Part 1 (2/2)

Voy was now frowning. He was still polite, but with an icy touch now. He said, ”The Observers a.s.signed to our Section are highly competent. I have every certainty that those a.s.signed to this project have given accurate data. Have you evidence to the contrary?”

”Not at all, Sociologist Voy. I accept their data. It is the development of the data I question. Do you not have an alternate tensorcomplex at this point, if the courts.h.i.+p data is taken properly into consideration?”

Voy stared, and then a look of relief washed over him visibly. ”Of course, Technician, of course, but it resolves itself into an ident.i.ty. There is a loop of small dimensions with no tributaries on either side. I hope you'll forgive me for using picturesque language rather than precise mathematical expressions.”

”I appreciate it,” said Harlan dryly. ”I am no more a Computer than a Sociologist.”

”Very good, then. The alternate tensor-complex you refer to, or the forking of the road, as we might say, is non-significant. The forks join up again and it is a single road. There was not even any need to mention it in our recommendations.”

”If you say so, sir, I will defer to your better judgment. However, there is still the matter of the M.N.C.”

The Sociologist winced at the initials as Harlan knew he would. M.N.C.--Minitnum Necessary Change. There the Technician was master. A Sociologist might consider himself above criticism by lesser beings in anything involving the mathematical a.n.a.lysis of the infinite possible Realities in Time, but in matters of M.N.C. the Technician stood supreme.

Mechanical computing would not do. The largest Computaplex ever built, manned by the cleverest and most experienced Senior Computer ever born, could do no better than to indicate the ranges in which the M.N.C. might be found. It was then the Technician, glancing over the data, who decided on an exact point within that range. A good Technician was rarely wrong. A top Technician was never wrong.

Harlan was never wrong.

”Now the M.N.C. recommended,” said Harlan (he spoke coolly, evenly, p.r.o.nouncing the Standard Intertemporal Language in precise syllables), ”by your Section involves induction of an accident in s.p.a.ce and the immediate death by fairly horrible means of a dozen or more men.”

”Unavoidable,” said Voy, shrugging.

”On the other hand,” said Harlan, ”I suggest that the M.N.C. can be reduced to the mere displacement of a container from one shelf to another. Here!” His long finger pointed. His white, well-cared-for index nail made the faintest mark along one set of perforations.

Voy considered matters with a painful but silent intensity.

Harlan said, ”Doesn't that alter the situation with regard to your unconsidered fork? Doesn't it take advantage of the fork of lesser probability, changing it to near-certainty, and does that not then lead to----”

”--to virtually the M.D.R.” whispered Voy.

”To _exactly_ the Maximum Desired Response,” said Harlan.

Voy looked up, his dark face struggling somewhere between chagrin and anger. Harlan noted absently that there was a s.p.a.ce between the man's large upper incisors which gave him a rabbity look quite at odds with the restrained force of his words.

Voy said, ”I suppose I will be hearing from the Allwhen Council?”

”I don't think so. As far as I know, the Allwhen Council does not know of this. At least, the projected Reality Change was pa.s.sed over to me without comment.” He did not explain the word ”pa.s.sed,” nor did Voy question it.

”You discovered this error, then?”

”Yes.”

”And you did not report it to the Allwhen Council?”

”No, I did not.”

Relief first, then a hardening of countenance. ”Why not?”

”Very few people could have avoided this error. I felt I could correct it before damage was done. I have done so. Why go any further?”

”Well--thank you, Technician Harlan. You have been a friend. The Section's error which, as you say, was practically unavoidable, would have looked unjustifiably bad in the record.”

He went on after a moment's pause. ”Of course, in view of the alterations in personality to be induced by this Reality Change, the death of a few men as preliminary is of little importance.”

Harlan thought, detachedly: He doesn't sound really grateful. He probably resents it. If he stops to think, he'll resent it even more, this being saved a downstroke in rating by a Technician. If I were a Sociologist, he would shake my hand, but he won't shake the hand of a Technician. He defends condemning a dozen people to asphyxiation, but he won't touch a Technician.

And because waiting to let resentment grow would be fatal, Harlan said without waiting, ”I hope your grat.i.tude will extend to having your Section perform a slight ch.o.r.e for me.”

”A ch.o.r.e?”

”A matter of Life-Plotting. I have the data necessary here with me. I have also the data for a suggested Reality Change in the 482nd. I want to know the effect of the Change on the probability-pattern of a certain individual.”

”I am not quite sure,” said the Sociologist slowly, ”that I understand you. Surely you have the facilities for doing this in your own Section?”

”I have. Nevertheless, what I am engaged in is a personal research which I don't wish to appear in the records just yet. It would be difficult to have this carried out in my own Section without----” He gestured an uncertain conclusion to the unfinished sentence.

Voy said, ”Then you want this done _not_ through official channels.”

”I want it done confidentially. I want a confidential answer.”

”Well, now, that's very irregular. I can't agree to it.”

Harlan frowned. ”No more irregular than my failure to report your error to the Allwhen Council. You raised no objection to that. If we're going to be strictly regular in one case, we must be as strict and as regular in the other. You follow me, I think?”

The look on Voy's face was proof positive of that. He held out his hand. ”May I see the doc.u.ments?”

Harlan relaxed a bit. The main hurdle had been pa.s.sed. He watched eagerly as the Sociologist's head bent over the foils he had brought.

Only once did the Sociologist speak. ”By Time, this is a small Reality Change.”

Harlan seized his opportunity and improvised. ”It is. Too small, I think. It's what the argument is about. It's below critical difference, and I've picked an individual as a test case. Naturally, it would be undiplomatic to use our own Section's facilities until I was certain of being right.”

Voy was unresponsive and Harlan stopped. No use running this past the point of safety.

Voy stood up. ”I'll pa.s.s this along to one of my Life-Plotters. We'll keep this private. You understand, though, that this is not to be taken as establis.h.i.+ng a precedent.”

”Of course not.”

”And if you don't mind, I'd like to watch the Reality Change take place. I trust you will honor us by conducting the M.N.C. personally.”

Harlan nodded. ”I will take full responsibility.”

Two of the screens in the viewing chamber were in operation when they entered. The engineers had focused them already to the exact co-ordinates in s.p.a.ce and Time and then had left. Harlan and Voy were alone in the glittering room. (The molecular film arrangement was perceptible and even a bit more than perceptible, but Harlan was looking at the screens.) Both views were motionless. They might have been scenes of the dead, since they pictured mathematical instants of Time.

One view was in sharp, natural color; the engine room of what Harlan knew to be an experimental s.p.a.ce-s.h.i.+p. A door was closing, and a glistening shoe of a red, semi-transparent material was just visible through the s.p.a.ce that remained. It did not move. Nothing moved. If the picture could have been made sharp enough to picture the dust motes in the air, _they_ would not have moved.

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