Beardsley looked down at his hands, and they were trembling. He could not stop the trembling. A tightness took him about the heart, and behind his eyes that pulse of red darkness presaged the beginning of a violent headache.
Even the others noticed it now, something amiss. Jeff Arnold especially. He looked up in quick alarm at the equate-panel where the mathematics seemed to have gone a little fitful, a little frantic, with stuttery lapses in progression as if ECAIAC were unable or unwilling to confront.
The flux of pattern dimmed, then hesitated; blanked out and heroically began anew.
It happened suddenly, then. It happened as the techs came crowding around. There came a quivering, a sort of shudder, and ECAIAC subsided with a final weary gasp. It was for all the world as if she were saying, "This is it, boys. I've had it!"
But it was there, it was there! All at once every symbol was constant, static and livid upon the screen, enhanced by the words equate—complete—equate—complete. In that moment every tech in the room must have felt a touch of pride.
A click, a whirr, and it was done. The fateful tape ejected.
Both Mandleco and Arnold leaped for it, but Arnold was there first. He ripped the tape clear and then paused, hand outflung, as if he could not resist this final bit of drama.
"Well? Well, Arnold?" Mandleco was hopping ludicrously about in an agony of impatience.
Arnold nodded. He brought the tape to his scrutiny. His mouth opened, then shut again as a shudder seized him. Once more he read it, a look of wild disbelief on his face ... he staggered, and seemed about to cry or go hysterical or both.
Mandleco gave a snort as he pounced, recovered the tape and with blunt assurance read the words aloud: