He shook his head. "In that case, no. Discounting the fact that you could have prearranged it, if my dim provisional theory is right, that would be _actually_ impossible. It would involve time-reversal. I'll tell you about it later. No, just throw down the change. Let's see if they all come up heads." I moved away from the carpet and tossed the handful of coins onto the floor. They clattered and bounced--and bounced together--and stacked themselves into a neat pile. I looked at McGill. His eyes were narrowed. Without a word, he took a handful of coins from his own pocket and threw them. These coins didn't stack. They just fell into an exactly straight line, the adjacent ones touching. "Well," I said, "what more do you want?" "Great Scott," he said, and sat down. "I suppose you know that there are two great apparently opposite principles governing the Universe--random and design. The sands on the beach are an example of random distribution and life is an example of design. The motions of the particles of a gas are what we call random, but there are so many of them, we treat them statistically and derive the Second Law of Thermodynamics--quite reliable. It isn't theoretically hard-and-fast; it's just a matter of extreme probability. Now life, on the other hand, seems not to depend on probability at all; actually, it goes against it. Or you might say it is certainly not an accidental manifestation." "Do you mean," I asked in some confusion, "that some form of life is controlling the coins and--the other things?" * * * * * He shook his head. "No. All I mean is that improbable things usually have improbable explanations. When I see a natural law being broken, I don't say to myself, 'Here's a miracle.' I revise my version of the book of rules. Something--I don't know what--is going on, and it seems to involve probability, and it seems to center around you. Were you still in that building when the elevators stuck? Or near it?" "I guess I must have been. It happened just after I left." "Hm. You're the center, all right. But why?" "Center of what?" I asked. "I feel as though I were the center of an electrical storm. Something has it in for me!" McGill grinned. "Don't be superstitious. And especially don't be anthropomorphic." "Well, if it's the opposite of random, it's got to be a form of life." "On what basis? All we know for certain is that random motions are being rearranged. A crystal, for example, is not life, but it's a non-random arrangement of particles.... I wonder." He had a faraway, frowning look. I was beginning to feel hungry and the drinks had worn off. "Let's go out and eat," I said, "There's not a damn thing in the kitchen and I'm not allowed to cook. Only eggs and coffee."