"How about Transferral Impress? You know—possible to Logical, or Logical to Prime?"
Arnold paused over his notes for the merest instant. "Why—it's progressive, of course. That you won't notice!"
Beardsley stared at him curiously, started to speak and then changed his mind. He wandered again, watching the techs but not interfering. And suddenly he was aware that the first total reject had come. It happened with smooth and sudden silence just as Arnold had described, ECAIAC breaking pace for mere seconds ... then all was clear again, and one of the techs hurried down the aisle with the tape, which he handed to Arnold.
Beardsley was aware of a wild pounding of pulse as he stared at the anonymous tape. One of the fifteen "possibles"? It might even be a rejected Logical. Mrs. Carmack? She was borderline. Or a Prime! It could be Mandleco himself—or Losch or Pederson. No ... it was unlikely any Primes would fall this early....
But maybe they were no longer Primes! Maybe right now Transferral Impress was at work, maybe one or more of them was being relegated to lower coördinate-status somewhere there in the entrails....
He felt a bounding excitement. And, as if reading his thoughts, Jeff Arnold gave him an amused look.
"Don't let it get to you, Raoul. I used to find it the same; we all do. But then you get to thinking, hell, why try to guess? Identities don't matter now!" He indicated the coded tape. "A total reject—anonymous. ECAIAC's way of telling us that person could not possibly be the murderer."
"But—you're not even curious?"
"At rejects? Why?" Arnold seemed perplexed. "Oh, you mean because I'm among the 'possibles.' Frankly it doesn't bother me. I know I'm not the murderer, and I have faith in ECAIAC. If this isn't my tape, the next will be—or the eighth, or the fifteenth."