Arnold hesitated, eyeing the briefcase in Beardsley's clutch. "It's been rough on you, too, I imagine. Hope there aren't more than thirty variants! We're set up for more, of course, but it'll necessitate—"
"Twenty-two," Beardsley assured him. Carefully, he spread the coded and sealed persona-tapes across the desk. "Fresh from Citizen-File Augment, everything annotated and cross-checked. Blood-count, emotional stasis, plethora, psycho-geneological index, neuro-thalamic imbalance—every type factor is here. We really went to the Files on this case."
"Looks as if you did! How does it narrow down?"
"Fifteen possibles, four Logicals and three Primes—" Beardsley stopped abruptly. (That news-caster: how had he known there were three Primes? This stuff was not supposed to leak!) "Twenty-two who knew Carmack," he went on. "That includes associational as well as motive-opportunity factors, with a probability sphere of .004...."
Arnold nodded thoughtfully; his fingers moved unconscious and caressing across the edge of the desk. "Yes, I see. That's close! Good job," he said uncertainly.
"Should be! Seven weeks for annotation and code." Beardsley was watching Arnold's fingers; there was something aimless and fretful as they pushed among the code-sealed tapes. Beardsley made his voice casual. "If it interests you," he said, "yes—you are there."
He wanted a reaction and he got it.
"Me!" Arnold stiffened, pulled his fingers away hastily.
"That surprises you? Don't worry, you're not one of the Primes; probably be rejected on the first run. It's just that you once knew Carmack rather well. Cal Tech, wasn't it, when Carmack was doing his special work on magnetronics? Naturally you've had contact since, due to the nature of your job."