Jeff Arnold was abruptly all business. He plunged his finger at a button, spoke into the intercom. "Joe! How's that test-run coming?"
"All-X so far! Give us ten minutes for clearance."
"Take twenty, but make sure it's clearance. Checked Quantitative, have you? How about feed-backs? ... yes ... what's that? Semantic circuits! Hell yes, check all synaptics for clearance! I want no excess data fouling up this run!"
He clicked off and sat there moodily, and Beardsley watched him, noting the quick nervous rhythm of Arnold's fingers. Arnold noticed it, too, and desisted.
"Look," he said. "Mandleco, Losch, Pederson. Those three Primes just don't make sense to me!"
"They don't?" Beardsley allowed just the proper note of resentment. "Surely you are not questioning Coördinates...."
"You know I'm not! But—"
Beardsley waited, knowing it was coming now. The thing Arnold had been aching to voice for the past five minutes.
"But—well, damn it, there is Mrs. Carmack, for example. As you pointed out yourself, she'll be a rich woman now! It would seem to me—"
"That she'd be a Prime? I'm surprised at you, Jeff; that's ancient thinking." If there was a trace of sarcasm, it was lost on Arnold. "Oh, I grant you it used to hold true—principle beneficiary was always prime suspect. Fiction especially was full of it. Queen, Dickson Carr, Boucher you—know the ilk. But with ECAIAC we've gotten away from all that, haven't we?"