I said: "Seems hopeless to check FitzJohn back second by second. At that rate we might just as well go through all the names on the list."

"What else is there to do?"

I said: "Look, the Prognosticator flirted twice with something interesting when we were conning FitzJohn's career. It was something mentioned all through the future, too."

"I don't recall—" the C-S began.

"It was a lecture, sir," I explained. "FitzJohn's first big lecture when he set out to refute criticism. I think we ought to pick that up and go through it with a fine comb. Something is bound to come out of it."

"Very well."

Images blurred across the spinning crystal as Yarr hunted for the scene. I caught fuzzy fragments of a demolished Manhattan City with giant crablike creatures mashing helpless humans, their scarlet chiton glittering. Then an even blurrier series of images. A city of a single stupendous building towering like Babel into the heavens; a catastrophic fire roaring along the Atlantic seaboard; then a sylvan civilization of odd, naked creatures flitting from one giant flower to another. But they were all so far off focus they made my eyes ache. The sound was even worse.

Groating leaned toward me and whispered: "Merely vague possibilities—"

I nodded and then riveted my attention to the crystal, for it held a clear scene. Before us lay an amphitheater. It was modeled on the ancient Greek form, a horseshoe of gleaming white-stone terraces descending to a small square white rostrum. Behind the rostrum and surrounding the uppermost tiers of seats was a simple colonnade. The lovely and yet noble dignity was impressive.

The controller said: "Hel-lo, I don't recognize this."

"Plans are in the architectural offices," Groating said. "It isn't due for construction for another thirty years. We intend placing it at the north end of Central Park—"

It was difficult to hear them. The room was filled with the bellow and roar of shouting from the amphitheater. It was packed from pit to gallery with quick-jerking figures. They climbed across the terraces; they fought up and down the broad aisles; they stood on their seats and waved. Most of all they opened their mouths into gaping black blots and shouted. The hoarse sound rolled like slow, thunderous waves, and there was a faint rhythm struggling to emerge from the chaos.

A figure appeared from behind the columns, walked calmly up to the platform and began arranging cards on the small table. It was FitzJohn, icy and self-possessed, statuesque in his white tunic. He stood alongside the table, carefully sorting his notes, utterly oblivious of the redoubled roar that went up at his appearance. Out of that turmoil came the accented beats of a doggerel rhyme:

Neon
Crypton
Ammoniated
FitzJohn
Neon
Crypton
Ammoniated
FitzJohn

When he was finished, FitzJohn straightened and, resting the fingertips of his right hand lightly on top of the table, he gazed out at the rioting—un-smiling, motionless. The pandemonium was reaching unprecedented heights. As the chanting continued, costumed figures appeared on the terrace tops and began fighting down the aisles toward the platform. There were men wearing metal-tubed frame-works representing geometric figures. Cubes, spheres, rhomboids and tesseracts. They hopped and danced outlandishly.

Two young boys began unreeling a long streamer from a drum concealed behind the colonnade. It was of white silk and an endless equation was printed on it that read:

eia = 1 + ia - a2! + a3! - a4!...

and so on, yard after yard after yard. It didn't exactly make sense, but I understood it to be some kind of cutting reference to FitzJohn's equations.

There were hundreds of others, some surprising and many obscure. Lithe contortionists, made up to represent Möbius Strips, grasped ankles with their hands and went rolling down the aisles. A dozen girls appeared from nowhere, clad only in black net representing giant Aleph-Nulls, and began an elaborate ballet. Great gas-filled balloons, shaped into weird topological manifolds were dragged in and bounced around.

It was utter insanity and utterly degrading to see how these mad college kids were turning FitzJohn's lecture into a Mardi Gras. They were college kids, of course, crazy youngsters who probably couldn't explain the binomial theorem, but nevertheless were giving their own form of expression to their teachers' antagonism to FitzJohn. I thought vaguely of the days centuries back when a thousand Harvard undergraduates did a very similar thing when Oscar Wilde came to lecture. Undergraduates whose entire reading probably consisted of the Police Gazette.

And all the while they danced and shouted and screamed, FitzJohn stood motionless, fingertips just touching the table, waiting for them to finish. You began with an admiration for his composure. Then suddenly you realized what a breathtaking performance was going on. You glued your eyes to the motionless figure and waited for it to move—and it never did.

What?

You don't think that was so terrific, eh? Well, one of you get up and try it. Stand alongside a table and rest your fingertips lightly on the top—not firmly enough to bear the weight of your arm—but just enough to make contact. Maybe it sounds simple. Just go ahead and try it. I'll bet every credit I ever own no one of you can stand there without moving for sixty seconds. Any takers? I thought not. You begin to get the idea, eh?

They began to get the same idea in the amphitheater. At first the excitement died down out of shame. There's not much fun making a holy show of yourself if your audience doesn't react. They started it up again purely out of defiance, but it didn't last long. The chanting died away, the dancers stopped cavorting, and at last that entire audience of thousands stood silent, uneasily watching FitzJohn. He never moved a muscle.

After what seemed like hours of trying to outstare him, the kids suddenly gave in. Spatters of applause broke out across the terraces. The clapping was taken up and it rose to a thunder of beating palms. No one is as quick to appreciate a great performance as a youngster. These kids sat down in their seats and applauded like mad. FitzJohn never moved until the applause, too, had died down, then he picked up his card and, without preamble—as though nothing at all had happened—he began his lecture.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I have been accused of creating my theory of energy-dynamics and my mathematics out of nothing—and my critics cry: 'From nothing comes nothing.' Let me remind you first that man does not create in the sense of inventing what never existed before. Man only discovers. The things we seem to invent, no matter how novel and revolutionary, we merely discover. They have been waiting for us all the time.

"Moreover, I was not the sole discoverer of this theory. No scientist is a lone adventurer, striking out into new fields for himself. The way is always led by those who precede us, and we who seem to discover all, actually do no more than add our bit to an accumulated knowledge.

"To show you how small my own contribution was and how much I inherited from the past, let me tell you that the basic equation of my theory is not even my own. It was discovered some fifty years prior to this day—some ten years before I was born.

"For on the evening of February 9, 2909, in Central Park, on the very site of this amphitheater, my father, suddenly struck with an idea, mentioned an equation to my mother. That equation:

i = (b/a) π i e/μ..."

was the inspiration for my own theory. So you can understand just how little I have contributed to the 'invention' of The Tension Energy-Dynamics Equations—"

FitzJohn glanced at the first card and went on: "Let us consider, now, the possible permutations on the factor

e/μ..."

I yelled: "That's plenty. Cut!" and before the first word was out of my mouth the controller and the C-S were shouting, too. Yarr blanked out the crystal and brought up the lights. We were all on our feet, looking at each other excitedly. Yarr jumped up so fast his chair went over backward with a crash. We were in a fever because, boys, that day happened to be February 9, 2909, and we had just about two hours until evening.

The controller said: "Can we locate these FitzJohns?"

"In two hours? Don't be silly. We don't even know if they're named FitzJohn today."

"Why not?"

"They may have changed their name—it's getting to be a fad nowadays. The son may have changed his name as a part of that cover-up of his past. Heaven only knows why not—"

"But we've got to split them up—whoever they are."

The C-S said: "Take hold of yourself. How are we going to separate eleven million married people? Didn't you ever hear of Stability?"

"Can't we publish a warning and order everybody out of the park?"

"And let everybody know about the Prog Building?" I said. "You keep forgetting Stability."

"Stability be damned! We can't let them have that conversation—and if they do anyway, we can't let them have that boy!"

Groating was really angry. He said: "You'd better go home and read through the Credo. Even if it meant the salvation of the Universe I would not break up a marriage—nor would I harm the boy."

"Then what do we do?"

"Have patience. We'll think of something."

I said: "Excuse me, sir—I've got an idea."

"Forget ideas," the controller yelled, "we need action."

"This is action."

The C-S said: "Go ahead, Carmichael."

"Well, obviously the important thing is to keep all married couples out of the north sector of Central Park tonight. Suppose we get a special detail of police together at once. Then we beat through the park and get everyone out. We can quarantine it—set up a close cordon around the park and guard it all night."

The controller yelled: "It may be one of the policemen."

"O.K., then we pick the unmarried ones. Furthermore, we give strict orders that all women are to stay away."

The C-S said: "It might work—it'll have to work. We can't let that conversation take place."

I said: "Excuse me, sir, do you happen to be married?"

He grinned: "My wife's in Washington. I'll tell her to stay there."

"And the controller, sir?"

The controller said: "She'll stay home. What about yourself?"

"Me? Strictly bachelor."

Groating laughed. "Unfortunate, but excellent for tonight. Come, let's hurry."

We took the pneumatic to headquarters and let me tell you, stuff began to fly, but high! Before we were there ten minutes, three companies were reported ready for duty. It seemed to satisfy the controller, but it didn't satisfy me. I said: "Three's not enough. Make it five."

"Five hundred men? You're mad."

I said: "I wish it could be five thousand. Look, we've knocked our brains out digging through a thousand years for this clue. Now that we've got it I don't want us to muff the chance."

The C-S said: "Make it five."

"But I don't think we've got that many unmarried men in the service."

"Then get all you can. Get enough so they can stand close together in the cordon—close enough so no one can wander through. Look—this isn't a ............