"

Maria leaned forward, her dark eyes brilliant in their intensity. She
said, "Can't you see, Zalen, _that_ is why we are so concerned with your
possible assassination? We fear the whole of Earth is on the lip of a
nervous breakdown. Unless the grip of the computers is broken anything
might happen. And we're counting on you, with your fresh viewpoint and
prestige, to help us."

"I was hoping you might be concerned about _me_," said Lindsay softly.
"After all, I'm the one who is supposed to be killed." He watched a
sudden flush of embarrassment add charming brilliance to the vividness
of the Secretary General's daughter.

"Of course we're concerned," she said defensively. "We're not really
monsters, Zalen."

"What Maria means," said Anderson swiftly, "is that if the worst
_should_ happen it will go a long way toward making Earth entirely
computer-dependent, if du Fresne's prophecy is fulfilled a lot of people
who might go on fighting will simply give up."

"Just what is your stake in this, Senator?" Lindsay asked.

* * * * *

Anderson said, "I could give you a score of 'good' reasons, Zalen. But
my real reason is this--I'm damned if I want to see professional
politicians become rubber-stamps to a computer. When Sylac was first
used officially three decades ago, it looked as if it might be a help.
All we had to do was palm off all unpopular decisions on the machine.

"Elsac, however, has proved to be something else," he went on. "It is
making too damned many of our decisions for us--and thanks to our having
set Sylac up as a master-brain god we can't controvert its judgment.
When President Giovannini gets his new Giac computer working we might as
well shut up shop. And the announcement that Giac is in operation may
come at any time now."

Lindsay studied him, then said, "Your real complaint then, Fernando, is
that the computers deprive you of patronage and power."

"That's about it," said the senator from New Mexico. "We'll be reduced
to the level of the political commissars of the Soviet nations. The
scientists and symbolic logicians who feed and tend the computers will
actually be running the country. _And_ the world."

"And just where do I come into this?" Lindsay asked.

"You, Zalen, are the last representative of the last sizeable and
important human organism that is not dependent upon computer judgment,"
said Anderson. "That's our side of it. From your own side--if you