The End of Eternity - By Isaac Asimov Page 0,2

in a given field, it usually implies that a flat opinion in that field will follow almost immediately."

"No," said Harlan, "not an opinion. Just a request. I wonder if you won't look over this summary and see if you haven't made a small mistake somewhere here."

Voy looked instantly grave. "I hope not," he said.

Harlan kept one arm across the back of his chair, the other in his lap. He must let neither hand drum restless fingers. He must not bite his lips. He must not show his feelings in any way.

Ever since the whole orientation of his life had so changed itself, he had been watching the summaries of projected Reality Changes as they passed through the grinding administrative gears of the Allwhen Council. As Senior Computer Twissell's personally assigned Technician, he could arrange that by a slight bending of professional ethics. Particularly with Twissell's attention caught ever more tightly in his own overwhelming project. (Harlan's nostrils flared. He knew now a little of the nature of that project.)

Harlan had had no assurance that he would ever find what he was looking for in a reasonable time. When he had first glanced over projected Reality Change 2456-2781, Serial Number V-5, he was half inclined to believe his reasoning powers were warped by wishing. For a full day he had checked and rechecked equations and relationships in a rattling uncertainty, mixed with growing excitement and a bitter gratitude that he had been taught at least elementary psycho-mathematics.

Now Voy went over those same puncture patterns with a half-puzzled, half-worried eye.

He said, "It seems to me; I say, it seems to me that this is all perfectly in order."

Harlan said, "I refer you particularly to the matter of the courtship characteristics of the society of the current Reality of this Century. That's sociology and your responsibility, I believe. It's why I arranged to see you when I arrived, rather than someone else."

Voy was now frowning. He was still polite, but with an icy touch now. He said, "The Observers assigned to our Section are highly competent. I have every certainty that those assigned 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 courtship 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 identity. 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 analysis 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, pronouncing the Standard Intertemporal Language in precise syllables), "by your Section involves induction of an accident in space 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