do know, I suppose, that it is not a humanoid metal robot, walking about clanking and squeaking like a late medieval knight in armor?" Doc's ability to interpret her mind was as comforting as the bubbly, mildly astringent mixture she was sipping. The Machine is probably programmed to recognize such situations and do something of the same sort, though we can't be sure from the information World Business Machines has released. The equivalent of those in the Machine is the directions fed into it before it plays a game."
 She would have likely written a very vague article due to her lack of experience with chess.
 She would have struggled to identify all the competitors to name in her article if it was not for Doc.  She would have had more time to get a better understanding to write about the Machine if Doc had not taken up all her time talking.  She would have likely written a very vague article due to her lack of experience with chess.  She would have not struggled as much with writing since Doc gave her excess information.