see if my daily wage had been deposited. And patted the computer, which
bleeped and kept beavering away. The search and computations would have been
long finished except that there was difficulty getting data from distant
planets.
"Don't let it worry you," James said. "I have search programs working in all
the site cities. Enjoy yourself-and I'll let you know as soon as the gongs
ring."
I needed no encouragement. Although I enjoyed the scuba diving, even more
gratifying was the rugged continent near Elysium's northern pole. Here were
jagged mountains and endless snow. A skier's paradise. My muscle tone
actually hummed with life now. Angelina and I enjoyed every moment of our
extended holiday.
Yet still best of all was waking in the morning and checking my balance in
the bank. Which was growing at the rate of four million a day. Bolivar had
arranged for each day's deposit to be transferred, by a theoretically
untraceable route, to a distant and highly secret bank. But all holidays
must end. We hung up our skies and hopped on the first flight when Bolivar
sent word that the search was finally coming up with the data that we
needed. We joined together in the morning for a friendly family meal.
"Now this is the kind of work I like," I said, going out onto the balcony
away from the other diners and lighting an after-breakfast cigar. Just as a
bell rang in the computer, a red light blinked on-and a puff of smoke came
out of a vent in the top.
James looked up from his plate when he heard the ping and put his silverware
down. "Results at last. It sure took long enough."
"Three weeks," I said. "That is not too long."
"It is for this machine. At the minimum it has performed thirty-two to the
one hundred eleventh teraflop operations since it started. Now let us see
the result."
He sat and typed in a command. Scowled, typed faster. Eventually leaned back
and sighed, touched a button. The printer clicked and extruded a sheet of
paper.
"The answer," he said, waving it towards us.
"Which is?" Angelina asked.
"A little perturbing. Of all the events, movements, goings and comings,
crimes and punishments, accidents and activities, births and deaths,
everything that occurred on all of the planets on the dates of the bank
robberies, out of all these possibilities there is only one thing that they
have in common."
