Arnold paused over his notes for the merest instant. "Why--it's progressive, of course. _That_ you won't notice!"
Beardsley stared at him curiously, started to speak and then changed his mind. He wandered again, watching the techs but not interfering. And suddenly he was aware that the first total reject had come. It happened with smooth and sudden silence just as Arnold had described, ECAIAC breaking pace for mere seconds ... then all was clear again, and one of the techs hurried down the aisle with the tape, which he handed to Arnold.
Beardsley was aware of a wild pounding of pulse as he stared at the anonymous tape. One of the fifteen "possibles"? It might even be a rejected Logical. Mrs. Carmack? She was borderline. Or a Prime! It could be Mandleco himself--or Losch or Pederson. No ... it was unlikely any Primes would fall this early....
But maybe they were no longer Primes! Maybe _right now_ Transferral Impress was at work, maybe one or more of them was being relegated to lower coördinate-status somewhere there in the entrails....
He felt a bounding excitement. And, as if reading his thoughts, Jeff Arnold gave him an amused look.
"Don't let it get to you, Raoul. I used to find it the same; we all do. But then you get to thinking, hell, why try to guess? Identities don't matter now!" He indicated the coded tape. "A total reject--anonymous. ECAIAC's way of telling us _that_ person could not possibly be the murderer."
"At rejects? Why?" Arnold seemed perplexed. "Oh, you mean because _I'm_ among the 'possibles.' Frankly it doesn't bother me. I know I'm not the murderer, and I have faith in ECAIAC. If this isn't my tape, the next will be--or the eighth, or the fifteenth."
Beardsley nodded slowly. With ECAIAC it was only the final equate that mattered, the total result of Cumulative. He saw the truth in that, and the perfection. Or--his eyes beneath the glasses came to a quick bright focus--_was_ it quite perfection? He watched in silence as Arnold consulted the micro-chron and jotted more notes. _Rej. Q-9 (code): (.008 synap. circ.): 11:23 A.M._
Beardsley wandered again, watching the techs. A sudden shivering seized him. How could they remain so calm? Were they so close to the forest they couldn't notice? Something was about to happen ... to him it was unmistakable, in the very atmosphere, sharpened and heightened by the four walls--a pervading sense of _wrongness_ and a pyramiding tension.