rowd was too shocked to feel the triumph it had come for, but
Hart could not share their horror. Burnett eyed him. "Better look
indignant," he said. "They'll be out for blood. Somebody must have
sabotaged the setup."

"Catch the culprits!" he shouted, joining the crowd around him. "Stop
anti-social acts!"

"Stop anti-social acts!" roared Burnett; and, in a whisper: "Hart,
let's get out of here."

As they pushed their way through the milling crowd, a loudspeaker boomed
out: "Return home in peace. The instincts of the people are good. Healthy
destruction forever! The criminals will be tracked down ... if they
exist."

"A terrible thing, friend," a woman said to them.

"Terrible, friend," Burnett agreed. "Smash the anti-social elements
without mercy!"

Three children were clustered together, crying. "I wanted to set the
right example for them," said the father to anyone who would listen.
"They'll _never_ get over this!"

Hart tried to console them. "Next week is High Holy Day," he said, but
the bawling only increased.

The two men finally reached a side avenue where the crowd was thinner.
"Come with me," Burnett ordered, "I want you to meet some people."

* * * * *

He sounded as if he were instituting military discipline but Hart,
still dazed, willingly followed. "It wasn't such a terrible thing," he
said, listening to the distant uproar. "Why don't they shut up!"

"They will--eventually." Burnett marched straight ahead and looked
fixedly in the same direction.

"The thing could have gobbled up the city if there hadn't been a
second slagger!" said a lone passerby.

"Nonsense," Burnett muttered under his breath. "You know that, Hart.
Any self-regulating mechanism reaches a check limit sooner than that."

"It has to."

They turned into a large building and went up to the fiftieth floor.
"My apartment," said Burnett as he opened the door.

There were about fifteen people in the large living room. They rose,
smiling, to greet their host. "Let's save the self-congratulations for
later," snapped Burnett. "These were merely our own preliminaries.
We're not out of the woods yet. This, ladies and gentlemen, is our
newest recruit. He has seen the light. I have fed him basic data and
I'm sure we're not making a mistake with him."

Hart was about to demand what was going on when a short man with eyes
as intense as Burnett's proposed a toast to "the fiasco in the Plaza."
Everyone j