"You came with excellent empire credentials and are studying mechanopsychology, therefore, you have obviously had some experience with the quickness of the machine to refute too much coincidence.

"Why not program the birth/death records machines to spot these anomalies?"

I looked thoughtful, then nodded. "A good idea," I agreed. "It would've discovered the problem at University long before it became so serious."

"You might save some civilizations in the future as a direct result," he said. "I have read of your exploits, as I said, and I have read your own chronicles.

"Saving civilizations seems to be a habit of yours.

"I'll go back to work at University now. Good fortune!"

He stepped to the transmat station, turned to lift the trunk in salute, winked at me and was gone.

You WOULD think I sort of make a specialization of saving civilizations to read my stuff – wouldn't you?

Good fortune!

A Domestic Problem

The fastcom chattered, dinged and began spewing out its sheet of information.