the seconds ticked off with agonizing slowness. at the moment of zero the workers were galvanized into quick action. it was impossible to follow their motions or understand them, but you could see by the smooth timing and interplay that they were beautifully rehearsed. there was tragedy in those efforts for us who already knew the outcome.
as quickly as they had begun, the workers stopped and peered upward through the crystal dome. far beyond them, crisp in the velvet blackness, that star gleamed, and as they watched, it winked out.
they started and exclaimed, pointing. the graybeard cried:
"it's impossible!"
"what is it, sir?"
"i—"
and in that moment blackness enveloped the scene.
i said: "hold it—"
yarr brought up the lights and the others turned to look at me. i thought for a while, idly watching the shimmering cams and cogs around me. then i said: "it's a good start. the reason i imagine you gentlemen have been slightly bewildered up to now is that you're busy men with no time for foolishness. now i'm not so busy and very foolish, so i read detective stories. this is going to be kind of backward detective story."
"all right," groating said. "go ahead."
"we've got a few clues. first, the universe has ended through an attempt to pervade it with energy from hyperspace. second, the attempt failed for a number of reasons which we can't discover yet. third, the attempt was made in secrecy. why?"
the controller said: "why not? scientists and all that—"
"i don't mean that kind of secrecy. these men were plainly outside the law, carrying on an illicit experiment. we must find out why energy experiments or atomic experiments were illegal. that will carry us back quite a few decades toward the present."
"but how?"
"why, we trace the auxiliary cruiser, of course. if we can pick them up when they're purchasing supplies, we'll narrow our backward search considerably. can you do it, dr. yarr?"
"it'll take time."
"go ahead—we've got a thousand years."
it took exactly two days. in that time i learned a lot about the prognosticator. they had it worked out beautifully. seems the future is made up solely of probabilities. the integrator could push down any one of these possible avenues, but with a wonderful check. the less probable the avenue of future was, the more off-focus it was. if a future event was only remotely possible, it was pictured as a blurred series of actions. on the other hand, the future that was almost-positive in the light of present data, was sharply in focus.
when we went back to the prog building two days later, yarr was almost alive in his excitement. he said: "i really think i've got just the thing you're looking for."
"what's that?"
"i've picked up an actual moment of bribery. it has additional data that should put us directly on the track."
we sat down behind the desk with yarr at the controls. he had a slip of paper in his hand which he consulted with much muttering as he adjusted co-ordinates. once more we saw the preliminary off-focus shadows, then the sound blooped on like a hundred stereo records playing at once. the crystal sharpened abruptly into focus.
the scream and roar of a gigantic foundry blasted our ears. on both sides of the scene towered the steel girder columns of the foundry walls, stretching deep into the background like the grim pillars of a satanic cathedral. overhead cranes carried enormous blocks of metal with a ponderous gait. smoke—black, white and fitfully flared with crimson from the furnaces, whirled around the tiny figures.
two men stood before a gigantic casting. one, a foundryman in soiled overalls, made quick measurements which he called off to the other carefully checking a blueprint. over the roar of the foundry the dialogue was curt and sharp:
"one hundred three point seven."
"check."
"short axis. fifty-two point five."
"check."
"tangent on ovate diameter. three degrees point oh five two."
"check."
"what specifications for outer convolutions?"
"y equals cosine x."
"then that equation resolves to x equals minus one half pi."
"check."
the foundryman climbed down from the casting, folding his three-way gauge. he mopped his face with a bit of waste and eyed the engineer curiously as the latter carefully rolled up the blueprint and slid it into a tube of other rolled sheets. the foundryman said: "i think we did a nice job."
the engineer nodded.
"only what in blazes do you want it for. never saw a casting like that."
"i could explain, but you wouldn't understand. too complicated."
the foundryman flushed. he said: "you theoretical guys are too damned snotty. just because i know how to drop-forge doesn't mean i can't understand an equation."
"mebbeso. let it go at that. i'm ready to ship this casting out at once."
as the engineer turned to leave, rapping the rolled blueprints nervously against his calf, a great pig of iron that had been sailing up from the background swung dangerously toward his head. the foundryman cried out. he leaped forward, seized the engineer by the shoulder and sent him tumbling to the concrete floor. the blueprints went flying.
he pulled the engineer to his feet immediately and tried to straighten the dazed man who could only stare at the tons of iron that sailed serenely on. the foundryman picked up the scattered sheets and started to sort them. abruptly he stopped and examined one of the pages closely. he began to look through the others, but before he could go any further, the blueprints were snatched from his hands.
he said: "what's this casting for?"
the engineer rolled the sheets together with quick, intense motions. he said: "none of your blasted business."
"i think i know. that's one-quarter a cyclotron. you're getting the other parts made up in different foundries, aren't you?"
there was no answer.
"maybe you've forgotten stabilization rule 930."
"i haven't forgotten. you're crazy."
"want me to call for official inspection?"
the engineer took a breath, then shrugged. he said: "i suppose the only way to convince you is to show you the master drafts. come on—"
they left the foundry and trudged across the broad concrete of a landing field to where the fat needle of the auxiliary ship lay. they mounted the ramp to the side port and entered the ship. inside, the engineer called: "it's happened again, boys. let's go!"
the port swung shut behind them. spacemen drifted up from the surrounding corridors and rooms. they were rangy and tough-looking and the sub-nosed paralyzers glinted casually in their hands as though they'd been cleaning them and merely happened to bring them along. the foundryman looked around for a long time. at last he said: "so it's this way?"
"yes, it's this way. sorry."
"i'd like you to meet some of my friends, some day—"
"perhaps we will."
"they'll have an easier time with you than you're gonna have with me!" he clenched fists and poised himself to spring.
the engineer said: "hey—wait a minute. don't lose your head. you did me a good turn back there. i'd like to return the favor. i've got more credit than i know what to do with."
the foundryman gave him a perplexed glance. he relaxed and began to rub his chin dubiously.
he said: "damn if this isn't a sociable ship. i feel friendlier already—"
the engineer grinned.
i called: "o.k., that's enough. cut it," and the scene vanished.
"well?" yarr asked eagerly.
i said: "we're really in the groove now. let's check back and locate the stabilization debates on rule 930." i turned to the c-s. "what's the latest rule number, sir?"
groating said: "seven fifteen."
the controller had already been figuring. he said: "figuring the same law-production rate that would put rule 930 about six hundred years from now. is that right, mr. groating?"
the old man nodded and yarr went back to his keyboard. i'm not going to bother you with what we all went through because a lot of it was very dull. for the benefit of the hermit from the moon i'll just mention that we hung around the stability library until we located the year s. r. 930 was passed. then we shifted to stability headquarters and quick-timed through from january 1st until we picked up the debates on the rule.
the reasons for the rule were slightly bewildering on the one hand, and quite understandable on the other. it seems that in the one hundred and fifty years preceding, almost every earth-wide university had been blown up in the course of an atomic-energy experiment. the blow-ups were bewildering—the rule understandable. i'd like to tell you about that debate because—well, because things happened that touched me.
the integrator selected a cool, smooth foyer in the administration building at washington. it had a marble floor like milky ice flecked with gold. one side was broken by a vast square window studded with a thousand round-bottle panes that refracted the afternoon sunlight into showers of warm color. in the background were two enormous doors of synthetic oak. before those doors stood a couple in earnest conversation—a nice-looking boy with a portfolio under his arm, and a stunning girl. the kind with sleek-shingled head and one of those clean-cut faces that look fresh and wind-washed.
the controller said: "why, that's the foyer to the seminar room. they haven't changed it at all in six hundred years."
groating said: "stability!" and chuckled.
yarr said: "the debate is going on inside. i'll shift scene—"
"no—wait," i said. "let's watch this for a while." i don't know why i wanted to—except that the girl made my pulse run a little faster and i felt like looking at her for a couple of years.
she was half crying. she said: "then, if for no other reason—for my sake."
"for yours!" the boy looked harassed.
