Limousine moved right along, with an i from Kydd and an n from the computer. And once again it was up to Tuezuzim.

He waited until his ten-minute time limit had almost expired. Then he came up with a letter. But it wasn’t e.

It was o.

Juan Kydd stared at him. “L-i-m-o-u-s-i-n-o?” he said in disbelief, yet already suspecting what the lobstermorph was up to. “I challenge you.”

Again Tuezuzim waited a long time. Then, slowly rotating his crippled left chela at Juan Kydd’s face, he said, “The word is limousinoid.”

“There’s no such word! What in hell does it mean?”

“What does it mean? ‘Like a limousine, in the form of or resembling a limousine.’ It can be used, probably has been used, in some piece of technical prose.”

“Referee!” Kydd yelled. “Let’s have a ruling. Do you have limousinoid in your dictionary?”

“Whether or not it’s in the dictionary, Computer,” Tuezuzim countered, “it has to be acceptable. If dirigibloid can exist, so can limousinoid. If limousinoid exists, Kydd’s challenge is invalid and he gets the t of Ghost—and loses. If limousinoid doesn’t exist, neither does dirigibloid, and so Kydd would have lost that earlier round and would therefore now be up to the t of Ghost. Either way, he has to lose.”

Now it was the Malcolm Movis that took its time. Five full minutes it considered. As it testified later, it need not have done so; its conclusion was reached in microseconds. “But,” it noted in its testimony at the inquest, “an interesting principle was involved here that required the use of this unnecessary time. Justice, it is said, not only must be done, but must seem to be done. Only the appearance of lengthy, careful consideration would make justice seem to be done in this case.”