he Gordian
knot of the three-L's and are on our way towards a solution."

* * * * *

"Stop!" Costa said, raising his hand. "I was with you as far as the
3L's. What are they? A private code?"

"Not a code--abbreviation. Linear Logic Language, the pitfall of all the
old researchers. All of them, historians, sociologists, political
analysts, anthropologists, were licked before they started. They had to
know all about A and B before they could find C. Facts to them were
always hooked up in a series. Whereas in truth they had to be analyzed
as a complex circuit complete with elements like positive and negative
feedback, and crossover switching. With the whole thing being stirred up
constantly by continual homeostasis correction. It's little wonder they
did do badly."

"You can't really say that," Adao Costa protested. "I'll admit that
Societics has carried the art tremendously far ahead. But there were
many basics that had already been discovered."

[Illustration]

"If you are postulating a linear progression from the old social
sciences--forget it," Neel said. "There is the same relationship here
that alchemy holds to physics. The old boys with their frog guts and
awful offal knew a bit about things like distilling and smelting. But
there was no real order to their knowledge, and it was all an
unconsidered by-product of their single goal, the whole nonsense of
transmutation."

They passed a lounge, and Adao waved Neel in after him, dropping into a
chair. He rummaged through his pockets for a cigarette, organizing his
thoughts. "I'm still with you," he said. "But how do we work this back
to the k-factor?"

"Simple," Neel told him. "Once you've gotten rid of the 3L's and their
false conclusions. Remember that politics in the old days was all We are
angels and They are devils. This was literally believed. In the history
of mankind there has yet to be a war that wasn't backed by the official
clergy on each side. And each declared that God was on their side. Which
leaves You Know Who as prime supporter of the enemy. This theory is no
more valid than the one that a single man can lead a country into war,
followed by the inference that a well-timed assassination can save the
peace."

"That doesn't sound too unreasonable," Costa said.

"Of course not. All of the old ideas sound good. They have a
simple-minded simplicity that anyone can understand. That doesn't make
them true. Kill a war-