which persuaded me to see you as soon as I could. You've given up your position for that? You're investigating a dead issue."
"How can it be a dead issue, Mr. Janek? Your calling it an Incident doesn't alter the fact that it was an assassination attempt."
"A matter of semantics. Why use a disturbing phrase?"
"Only because it would seem to represent a disturbing truth. Surely you would say that someone tried to kill the President."
Janek spread his hands. "If that is so, the plot did not succeed. A mechanical device was destroyed. Nothing more. In fact, if we look at it properly, the Incident-whatever you choose to call it-did the nation and the world an enormous good. As we all know, the President was shaken by the Incident and the nation as well. The President and all of us realized what a return to the violence of the last century might mean and it produced a great turnaround."
"I can't deny that."
"Of course you can't. Even the President's enemies will grant that the last two years have seen great accomplishments. The Federation is far stronger today than anyone could have dreamed it would be on that Tercentenary day. We might even say that a breakup of the global economy has been prevented."
Edwards said cautiously, "Yes, the President is a changed man. Everyone says so."
Janek said, "He was a great man always. The Incident made him concentrate on the great issues with a fierce intensity, however."
"Which he didn't do before?"
"Perhaps not quite as intensely...In effect then, the President, and all of us, would like the Incident forgotten. My main purpose in seeing you, Mr. Edwards, is to make that plain to you. This is not the Twentieth Century and we can't throw you in jail for being inconvenient to us, or hamper you in any way, but even the Global Charter doesn't forbid us to attempt persuasion. Do you understand me?"
"I understand you, but I do not agree with you. Can we forget the Incident when the person responsible has never been apprehended?"
"Perhaps that is just as well, too, sir. Far better that some, uh, unbalanced person escape than that the matter be blown out of proportion and the stage set, possibly, for a return to the days of the Twentieth Century."
"The official story even states that the robot spontaneously exploded-which is impossible, and which has been an unfair blow to the robot industry."
"A robot is not the term I would use, Mr. Edwards. It was a mechanical device. No one has said that robots are dangerous, per se, certainly not the workaday metallic ones. The only reference here is to the unusually complex manlike devices that seem flesh and blood and that we might call androids. Actually, they are so complex that perhaps they might explode at that; I am not an expert in the field. The robotics industry will recover."
"Nobody in the government," said Edwards stubbornly, "seems to care whether we reach the bottom of the matter or not."
"I've already explained that there have been no consequences but good ones. Why stir the mud at the bottom, when the water above is clear?"
"And the use of the disintegrator?"
For a moment, Janek's hand, which had been slowly turning the container of soya sticks on his desk, held still, then it returned to its rhythmic movement. He said lightly, "What's that?"
Edwards said intently, "Mr. Janek, I think you know what I mean. As part of the Service-"
"To which you no longer belong, of course:"
"Nevertheless, as part of the Service, I could not help but hear things that were not always, I suppose, for my ears. I had heard of a new weapon, and I saw something happen at the Tercentenary which would require one. The object everyone thought was the President disappeared into a cloud of very fine dust. It was as though every atom within the object had had its bonds to other atoms loosed. The object had become a cloud of individual atoms, which began to combine again of course, but which dispersed too quickly to do more than appear a momentary glitter of dust."
"Very science-fictionish."
"I certainly don't understand the science behind it, Mr. Janek, but I do see that it would take considerable energy to accomplish such bond breaking. This energy would have to be withdrawn from the environment. Those people who were standing near the device at the time, and whom I could locate-and who would agree to talk-were unanimous in reporting a wave of coldness washing over them."
Janek