Vall nodded and handed him the time-line designation list.

"See any kind of a pattern there?" he asked.

The psychist looked at the paper and blanked his face as he drew on
hypnotically-acquired information.

"Yes. I'd say that all the numbers are related in some kind of a
series to some other number. Simplified down to kindergarten level,
say the difference between A and B is, maybe, one-decillionth of the
difference between X and A, and the difference between B and C is
one-decillionth of the difference between X and B, and so on--"

A voice came out of one of the communication boxes:

"Dr. Nentrov; the patient's out of the drug, and he's beginning to
stir about."

"That's it," the psychist said. "I have to run." He handed the sheet
back to Vall, took a last drink from his coffee cup, and bolted out of
the room.

Dalla picked up the sheet of paper and looked at it. Vall told her
what it was.

"If those time lines are in regular series, they relate to the base
line of operations," she said. "Maybe you can have that worked out. I
can see how it would be; a stated interval between the Esaron Sector
lines, to simplify transposition control settings."