Kim stopped chewing for a moment in surprise. "You mean that you got through the Academy without using the 'finagle factor'? No wonder you made captain so soon. It's simple: I'd look up the right answer in the Service charts, find by what factor my solution was off, and introduce that factor into my next calculation, making it inconspicuous under a lot of mathematical camouflage. Don't bawl me out about it, Barny; I just couldn't see letting my extracurricular activities suffer for my schoolwork."
"Yes, you did a lot of your studying at the Denver Dive. No matter, little man. Eat hearty and get some sleep." Barnaby stirred his beans thoughtfully. "We've got a big day ahead of us tomorrow."
Early the next morning a subordinate technician of the Machine hammered on the airlock. The two terrestrials pulled on their heavy jackets, fur boots, and gauntlets, started the little air-pumps on their shoulders, and opened the lock. "The honored First Technician of the Machine invites your presence at your trial, which is to begin very soon," the Martian said, speaking halting Esperanto. Kim and Barnaby followed him to the edge of the Machine bowl. There had been several changes made during the night. An elevated platform had been set up, identical to the one used in the bloody execution they'd witnessed. About twenty Martians were clustered around the Machine, some of them making last-minute adjustments in the mechanism; others, evidently sightseers, gazing curiously at the two principals in the trial.
Rhinklav'n was waiting, his nose-flaps drawn over his nostrils to keep the cold morning air from cutting into his lungs. "I am pleased that you come," he said. "The Machine is fully assembled for your problem." He pointed down toward the Machine, a vast cluster of separate stages connected by rods. "On the far right, in that small building, is the power source of the Machine, a mercury-turbine engine. We can't spare the water to make steam, you know. The first stage contains the Martian actuarial tables, the second has the actuarial system for determining the probable life-spans of you two Earthlings. That's without taking into consideration the probability that you two will be executed as a result of the judgement of the Machine."
Lieutenant Kim nodded. "Most ingenious. But I'm afraid that there's a factor that you've omitted."
"We've made no factual error, Lieutenant," Rhinklav'n insisted. "The value of the sage Klaggchallak is represented there—" he pointed to the fourth stage, "and your social value to the people of Mars is here represented." Rhinklav'n waved one mitten-like hand toward the fifth stage. "If you'll examine that stage, you'll observe that your value is negative: the shaft representing it revolves in a direction opposite to that of the others. Yes, you'll surely be executed."
Captain Barnaby nodded, as though the reiteration of the probability of his early demise troubled him less than the philosophical question he'd stumbled across. "Still, as my subordinate officer has said, there's a factor which you seem to have omitted. In the terminology of terrestrial psychometering, this quantity is called—what did you say it was, Lieutenant Kim?"
"The 'finagle factor,' sir."
"Really?" Rhinklav'n asked, the light of scientific inquiry in his eyes. "I thought I'd taken all the variables of Earthling physiology and psychology into consideration when I set up the plans for the trial. What are the mathematics of this 'finagle factor'?"