They all lapsed into silence.
Lee took a deep breath and began once more. "This million-year-business throws a new light on the whole subject. Up to now, I think, we've all been looking at this machine on a day-to-day basis. I mean, we've been examining what it's doing now. It might be worth our while to sit back a little and try to extrapolate the behavior we've observed back over a million years."
"Could you be a bit more explicit?" Richards asked.
"I'll try. It's mostly a matter of viewpoint, I think. Let's start looking at this machine as something that's been in operation for a million years. Let's admit to ourselves that what we see today is only a very small slice of the whole picture. Dr. Petchkovich, you're an astronomer; you're accustomed to studying a star for a few months and coming up with a story that covers perhaps billions of years. Right?"
"Yes, but this is entirely different...."
"I know. I know," Lee said. "But the line of attack isn't so different. For instance: Dr. Childe, suppose you send your wave patterns to the Orbital Computation Center at Earth and have the Big Brain work them over. Do you think it might come up with something useful?"
Childe shrugged elaborately. "Maybe. If we try to extrapolate the sample patterns we have now over a million years, maybe something will show up."
"It'll take months to get the Big Brain's time," Elaine said. "They're waiting in line all the way back to Mars for it."
"What are months compared to the time we've already spent?" Bennett countered.
"Or to a million years?" Lee added.