After a few minutes, he leaned back and said, "There—the exploratory equation is complete. Now we search it for flaws."
Donovan and I had got interested to the point that hostilities were temporarily suspended. Donovan asked, "Search what for which flaws."
"You haven't the mental scope to understand even the basics of what I'm doing, but maybe you can understand this: There is no such thing as chance in a civilization or a culture which is properly based upon mathematics. In such a civilization lies and evasions are unheard of because all action and motivation past, present, or future, can be evaluated and revealed in complete exactitude."
We were trying to follow along. I said, "We've got things like that. Robot brains, we call them. They figure out impossible problems."
And it came to me at that moment how we were taking for granted, through our conversation, our statements, and even our thinking, that this Dalrymple was exactly what he'd said he was—a man from another world.
He said, "I know what you refer to, but they are so childishly conceived as to be almost useless." The old sneer again.
Donovan growled. "You talk a lot but you haven't proved a damn thing."
"On the contrary. The flaws in this equation stand out by themselves. For instance, our zong is implicated but must obviously be supplemented in order to balance the terz shading of the exploratory equation."
"Are you kidding?" Donovan rasped.