THE COSMIC COMPUTER

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followed under these conditions by the people of Poictesme?/ It had
taken some time to phrase that in[Pg 186] symbols a computer would find
comprehensible; the answer, at great length, emerged in two minutes
eight seconds. Retranslating it took five hours.

In the beginning and for the first ten years, it was, almost item for
item, the Maxwell Plan. Export trade, specialized in luxury goods.
Brandies and wines, tobacco; a long list of other exportable
commodities, and optimum markets. Reopening of industrial plants;
establishment of new industries. Attainment of economic
self-sufficiency. Cultural self-sufficiency; establishment of
universities, institutes of technology, research laboratories. Then the
Maxwell Plan became the Merlin Plan; the breakup of the Federation was a
fact that entered into the computation. Build-up of military strength to
resist aggression by other planetary governments. Defense of the Gartner
Trisystem. Lists of possible aggressor planets. Revival of interstellar
communications and trade; expeditions, conquest and re-education of