rose in his own....

He couldn't avoid it. It came unbidden, it battered through his reason,
it towered there and blotted out his thoughts until all that was left
was a tremulous regret, an attrite compassion.

About to lose her first case ... _but one loses! And one survives it,
you know, one survives it! For twelve years now...._

* * * * *

More than a tremor now. More than compassion now. A sense of betrayal
almost, illogical and nameless and yet palpable as the scent of fear.
There was a pulse of red darkness in Beardsley's brain as all the mental
and emotional equations of his being sang a sharp alarm. For subtly,
ever so subtly ECAIAC's deep-throated tone had changed ... nothing like
those other times, rather it was a halting stutter of puzzlement,
erratic and querulous, with overtones of immediacy as if some formless
presence were on the verge of unleashing.

Beardsley looked down at his hands, and they were trembling. He could
not stop the trembling. A tightness took him about the heart, and behind
his eyes that pulse of red darkness presaged the beginning of a violent
headache.

Even the others noticed it now, something amiss. Jeff Arnold especially.
He looked up in quick alarm at the equate-panel where the mathematics
seemed to have gone a little fitful, a little frantic, with stuttery
lapses in progression as if ECAIAC were unable or unwilling to confront.

The flux of pattern dimmed, then hesitated; blanked out and heroically
began anew.

It happened suddenly, then. It happened as the techs came crowding
around. There came a quivering, a sort of shudder, and ECAIAC subsided
with a final weary gasp. It was for all the world as if she were saying,
"This is it, boys. I've had it!"

But it was there, it was there! All at once every symbol was constant,
static and livid upon the screen, enhanced by the words
EQUATE--COMPLETE--EQUATE--COMPLETE. In that moment every tech in the
room must have felt a touch of pride.

A click, a whirr, and it was done. The fateful tape ejected.

Both Mandleco and Arnold leaped for it, but Arnold was there first. He
ripped the tape clear and then paused, hand outflung, as if he could not
resist this final bit of drama.

"Well? Well, Arnold?" Mandleco was hopping ludicrously about in an agony
of impatience.

Arnold nodded. He brought the tape to his scrutiny. His mouth opened,
then shut again as a shudder seized him. Once more he read it