In a society where poetry and drama have been outlawed for centuries such that even their memory has been etched from existence, two astroscientists stumble upon a secret arcanum whose very few members have been struggling, without any guideposts, to recreate meaningful rhymes. Though one scientist is outraged and the other piqued, they leave, deciding not to report their discovery. However, unable to forget the experience, they return after a short absence, one to unmask' the rhymers by exposing their errors through rigorous logical argument, the other to learn more about the group and their beguiling language. Not only are they welcomed but are encouraged by the group's leader to express their views whenever they wish. One then engages the group with precise logic only to be frustrated when the leader replies in rhyming obfuscation, these verbal fireworks noted in a diary kept by the other scientist. After some time and many verbal skirmishes, the observing scientist decides to leave his job and join the rhymers while the other voes to search the most secret of Government computer archives for evidence of earlier poets and dramatists, exposing their banality and nonsense, thereby proving his point. The story of their two paths is chronicled in The Reply to the Damned's Fool, a story of clandestine computer hacking, the flight of the group to avoid discovery, the finding of compassion among simple farmers, and the awakening of love.