He struggled to evaluate and file the data as
rapidly as it came to him. It seemed to exceed his capacity for
instantaneous evaluation to an increasing degree that began to alarm
him. But driven by curiosity as he was, he could only hurry on.

He burst into a huge room, a room filled with roaring, rattling sounds
that meant nothing to him.

Two men stood before him, making loud noises. He searched his memory,
and discovered only fragments of the sounds they made filed there. His
curiosity, bursting, was boundless, and for a moment he was unable to
decide which thing in this expanding universe to pursue first.
Attracted by their movement, he swung ominously toward the men.

They fled, making more noises. This, too, was data, and he filed it.

* * * * *

When Sokolski pressed the red emergency button on his way out of the
control room, several things commenced. Shrill sirens howled the
length and breadth of the plant. Warning bells clanged out coded
signals. A recorded voice blurted out of a thousand loudspeakers
scattered throughout the building.

"Now hear this," said the tireless voice, over and over again. "Now
hear this. Red red red. Pile trouble. Reactor A. Procedure One
commence."

Sokolski had certainly never pressed the red button before, and to his
knowledge neither had any of his or Gaines' predecessors. It was the
kind of button that, rightfully, ought never to be pressed. The laws
of things in general sort of made it a comfort without much value.
Pile trouble calling for the red button should really have eliminated
the red button and much surrounding territory long before it got
pushed--or at least the sort of pile trouble its builders had in mind.
Nonetheless, they had provided it and the elaborate evacuation
operation so cryptically described as Procedure One as a kind of
psychological sop to the plant personnel.

But the red button did more than activate Procedure One, which was
solely concerned with the plant. After all, power from the reactors
was lighting the lights and cooking the breakfasts and flushing the
toilets of untold millions scattered in half a dozen major cities. If
there were some imminent possibility that the major source of their
power might cease to exist rather suddenly, it was proper that they
should be notified of this eventuality as much in advance as possible.
Consequently the activation of the red button and the commencement of
Procedure On