"Don't tell me," interrupted the voice sharply. "Remember it. You realize, Doctor Cartwright, that you are just about the most important man alive. You know how fast it can move. You have fought it, you have examined it. So you can be sure that very good care will be taken of you."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm sorry, but you must see that you have to go into strict quarantine now. We dare not risk a plague. After quarantine you will go to work with our people. Now will you please get into the car at the extreme right, and follow the police."
"Where am I going?"
"Please hurry. There is a team of incendiaries waiting to clear the area."
"Oh, damnation," sighed The Most Important Man Alive, and walked towards the waiting car.
hen the ruler consulted the prognosticator again, after the Assassin's failure had been recorded, he found that a qualification had been added. The prophecy was now being fulfilled. He considered this dispassionately. He visualised the complex pattern of implication almost with pleasure. Was the machine alive? Certainly it could contemplate itself. It had calculated the effect of its existence, and had used the knowledge to destroy them. Or had they condemned themselves? By losing the ability to question. For the information on which the prophecy was based could have been available to them. Or was the machine only obeying a greater Fate? A Decree, stating that any life-form that surrendered itself to the dictates of a machine was doomed.
One thing alone was left to him. A choice. Without haste he began the preliminaries to thinking himself to death.