"Thought maybe it would quiet you down," said Herb.
Gary levelled his pipe stem at Herb.
"If I had the guy who invented three-way chess," he said, "I'd wring his blasted neck. The old kind was bad enough, but three-dimensional, twenty-seven man…”
He shook his head dismally.
"He must have been half nuts," he said.
"He did go off his rockers," Herb told him, "but not from inventing three-way chess. Guy by the name of Konrad Fairbanks. In an asylum back on Earth now. I took a picture of him once, when he was coming out of the courtroom. Just after the judge said he was only half there. The cops chased hell out of me but I got away. The Old Man paid me ten bucks bonus for the shot.”
"I remember that," said Gary. "Best mathematical mind in the whole system.
Worked out equations no one could understand. Went screwy when he proved that there actually were times when one and one didn't quite make two.
Proved it, you understand. Not just theory or mathematical mumbo-jumbo.”
Herb walked across the control room and stood beside Gary, looking out through the vision plate.