THE COSMIC COMPUTER

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"Don't you? You were in Storisende when the Travis statement came out;
you saw how people acted. If this story gets out, people will be acting
the same way on every planet in the Federation. Not just places like
Poictesme; planets like Terra and Baldur and Marduk and Odin and Osiris.
It would be the end of everything civilized, everywhere."

"Why didn't they use Merlin to save the Federation?"

"It's past saving. It's been past saving since before the War. The War
was what gave it the final shove. If they could have used Merlin to
reverse the process, they wouldn't have sealed it away."

"But you know, Conn, we can't destroy Merlin. If we did, the same people
who went crazy over the Travis statement would go crazy all over again,
worse than ever. We'd be destroying everything we planned for, and we'd
be destroying ourselves. That bluff young Macquarte and Luther Chen-Wong
and Bill Nichols made wouldn't work twice. And if they weren't bluffing...."