Jaimie made an explosive sound. "But I thought you must have progressed from empirical methods! I would have said something long ago, if I hadn't thought you knew what you were doing all the time!" The historian was on his feet, stalking about the room. "Why didn't you tell me about this before?"
"Why? What difference would it have made?" Rod frowned, failing to understand the other's excitement. "Sure, we've progressed from the older methods, in that we now have pretty complete data for all present job descriptions. And we can synthesize data for a new job, if it's not too different. But there isn't any information on the kind of person needed in a new world. What the devil are you getting so upset about?"
The historian threw himself into a chair and glared at Rod. "If you couldn't find the kind of people you needed to test, you could have asked a historian if he knew anything about them!"
Rod shook his head puzzledly. "Subjective data, such as that—"
"Don't bring subjectivity into this, damn it! We get enough of that from physical scientists." Jaimie held himself in the chair, almost shaking with the intensity of his feeling. "Look, Rod, you know I want to see the project succeed. And you admit that you haven't got an answer. Well, baby, I think I have! It's an idea that has about a fifty-fifty chance of being right in this case ... would you be willing to try it?"
"If I had been betting on your side for the last few months, I'd be several dollars richer," Rod smiled. "Yes, I think I might go along with your idea, if you can convince me it has an even chance for success. Three failures out of three tries makes for poorer odds than that. What do you have in mind?"
"H'm," Jaimie said. "I imagine your stock isn't so high with old scabbard and blade right now, is it?"
Rod laughed. "I don't think he'll shoot on sight, but I'm not positive enough to stand in front of a lighted window."
"Well, then—if I had an idea you agreed with, the surest way to kill it would be to have you present it to him, right? And if you fight it, that's sure to convince Carlson!" Jaimie thought hard for a moment, tapping the chair-arm. "Rod, I have to do something you aren't going to like. Do you trust me?"