"As it happens," Camhorn observed, "the situation is very unfunny, Gus.
Experiments with Ym-400 have, to date, produced no useful results--and
have produced over eleven hundred casualties. Most of the latter were
highly trained men and women, not easily replaced."
Fry studied him incredulously. "You say these accidents have not been
explained?"
Camhorn shook his head. "If they were explicable after the event,"
he said, "very few of them would have happened in the first place. I
assure you there's been nothing sloppy about the manner in which the
project has been conducted, Gus. But as it stands today, it's a flop.
If the stakes were less high, it would have been washed out ten years
ago. And, as I said before, if there were reason to believe that the
stable compound was involved in the disappearance of a space transport,
we probably would postpone further operations indefinitely. One such
occurrence would raise the risks to the intolerable level."
Fry grunted. "Is that what those accidents were like?
Things--people--disappear?"
"Well ... some of them were of that general nature."