I breathed a deep, heartfelt sigh of relief.
Felder looked at me in a sort of numb awe. "How did you figure that out?"
"It came to me in a flash, but the clues were all over the place. McGuire didn't stay on the course I gave him; he couldn't, if he wanted to avoid meteors. And then, too you said that he ought to have more sensory apparatus, so that he could judge facts. The facts that come into his brain from his own sensory apparatus have to be utilized in his memory banks. He didn't have to know all the steps in reasoning that would lead from one voice pattern to another if it could be demonstrated as a fact—as an axiom, if you like.
"If you tell him that he must change course, he isn't obliged to pay any attention; but if he spots a meteor, he has to accept that as a fact, and he changes course to allow for it. In a sense, then, the meteor is capable of giving McGuire orders, and you aren't."
Felder didn't look any too happy; no one likes to have a point in his own field explained to him by a layman. But he couldn't argue with me.
"There's a great deal more to be done before McGuire can be put into practical service," he said heavily. "We may as well head back to Ceres."
"I don't think so," I said. "McGuire's in good enough shape to let us make the big splash on Earth that Ravenhurst wants to make. He'll need it if Viking is to have enough financial leeway to go on with this project."
"What about ... what about Brentwood?" Vivian Devereaux asked.
"We can get rid of him at Phobos just as easily as we can at Ceres. If there's any explaining of any kind to do, we can lay the blame on him. He won't be in any position to deny it."
She nodded, understanding exactly what I meant.