He slammed down the _off_ button and went out to the librarian's desk. "Do people want to work all the time," he said, "for the sake of work alone?" He immediately regretted the question. But Burnett did not seem to mind. "You've only stated the positive reason, Mr. Hart. The negative one could be stronger--the fear of what they would have to do if they did not have to work much over a long period." "What would it mean?" "Why, they would have to start thinking! Most people don't mind thought if it's concentrated in a narrow range. But if they have to think in a broad range to keep boredom away--no, that's too high a price for most of them! They avoid it when they can. And under present circumstances they can." He stopped. "Of course that's a purely hypothetical fiction I'm constructing." Hart shook his head. "It sounds awfully real to be purely--" He, too, caught himself up. "Of course, you're only positing a fiction." Burnett started putting his desk papers away. "I'm leaving now. The Preliminary begins soon. Want to come?" The man's face was stolidly blank except for his brown eyes which burned like a zealot's. Fascinated by them, Hart agreed. It would be best to return anyway. Some of the bystanders had looked too curiously at him when he had left. Who would willingly leave a Rite when it was approaching its climax? II The Plaza was now thronged and the sacrificial pile towered over a hundred feet in the cleared center area. Then, as the first collective _Ah!_ arose, a giant slagger lumbered in from the east, the direction prescribed for such commencements. Long polarity arms glided smoothly out of the central mechanism and reached the length for Total Destruction. "That's the automatic setting," parents explained to their children. "When?" the children demanded eagerly. "Any moment now." Then the unforeseen occurred. There was a rumbling from inside the pile and a huge jagged patchwork of metal shot out, smashing both arms. The slagger teetered, swaying more and more violently from side to side until it collapsed on its side. The rumbling grew. And then the pile, like a mechanical cancer, ripped the slagger apart and then absorbed it. The panicking crowd fell back. Somewhere a child began crying, provoking more hubbub. "Sabotage!" people were crying. "Let's get away!" Nothing like this had ever happened before. But Hart knew instantly what had caused it. Some high-level servo mechanisms had not been thoroughly disconnected. They had repaired their damages, then imposed their patterns on the material at hand. A second slagger came rushing into the square. It discharged immediately; and the pile finally collapsed and disintegrated as it was supposed to. The crowd was too shocked to feel the triumph it had come for, but Hart could not share their horror. Burnett eyed him. "Better look indignant," he said. "They'll be out for blood. Somebody must have sabotaged the setup."