Nothing at all. No figures. Only a blank.
“What’s it mean?” Reinhart muttered, dazed.
“It’s fantastic. We didn’t think this could—”
“What’s happened?”
“The machines aren’t able to handle the item. No reading can come. It’s data they can’t integrate. They can’t use it for prediction material, and it throws off all their other figures.”
“Why?”
“It’s—it’s a variable.” Kaplan was shaking, white-lipped and pale. “Something from which no inference can be made. The man from the past. The machines can’t deal with him. The variable man!”
II
Thomas Cole was sharpening a knife with his whetstone when the tornado hit.
The knife belonged to the lady in the big green house. Every time Cole came by with his Fixit cart the lady had something to be sharpened. Once in awhile she gave him a cup of coffee, hot black coffee from an old bent pot. He liked that fine; he enjoyed good coffee.