Professor Kellton was the most unworldly of the lot, yet he was asking
the most practical question.

"Well, the astrophysics computer I worked with at the University
occupies a total of about one million cubic feet," Conn began. This was
his chance; they'd take anything he told them about computers as gospel.
"It was only designed to handle problems in astrophysics. The Brain,
being built for space war, would have to handle any such problem. And if
half the stories about the Brain are anywhere near true, it handled any
other problem--mathematical, scientific, political, economic, strategic,
psychological, even philosophical and ethical. Well, I'd say that a
hundred million cubic feet would be the smallest even conceivable."

They all nodded seriously. They were willing to accept that--or anything
else, except one thing.

"Lot of places on this planet where a thing that size could be hidden,"
Tom Brangwyn said, undismayed. "A planet's a mighty big place."

"It could be under water, in one of the seas," Piet Dawes, the banker,
suggested. "An underwater dome city wouldn't be any harder to build than
a dome city on a poison-atmosphere planet like Tubal-Cain."

"It might even be on Tubal-Cain," a melon-planter said. "Or Hiawatha, or
even one of the Beta or Gamma planets. The Third Force was occupying the
whole Trisystem, you know." He thought for a moment. "If I'd been in
charge, I'd have put it on one of the moons of Pantagruel."

"But that's clear out in the Alpha System," Judge Ledue objected. "We