made his look like one of the reconstructed models of prehistoric
birds called crows that Krayton had seen in museums.

"Of course, of course," said Krayton, answering the question. "It's
never necessary to use the _All_ circuit. But we could very easily in
case of a great emergency."

"The _All_ circuit? What is that?" Mr. Tanter asked.

Krayton gestured and led the little man down the long control bank.
Their steps made precise clicks on the layaplast floor. The stainless
steel walls threw back tinny echoes. The chromium molding glistened,
always pointing the way--the straight and mathematical way. They were in
the topmost section of the topmost building of Computer City. The
several hundred clean, solid, wedding-cake structures of the town could
be seen from the polaflex window.

"The _All_ circuit puts every machine in the city to work on any
selection-problem that's fed into our master control here. Each machine
will give its answer in its own special terms, but actually they will
all work on the same problem. To use a grossly simple example, let us
say we wish to know the results of two-and-two, but we wish to know it
in terms of _total security_. That is, we wish to know that two-plus-two
means twice as many nourishment units for the Department of Foods, twice
as many weapons for the Department of War, but is perhaps not
necessarily true according to the current situational adjustment in the
Department of Public Information.

"At any rate, we would set up our problem on the master, pushing the
button _Two_, then the button _Plus_, and the button _Two_ again as on a
primitive adding machine. Then we would merely throw the _All_ switch. A
short time later the total answer to our problem would be relayed back
from every computer, and the cross-comparison factors canceled out, so
that we would have the result in terms of the familiar _Verdict
Statement_. And, as everyone knows, the electronically filed _Verdict
Statements_ make the complete record of directives for the behavior of
our society."

"Very interesting," said Mr. Tanter, the little crow-like man. He
blinked rapidly, stared at the switch marked _All_ that Krayton was
pointing out to him.

Krayton now folded his hands in front of his official gold-and-black
tunic, looked up into the air and rocked gently back and forth on his
heels as he talked. He was really talking to himself now although he
seemed to address Tanter. "You can see that the Computer