some form of choice. Simply because aggregates have always
behaved predictably, I could not assume they always would. Even though
the masses of men behaved as expected, I remember that, in my
grandfather's time, individual persons frequently departed from
established courses. What the individual could do, I felt the mass or
the machine might do.

As you know, these were subversive views, running directly counter to
the cult of the Statisticians, which was based entirely on the
predictability of mass behavior.

The cult of the Statisticians was strong because it produced results.
By employing Statisticians, the contending armies in the Peripheral
Wars predicted each other's movements so accurately that they
eliminated the possibility of surprise. Thus the Statisticians
produced the military impasse which destroyed the prestige of
political leadership. From that time on, Statisticians filled the
posts of government.

The success of the Statisticians proved their undoing. They claimed
that they could create a perfect system without conflict or accident.
They fondly believed that with the feedback in the electron brain,
they could anticipate and correct all deviations in behavior, human or
mechanical.

They might have succeeded, if not for a fundamental error.

I discovered this error as soon as the plans for the fiscal century
were published. The design of the electron brain had completely
ignored the polarity of the positron. In the total fiscal complex,
this factor permits any aggregate to choose its own course. But the
error was not immediately obvious to the Statisticians. It remained
subtle and concealed until multiplied beyond control.

* * * * *

Naturally, I prepared a report to predict to my chiefs the dangers
embedded in this plan for a perfect world. I predicted that the
machines would make their own decisions, even though most men long ago
had lost that power. I even warned them that the ancient concept of
"free will," now forbidden, would return to destroy them. These were
the facts I offered.

The report was never delivered.

I'd hardly put my seal on the document when the automatic security
guard closed in. The document was seized and I was bound gagged and
thrown onto a conveyor belt. I saw myself on the way to the eraser.
Only the polarity of the positron saved me. Desperately, on my way out
of the laboratory, I kicked a single switch.

Instead of taking me to m