That time I had argued with Starza about standards, nine years ago. And
I had resigned. And Starza sent me to Psych.
Good old Carmody.
There never would be a white marble villa on Venus. It was a harmless
dream, a substitute for what I had lost. But it didn't matter! Those
superimposed patterns had been removed, that thoughtcaster had crippled
my thinking, but, by Heaven, I was still an Amalgamated man! They
couldn't take that away.
But Starza had been wrong about Carmody.
Nothing definite. But when you dedicate your life into extrapolating
curves, frozen chunks of time and motion, into the thunder of jets
lifting Amalgamated ships from Terminorb, your mind becomes a very
efficient analogue computor, if you know how to use. I used it now. I
fed little things, facts, variables, into that computor, and it told me
three times. Probability: sixty percent at least.
I got up, dressed stiffly. I was trembling. I could still serve, after
all.
I took the lift up to Administration, and walked down that long gray
corridor on leaden feet towards the illuminated rectangle of Starza's
office.