COUNSELOR: Our task for today--(_voice quavering, he saved it from the upper registers_). Our task for today is to get at the aggregate pattern. And I assure you, gentlemen, we are going to do that! Now. Mr. Pederson, if you please.... PEDERSON: Yes, sir? COUNSELOR: I see that Mr. Beardsley made certain statements to you, and to you alone, immediately after the--uh--ECAIAC incident-- PEDERSON: You saw that three days ago! Must we go through it again? COUNSELOR: We must and we shall! Due to the unnatural tenor of the case, it is the opinion of the Council that these things must be fixed and adjudged if we are to make a correct Disposition. PEDERSON: (_wearily_): Yes, sir. Well, the fact is he seemed to want to confide in me. Nothing strange in that! He realized he had lost, poor guy, and he-- COUNSELOR: Mr. Pederson! No diversions, please. We'd simply like to hear from your own lips what Beardsley told you. (Glances at his notes.) Is it true that he said--his sole motive in this affair was to prove he could conduct an investigation as efficiently as ECAIAC--_or any damned machine_? PEDERSON: (_hesitant, with a glance at Beardsley who sat remote and vacuous_): Yes. He told me that. COUNSELOR: Even to the point of committing a murder to prove it? And his entire subsequent action was predicated upon that? We have extensive reports here--from Mrs. Carmack, from Mandleco, from Jeff Arnold and yourself. It is difficult to see how such a basically integrated and well-functioning personality as Raoul Beardsley-- PEDERSON: (_angrily_): No. What you fail to see is the facade! What man has stronger reason than the man who has lost his reason? It is the only outlet for aggression, a devious fulfillment, it brings psychological satisfactions which cannot be obtained in any other way--call it the self-destructive impulse if you will. I doubt if Beardsley rationalized this--but he had come to his moment, his time of assertion, his way of making fools of us all ... and my complete opinion, sir, is that his actions from beginning to end were both a triumph and an inspiration! COUNSELOR: (_smugly_): Thank you, Mr. Pederson. These are the insights you had not revealed before. (_Turns to member at far end of table._) Dr. Deobler. As psychologist assigned to Disposition Council, may I ask if there is an area of concurrence? DEOBLER (_bored, but deigns to lift a hand_): Save for the rhetorics at the very end, you have my official concurrence; it is obvious in every aspect; this was a devious fulfillment of the self-destructive impulse.