"It proves nothing," said the Engineer. "Even were the universe destroyed, the probability would still exist, for the world could have been.
Destruction of the universe would be a factor of accident which would eliminate actuality and force all lines of probability to remain mere probability.”
"You mean," breathed Caroline, "that we could go to a world which exists only as a probable world line and get information there to save the universe — that even after the universe is destroyed, if we fail and it is destroyed, the information which might have saved it still could be found, but too late, of course, to be of any use to us, on that probable world?”
"Yes," said the Engineer, "but there would be no one to find it then. The solution would be there, never used, at a time when it would be too late to use it. It is so hard to explain this thought as it should be explained.”
"Maybe it's all right," said Herb, "but I crave action. When do we start for this place that might not be there when we get where we headed for?”
"I will show you," said the Engineer.
They followed him through a maze of laboratory rooms until they came to one which boasted only one piece of equipment, a huge polished bowl set in the floor, blazing with reflected light from the single lamp that shone in the ceiling above it.
The Engineer indicated the bowl. "Watch," he told them.
He walked to a board on the opposite wall and swiftly set up an equation on a calculating machine. The machine whirred and clicked and chuckled and the Engineer depressed a series of studs in the control board. The inside of the bowl clouded and seemed to take on motion, like a gigantic whirlpool of flowing nothingness. Faster and faster became the impression of motion.
Gary found himself unable to pull his eyes away from the wonder of the bowl — as if the very motion were hypnotic.