"That's what I thought." Reinhart waved his hand impatiently. "All
right, Elliot. Thanks for turning the information over to us. That's
all."
Security police led Elliot outside the office.
Reinhart and Dixon looked at each other. "This is bad," Reinhart said
harshly. "He has some ability, some kind of mechanical ability.
Genius, perhaps, to do a thing like this. Look at the period he came
from, Dixon. The early part of the twentieth century. Before the wars
began. That was a unique period. There was a certain vitality, a
certain ability. It was a period of incredible growth and discovery.
Edison. Pasteur. Burbank. The Wright brothers. Inventions and
machines. People had an uncanny ability with machines. A kind of
intuition about machines--which we don't have."
"You mean--"
"I mean a person like this coming into our own time is bad in itself,
war or no war. He's too different. He's oriented along different
lines. He has abilities we lack. This fixing skill of his. It throws
us off, out of kilter. And with the war....
"Now I'm beginning to understand why the SRB machines couldn't factor
him. It's impossible for us to understand this kind of person. Winslow
says he asked for work, any kind of work. The man said he could do
anything, fix anything. Do you understand what that means?"
"No," Dixon said. "What does it mean?"
"Can any of us fix anything? No. None of us can do that. We're
specialized. Each of us has his own line, his own work. I understand
my work, you understand yours. The tendency in evolution is toward
greater and greater specialization. Man's society is an ecology that
forces adaptation to it. Continual complexity makes it impossible for
any of us to know anything outside our own personal field--I can't
follow the work of the man sitting at the next desk over from me. Too
much knowledge has piled up in each field. And there's too many
fields.
"This man is different. He can fix anything, do anything. He doesn't
work with knowledge, with science--the classified accumulation of
facts. He _knows_ nothing. It's not in his head, a form of learning.
He works by intuition--his power is in his hands, not his head.
Jack-of-all-trades. His hands! Like a painter, an artist. In his
hands--and he cuts across our lives like a knife-blade."
"And the other problem?"
"The other problem is that this man, this variable man, has escaped
into the Albertine Mountain range. Now we'll have one hell of a time
finding him. He's clever--in a strange kind of way. Like some sort of
animal. He's going to be hard to catch."
Reinhart sent Dixon out. After a moment he gathered up the handful of
reports on his desk and carried them up to the SRB room. The SRB room
was closed up, sealed off by a ring of armed Security police. Standing
angrily before the ring of police was Peter Sherikov, his beard
waggling angrily, his immense hands on his hips.
"What's going on?" Sherikov demanded. "Why can't I go in and peep at
the odds?"
"Sorry." Reinhart cleared the police aside. "Come inside with me. I'll
explain." The doors opened for them and they entered. Behind them the
doors shut and the ring of police formed outside. "What brings you
away from your lab?" Reinhart asked.
Sherikov shrugged. "Several things. I wanted to see you. I called you
on the vidphone and they said you weren't available. I thought maybe
something had happened. What's up?"
"I'll tell you in a few minutes." Reinhart called Kaplan over. "Here
are some new items. Feed them in right away. I want to see if the
machines can total them."
"Certainly, Commissioner." Kaplan took the message plates and placed
them on an intake belt. The machines hummed into life.
"We'll know soon," Reinhart said, half aloud.
Sherikov shot him a keen glance. "We'll know what? Let me in on it.
What's taking place?"
"We're in trouble. For twenty-four hours the machines haven't given
any reading at all. Nothing but a blank. A total blank."
Sherikov's features registered disbelief. "But that isn't possible.
_Some_ odds exist at all times."
"The odds exist, but the machines aren't able to calculate them."
"Why not?"
"Because a variable factor has been introduced. A factor which the
machines can't handle. They can't make any predictions from it."
"Can't they reject it?" Sherikov said slyly. "Can't they just--just
_ignore_ it?"
"No. It exists, as real data. Therefore it affects the balance of the
material, the sum total of all other available data. To reject it
would be to give a false reading. The machines can't reject any data
that's known to be true."
Sherikov pulled moodily at his black beard. "I would be interested in
knowing what sort of factor the machines can't handle. I thought they
could take in all data pertaining to contemporary reality."
"They can. This factor has nothing to do with contemporary reality.
That's the trouble. Histo-research in bringing its time bubble back
from the past got overzealous and cut the circuit too quickly. The
bubble came back loaded--with a man from the twentieth century. A man
from the past."
"I see. A man from two centuries ago." The big Pole frowned. "And with
a radically different Weltanschauung. No connection with our present
society. Not integrated along our lines at all. Therefore the SRB
machines are perplexed."
Reinhart grinned. "Perplexed? I suppose so. In any case, they can't do
anything with the data about this man. The variable man. No statistics
at all have been thrown up--no predictions have been made. And it
knocks everything else out of phase. We're dependent on the constant
showing of these odds. The whole war effort is geared around them."
"The horse-shoe nail. Remember the old poem? 'For want of a nail the
shoe was lost. For want of the shoe the horse was lost. For want of
the horse the rider was lost. For want--'"
"Exactly. A single factor coming along like this, one single
individual, can throw everything off. It doesn't seem possible that
one person could knock an entire society out of balance--but
apparently it is."
"What are you doing about this man?"
"The Security police are organized in a mass search for him."
"Results?"
"He escaped into the Albertine Mountain Range last night. It'll be
hard to find him. We must expect him to be loose for another
forty-eight hours. It'll take that long for us to arrange the
annihilation of the range area. Perhaps a trifle longer. And
meanwhile--"
"Ready, Commissioner," Kaplan interrupted. "The new totals."
The SRB machines had finished factoring the new data. Reinhart and
Sherikov hurried to take their places before the view windows.
For a moment nothing happened. Then odds were put up, locking in
place.