"Got five hundred now," said Kronski. "I'll let a few more run in case we need alternates."
"Okay," said Pell. "I'll start this batch through the analyzer."
He took the cards across the room to a machine about twenty feet long and dropped them into the feeder at one end. Channels and rollers ran along the top of this machine and under them were a series of vertical slots into which the selected cards could drop. He cleared the previous setting and ran the pointer to Constants. He set the qualitative dial to 85%. This meant that on the first run the punch hole combinations in the cards would be scanned and any item common to 85% of the total would be registered in a relay. Upon the second run the machine would select the cards with this constant and drop them into a slot corresponding with that heading. Further scanning, within the slot itself, would pick out the constant number.
Pell started the rollers whirring.
Kronski came over. He rubbed his battered nose. "Hope we get outside on this case. I'm gettin' sick o' the office. Haven't been out in weeks."
Pell nodded. Oh, for the life of a C.I.B. man. In teleplays they cornered desperate criminals in the dark ruins of the ancient cities topside, and fought it out with freezers. The fact was, although regulations called for them to carry freezers in their shoulder holsters, one in a thousand ever got a chance to use them.
Pell said, "Maybe you need a vacation."
"Maybe. Only I keep putting my vacation off. Got a whole month saved up now."
"Me, too." Pell sighed. Ciel would probably be pacing the floor back home now, trying to make up her mind. To break it up, or not to break it up? There would be no difficulty, really: she had been a pretty good commercial artist before they were married and she wouldn't have any trouble finding a job again somewhere in World City.
The rollers kept whirring and the cards flipping along with a whispering sound.