Groating sobered. He said: "Up until today, Mr. Carmichael, we have
not been able to integrate closer to the present than a week in the
future--or deeper into the future than a few hundred years. Wiggon's
new data technique has enabled us to push to the end of our existence,
and it is perilously close. You saw the obliteration of our Universe
take place less than a thousand years from now. This is something we
must prevent at once."
"Why all the excitement? Surely something will happen during the next
ten centuries to avoid it."
"What will happen?" Groating shook his head. "I don't think you
understand our problem. On the one hand you have the theory of our
society. Stability. You yourself have quoted the Credo. A society which
must maintain its Stability at the price of instability is Chaos. Keep
that in mind. On the other hand we cannot wait while our existence
progresses rapidly toward extinction. The closer it draws to that
point, the more violent the change will have to be to alter it.
"Think of the progress of a snowball that starts at the top of a
mountain and rolls down the slopes, growing in bulk until it smashes an
entire house at the bottom. The mere push of a finger is sufficient to
alter its future when it starts--a push of a finger will save a house.
But if you wait until the snowball gathers momentum you will need
violent efforts to throw the tons of snow off the course."
I said: "Those pictures I saw were the snowball hitting our house. You
want to start pushing the finger now--"
Groating nodded. "Our problem now is to sift the billions of factors
stored in the Prog Building and discover which of them is that tiny
snowball."
* * * * *
The controller, who had been silent in a state of wild suppression
all the while, suddenly spoke up. "I tell you it's impossible, Mr.
Groating. How can you dig the one significant factor out of all those
billions?"