It was acrid and _angry_ smoke. From a safe distance Beardsley adjusted his glasses and observed the frantic, scurrying techs, many of them nursing burned hands. Aside from a pounding heart he was amazed at his own calm; nevertheless, he tread with caution as he approached Arnold, who was on his haunches dolefully surveying the area of major damage. "Uh--is it something serious?" Arnold glared up at him. "Overload on the feed-backs. If that's _all_ it is, we can pull out the unit and replace it in a few hours." "Never happened before, eh?" "Not like this," Arnold groaned. "Lord--it just seemed to go berserk!" Beardsley glanced around nervously. "You see? You see? I didn't think our beautiful friendship could last...." Arnold snarled, "Get out, Beardsley! What the hell you doing here anyway? Go somewhere and read a book!" "Yes. Yes, I--" Beardsley swallowed hastily. He then straightened, took a last look around and pulled himself together. Without a word, he turned and strode resolutely into Jeff Arnold's office; he closed the door carefully, then hurried over to the stat and pushed the button for priority. "Hello," he said. "Mandleco's office? ... this is Mechanical Division ... no, I want _Mandleco_ ... I don't care, get him I said! This is emergency! Put him on at once!" * * * * * Mandleco arrived twenty minutes later. The Minister of Justice was tall and raw-boned with a long hook-nose, a shock of whitening hair, and more than a suggestion of military arrogance. He paused for precisely one second in the doorway, then strode straight over to Jeff Arnold. Before saying a word he bent slightly and peered into the maze of mechanism. Beardsley wanted to say, "Do you find the cause of the trouble, sir?" But he held his tongue. Mandleco straightened up, glaring. "Arnold, what is the meaning of this?" "Breakdown, sir." "I can see that! The cause, man, the cause!" "I--it's only the feed-back, sir." Arnold struggled with the terminals, most of which were a fused and tangled mess. "Not as bad as it looks, I assure you. I've already contacted Maintenance; they're sending up a new unit." "What precisely does that mean? Can you complete the run or not! This has got to go through today!" Arnold touched a hot terminal, jerked back his hand and swore. "It will, sir. Give us a few hours. We had seven total rejects, so I doubt the tapes are at fault. More like a synaptic overload. Transferrals are okay, so I want to try it with a stepped-up synaptic check; that'll alleviate any overload without drain on the minor selective, which is better than setting up complete new correlation-grams." It was too much for Mandleco. Grinding a fist in his palm, he stared into the matrix and muttered, "Unprecedented. Absolutely unprecedented! Arnold, I just can't understand _why_--"