"That's what Humanac says, yes."
Dr. Peccary gestured despairingly. After all, he did have a conscience. "I simply don't believe my hormone can be responsible!"
"I'll remind you that your picture was on the classroom wall and that the sixth rule read by that boy indicated that he was supposed to start using your hormone when he reached the age of twenty-one. That would be about the age to stop growing older."
"That boy is nothing but a mathematical probability!"
"That's all you and I are," Staghorn said owlishly. "Mathematical probabilities. Despite Omar, nothing exactly like either of us has ever existed before or will exist again."
"But damn it, Staghorn...." Dr. Peccary sat down, his face in his hands. "It's worth millions! I've invested years of work and all the money I could scrape together. I don't see anything wrong in a scientist's profiting by his discoveries. And to keep it off the market just because that insane computer says that a hundred years from now—" He broke off, glaring at Humanac's screen which was still focused on the deserted park. "It simply doesn't make sense! The machine doesn't give any reasons for anything. If there were a way I could talk directly to some of those mathematical probabilities, question them, ask them what it's all about...." He was on his feet, striding back and forth before the computer again.
"Perhaps there is a way," Staghorn said quietly.
"Eh?"
"I said that it may be possible for you to talk with them."