The High Arbiter looked slightly less sour, and he nodded shortly. "I will hear the Grandmaster of the Guild of Scientists," he said.
The Grandmaster lifted his head.
"Wise one!" he said. "The godsman jibes, and with some basis. Generation to generation, the fire-wheels spin more slowly and seek less surely. The fertilizers grow leaner. The ceremonial elephants are fewer and worse. Perhaps the godsmen are not supplicating hard enough for solutions to mysteries of matter—solutions which would enable the scientists to control matter. In the impious days before the Principles, matter served mystery and mystery served matter, and by some inexplicable mercy of the gods, things went very well."
Years of banality, years of caution, years of looking to his retirement offering had, for a little while, lost their hold on him.
Snubnose was silently raging. What a place, he thought, for the Grandmaster to burst out with that kind of thing. True, scientists sometimes talked that way in the Guild social rooms, especially after drinking illegal grain distillate, but here it could only hurt Bump-arch's cause.
Snubnose looked at his friend. Bump-arch was trying to suppress a jubilant smile. Surprised, Snubnose looked at his sister. She was jumping up and down with pleasure, as he hadn't seen her do for at least two years.
"Romantics," he said to himself.
The High Arbiter had a talent for looking displeased, and now he did not stint.
"I note the Grandmaster's improper tone," he said stiffly. "Furthermore, his remarks are irrelevant to the issue. The holy one says that the demonstration treats of a mystery of matter in violation of the Principles. In view of the Grandmaster's failure to refute that, it is highly probable. However, it will have to be established by authority and precedent—unless the demonstration involves an idea specifically forbidden, which would be conclusive. I will hear the holy one."
"There is indeed a forbidden idea. It is known from tradition and old texts that the mathematic of accelerated movement through time involves imaginary numbers. At the conference of 1480 DRC it was confirmed that imaginary numbers are a metaphysical concept forbidden to scientists."