She looked uneasy. "I hadn't bought it, no. Perhaps I'm not so sure
now--you must have some reason for bringing up the matter here. But
several things wouldn't make sense. If...."
Dr. Lowry interrupted again. "Here's one question, Weldon. If there did
happen to be a rogue telepath around, what interest would he have in
sabotaging the colonization program?"
Weldon blew two perfect smoke rings, regarded their ascent with an air
of judicious approval. "After you've heard a little more you should be
able to answer that question yourself," he said. "It was precisely the
problems connected with the program that put us on the rogue's trail.
We didn't realize it at the time. Fourteen years ago.... Have you had
occasion to work with DEDCOM, Ben?"
Lowry made a snorting sound. "I've had a number of occasions ... and
made a point of passing them up! If the government is now basing its
conclusions on the fantastically unrealistic mishmash of suggestions
it's likely to get from a deducting computer...."
"Well," Ferris Weldon said deprecatingly, "the government doesn't trust
DEDCOM too far, of course. Still, the fact that it is strictly logical,
encyclopedically informed and not hampered by common sense has produced
surprisingly useful results from time to time.
"Now don't get indignant again, Ben! I assure you I'm not being
facetious. The fact is that sixteen years ago the charge that
interplanetary colonization was being sabotaged was frequently enough
raised. It had that appearance from the outside. Whatever could
go wrong had gone wrong. There'd been an unbelievable amount of
blundering."
* * * * *
"Nevertheless, all the available evidence indicated that no organized
sabotage was involved. There was plenty of voluble opposition to the
program, sometimes selfish, sometimes sincere. There were multiple
incidents of forgetfulness, bad timing, simple stupidity. After years
of false starts, the thing still appeared bogged down in a nightmare
of--in the main--honest errors. But expensive ones. The month-by-month
cost of continuing reached ridiculous proportions. Then came disasters
which wiped out lives by the hundreds. The program's staunchest
supporters began to get dubious, to change their minds.
"I couldn't say at the moment which genius in the Department of Special
Activities had the notion to feed the colonization problem to DEDCOM.
Anyway, it was done, and DEDCOM, after due checking and rumination, not
only stated decisively that it _was_ a matter of sabotage, after
all; it further provided us with a remarkably detailed description of
the saboteur...."