satisfaction; by decreasing the percentage of variability he had narrowed the question significantly.
In moments MIRA came back with its findings. The message read: Zero comparison. Spence frowned again. There were apparently no great similarities or differences in any of the scans – beyond the normal range of his individual sleep pattern.
With a sigh he kicked back his chair. This kind of blind fumbling was useless. Unless he knew what he hoped to discover, no amount of random searching would help. 'Thank you, MIRA. That is all for…'
He stopped in mid-sentence. It occurred to him that he had not compared all of the scans, only those from the fifteenth to the eighteenth-the two dates encompassing his blackouts.
'MIRA, compare all PSG LTST Seven Series entries. Display entries with similarities of less than one percent variability.'
There was a slight hesitation; the wafer screen went blank. He imagined he could hear the chips crackling with speeding electrons as MIRA wracked her magnetic memory.
Spence sat on the edge of his chair and watched the clock tick away the seconds. Any moment Tickler would come walking in. Hurry! Spence muttered. Hurry!
Then the words appeared. He read the message as it came up: PSG LTST Seven Series entries with less than 1% variability = 3/20 and 5/15.
Jackpot! Spence jumped out of his chair and stared at the screen in disbelief. There it was; an anomaly too large to exist, its very presence an impossibility. If he had discovered it any other way he would have chalked it up to a computer glitch. But he had a strong suspicion that it was no glitch. He had uncovered a vital bit of information-stumbled blindly over it, more like-but there, spelled out in fluorescent orange, was the evidence.
He picked up the yellow log book and paged through to the entry of 3/20. He pulled the sheet and placed it next to the entry of 5/15. They were not at all similar. Each entry in Tickler's neat, precise hand was slightly different-not enough to vary a great deal, but enough for Spence to see that they were both unique.
Apparently, MIRA had glitched after all. There was no similarity between the two scans.
Spence heard the swoosh of the panel opening and Tickler's quick footsteps entering the lab. He said, 'That is all, MIRA. Thank you.'
'Good evening, Dr. Reston.'
'Good evening, Tickler.' Spence turned and forced what he hoped was a casual smile.
'Are we ready to begin our session?' Tickler's small, weasel eyes glanced from Spence to the wafer screen above the terminal.
'Oh, I meant to tell you about that. I am canceling the session this evening.' Spence surprised himself with that announcement.
'I don't understand, sir. I've prepared everything-we're all ready. If you-'
'Never mind. It can wait. I have something else for you to do tonight. You and Kurt, that is. I want you to run averages for the last two weeks. I think a curve may emerge that we may want to explore. That should take you most of the session, I think.'
'But-pardon my asking-what are you going to do?'
Spence could see that Tickler was upset. The inflexible little man did not bend easily to the unexpected.
'I'm going to a function at the director's suite. I imagine it will be rather late when I get back; so when you finish you can go. I will expect to see you tomorrow first shift.' Spence turned to leave. Tickler's jaw pumped the air in silence. 'Yes? Was there something else?'
Tickler shook his head. He had recovered himself. 'No, I imagine we can handle it from here,' he snapped.
'Good night, then,' said Spence, stepping from the booth. He smiled a devious smile to himself as he crossed the lab to his quarters. A quick change and he would still make the party in plenty of time.
11
… SPENCE DONNED A CLEAN, informal, nonregulation jumpsuit and struck off for the director's quarters. He was pleased with himself for remembering the party at the last second-it was perfect. He wanted to get away from the lab and out of Tickler's presence to think about his discovery. What exactly, if anything, did it mean?
At the time it had seemed electrifyingly significant. Now, as he hurried along the crowded trafficways of Gotham flowing with the changing shifts, his startling revelation seemed a little on the trivial side. There were at least a dozen different ways of accounting for the match up of the two entries. Spence ticked them off one by one as he dodged and elbowed his way to the Zandersons'.
By the time he arrived at the buff-colored portal he had convinced himself that his discovery lacked any real bones. It would never stand up. There had to be more, something else that would tell him what this bare shred of fact meant. What that something was he had no idea.
'Spencer! I'm so glad to see you. Come in!' Ari beamed at him over the threshold as the panel slid open. Spence shook himself out of his reverie and returned her smile.
'I hope I'm not too late.' She drew him into the room which was humming with the conversation of the guests. Several turned to regard the newcomer with frank, disapproving glances; most ignored his entrance.
'I think some of your guests are sorry I bothered to show up at all.'
'Nonsense, silly. You just haven't been properly introduced. Come along. Daddy will want to do the honors.'
Ari steered him into the gathering and around conversational cliques to where her father held forth at a buffet, urging tiny sandwiches on doubtful patrons. He was surrounded by women-the wives of faculty and fellows, decided Spence-who tittered politely at his jokes while they picked among the delicacies offered on the board.
'Daddy, look who's here.' Ari took her father's arm and expertly wheeled him around to face Spence. 'Dr. Reston! Good of you to come.'
'Kind of you to invite me.'
'Here, get yourself a plate and dig in. The rumaki is delicious.' 'Thank you, maybe a little later, I-'
'Daddy, I told Spencer that you would introduce him to some of the others. Won't you, please?'
'Oh, of course. I'd be delighted to. Look-there's Olmstead Packer, head of High Energy. Come along. Who's that with him? Another new face, I believe.' Director Zanderson piloted them both forcefully ahead through the standing clusters of socializers. Spence bobbed along in his wake. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ari disappear into a knot of partygoers with a plate of hors d'oeuvres. He abandoned himself to his immediate fate.
'Tell me, Dr. Reston, have you thought any further about the research trip?'
'Why, yes. I've considered it-'
'I'm not pressing, not pressing. Oh, here we are. Gentlemen!' The director broke in on the two men, clapping a hand on a shoulder of each. 'I'd like you to meet Dr. Reston, BioPsych.'
Before any further introductions could take place, the man previously identified as Packer thrust out a hand and said, 'Glad to meet you. I'm Olmstead Packer and this is my colleague Adjani Rajwandhi.'
'I'll leave you gentlemen to become better acquainted. Don't forget to go by the buffet, now. Don't be bashful.' The director left Spence in the care of his new acquaintances and plunged back into the swirl.
Olmstead Packer laughed heartily and said, 'There goes a dynamo! A roly-poly dynamo. Why, if we could harness that energy-just think!'
'These HiEn bookworms!' remarked Rajwandhi. 'They cannot stand to see anything without an outlet in it. They think all the world is a power grid.'
'Not true, Adjani. Not true at all. The universe is one big reactor, and we're all subatomic particles bounding around in our random orbits.' Packer smiled broadly.
Spence took to the big, red-bearded cherub immediately. With his kinky red hair that looked like rusty steel wool and his droopy-lidded brown eyes he appeared an almost comic figure always on the verge of laughing out loud.
Adjani, on the other hand, was a slight mongoose of a man who looked at the world through keen eyes, bright
