"Will you do it harm?" asked Gulliman in quick alarm.
"No. But it will tell us what we want to know."
The Chairman hesitated a trifle. Then he said, "Go ahead."
Othman used the instrument on Gulliman's desk. His fingers punched Out the question with deft strokes: "Multivac, what do you yourself want more than anything else?"
The moment between question and answer lengthened unbearably, but neither Othman nor Gulliman breathed.
And there was a clicking and a card popped out. It was a small card. On it, in precise letters, was the answer:
"I want to die."
Spell My Name with an 5
Marshall Zebatinsky felt foolish. He felt as though there were eyes staring through the grimy store-front glass and across the scarred wooden partition; eyes watching him. He felt no confidence in the old clothes he had resurrected or the turned-down brim of a hat he never otherwise wore or the glasses he had left in their case.
He felt foolish and it made the lines in his forehead deeper and his young-old face a little paler.
He would never be able to explain to anyone why a nuclear physicist such as himself should visit a numerologist. (Never, he thought. Never.) Hell, he could not explain it to himself except that he had let his wife talk him into it.
The numerologist sat behind an old desk that must have been secondhand when bought. No desk could get that old with only one owner. The same might almost be said of his clothes. He was little and dark and peered at Zebatinsky with little dark eyes that were brightly alive.
He said, "I have never had a physicist for a client before, Dr. Zebatinsky."
Zebatinsky flushed at once. "You understand this is confidential."
The numerologist smiled so that wrinkles creased about the comers of his mouth and the skin around his chin stretched. "All my dealings are confidential."
Zebatinsky said, "I think I ought to tell you one thing. I don't believe in numerology and I don't expect to begin believing in it. If that makes a difference, say so now."
"But why are you here, then?"
"My wife thinks you may have something, whatever it is. I promised her and I am here." He shrugged and the feeling of folly grew more acute.
"And what is it you are looking for? Money? Security? Long life? What?"
Zebatinsky sat for a long moment while the numerologist watched him quietly and made no move to hurry his client.
Zebatinsky thought: What do I say anyway? That I'm thirty-four and without a future?
He said, "I want success. I want recognition."
"A better job?"
"A different job. A different kind of job. Right now, I'm part of a team, working under orders. Teams! That's all government research is. You're a violinist lost in a symphony orchestra."
"And you want to solo."
"I want to get out of a team and into-into me." Zebatinsky felt carried away, almost lightheaded, just putting this into words to someone other than his wife. He said, "Twenty-five years ago, with my kind of training and my kind of ability, I would have gotten to work on the first nuclear power plants. Today I'd be running one of them or I'd be head of a pure research group at a university. But with my start these days where will I be twenty-five years from now? Nowhere. Still on the team. Still carrying my 2 per cent of the ball. I'm drowning in an anonymous crowd of nuclear physicists, and what I want is room on dry land, if you see what I mean."
The numerologist nodded slowly. "You realize, Dr. Zebatinsky, that I don't guarantee success."
Zebatinsky, for all his lack of faith, felt a sharp bite of disappointment. "You don't? Then what the devil do you guarantee?"
"An improvement in the probabilities. My work is statistical in nature. Since you deal with atoms, I think you understand the laws of statistics."
"Do you?" asked the physicist sourly.
"I do, as a matter of fact. I am a mathematician and I work mathematically. I don't tell you this in order to raise my fee. That is standard. Fifty dollars. But since you are a scientist, you can appreciate the nature of my work better than my other clients. It is even a pleasure to be able to explain to you."
Zebatinsky said, "I'd rather you wouldn't, if you don't mind. It's no use telling me about the numerical values of letters, their mystic significance and that kind of thing. I don't consider that mathematics. Let's get to the point-"
The numerologist said, "Then you want me to help you provided I don't embarrass you by telling you the silly nonscientific basis of the way in which I helped you. Is that it?"
"All right. That's it."
"But you still work on the assumption that I am a numerologist, and I am not. I call myself that so that the police won't bother me and" (the little man chuckled dryly) "so that the psychiatrists won't either. I am a mathematician; an honest one."
Zebatinsky smiled.
The numerologist said, "I build computers. I study probable futures."
"What?"
"Does that sound worse than numerology to you? Why? Given enough data and a computer capable of sufficient number of operations in unit time, the future is predictable, at least in terms of probabilities. When you compute the motions of a missile in order to aim an anti-missile, isn't it the future you're predicting? The missile and anti-missile would not collide if the future were predicted incorrectly. I do the same thing. Since I work with a greater number of variables, my results are less accurate."
"You mean you'll predict my future?"
"Very approximately. Once I have done that, I will modify the data by changing your name and no other fact about you. I throw that modified datum into the operation-program. Then I try other modified names. I study each modified future and find one that contains a greater degree of recognition for you than the future that now lies ahead of you. Or no, let me put it another way. I will find you a future in which the probability of adequate recognition is higher than the probability of that in your present future."