They looked at me. The C-S nodded.
"It seems to me that you're both on the wrong track. You're searching
for a factor from the present. You ought to start in the future."
"How's that?"
"It's like if I said old maids were responsible for more clover. You'd
start investigating the old maids. You ought to start with the clover
and work backwards."
"Just what are you trying to say, Mr. Carmichael?"
"I'm talking about _a posteriori_ reasoning. Look, sir, a fella by the
name of Darwin was trying to explain the balance of nature. He wanted
to show the chain of cause and effect. He said in so many words that
the number of old maids in a town governed the growth of clover, but
if you want to find out how, you've got to work it out _a posteriori_;
from effect to cause. Like this: Only bumblebees can fertilize clover.
The more bumblebees, the more clover. Field mice attack bumblebee
nests, so the more field mice, the less clover. Cats attack mice. The
more cats, the more clover. Old maids keep cats. The more old maids ...
the more clover. Q. E. D."
"And now," Groating laughed, "construe."
"Seems to me you ought to start with the catastrophe and follow the
chain of causation, link by link, back to the source. Why not use the
Prognosticator backwards until you locate the moment when the snowball
first started rolling?"
There was a very long silence while they thought it over. The
controller looked slightly bewildered and he kept muttering:
Cats--clover--old maids--But I could see the C-S was really hit. He
went to the window and stood looking out, as motionless as a statue.
I remember staring past his square shoulder and watching the shadows
of the helios flicking noiselessly across the façade of the Judiciary
Building opposite us.
It was all so unreal--this frantic desperation over an event a thousand
years in the future; but that's Stability. It's strictly the long view.
Old Cyrus Brennerhaven of the _Morning Globe_ had a sign over his desk
that read: If you take care of the tomorrows, the todays will take care
of themselves.
Finally Groating said: "Mr. Carmichael, I think we'd better go back to
the Prog Building--"
Sure I felt proud. We left the office and went down the hall toward
the pneumatics and I kept thinking: "I've given an idea to the Chief
Stabilizer. He's taken a suggestion from _me_!" A couple of secretaries
had rushed down the hall ahead of us when they saw us come out, and
when we got to the tubes, three capsules were waiting for us. What's
more, the C-S and the controller stood around and waited for _me_
while I contacted my city editor and gave him the official release.
The editor was a little sore about my disappearance, but I had a
perfect alibi. I was still looking for Hogan. That, my friends, was
emphatically that.
* * * * *
At the Prog Building we hustled through the main offices and back up
the curved stairs. On the way the C-S said he didn't think we ought
to tell Yarr, the little old coot I'd hood-winked, the real truth. It
would be just as well, he said, to let Yarr go on thinking I was a
confidential secretary.
So we came again to that fantastic clockwork room with its myriad
whirling cams and the revolving crystal and the hypnotic _bam-bam_ of
the motors. Yarr met us at the door and escorted us to the viewing desk
with his peculiar absent-minded subservience. The room was darkened
again, and once more we watched the cloud of blackness seep across the
face of the Universe. The sight chilled me more than ever, now that I
knew what it meant.