Walt smiled wearily and said: "A good secretary is a thing of beauty. A
thing of beauty is admired and is a joy forever. Jeanne is both. She is
a jewel."
"Yeah, we know. What does the letter say?"
"It is another communiqué from our doting boss. He is removing from my
control the odd three hundred men I've got working on Beam Control. He
is to assume the responsibility for them himself. I'm practically out
of a job."
"Make that two Scotches," Channing told Joe.
"Make it three," chimed in Arden. "I've got to work for him, too!"
"Is that so bad?" asked Channing. "All you've got to do is to listen
carefully and do as you're told. We have to answer to the bird, too."
"Yeah," said Arden, "but you fellows don't have to listen to a dopey
guy ask foolish questions all day. It's driving me silly."
"What I'd like to know," murmured Franks, "is what is the idea of
pulling me off the job? Nuts, I've been on the Beam Control for years.
I've got the finest crew of men anywhere. They can actually foresee a
shift and compensate for it, I think. I picked 'em myself and I've been
proud of my outfit. Now," he said brokenly, "I've got no outfit. In
fact, I have darned little crew left at all. Only my dozen lab members.
I'll have to go back to swinging a meter myself before this is over."
It was quite a comedown. From the master of over three hundred highly
paid, highly prized, intelligent technicians, Walt Franks was now the
superintendent of one dozen laboratory technicians. It was a definite
cut in his status.
Channing finished his drink and, seeing that Franks' attention was
elsewhere, he told Arden: "Thanks for taking care of him, but don't use
all your sympathy on him. I feel that I'm going to need your shoulder
to cry on before long."
"Any time you want a soft shoulder," said Arden generously, "let me
know. I'll come a-running."
Channing went out. He roamed nervously all the rest of the day. He
visited the bar several times, but the general air of the place
depressed him. From a place of recreation, laughter and pleasantry,
Joe's place had changed to a room for reminiscences and remorse, a
place to drown one's troubles--or poison them--or to preserve them in
alcohol.
He went to see the local moving picture, a piece advertised as being
one of the best mystery thrillers since Hitchcock. He found that all
of the interesting parts were cut out and that the only thing that
remained was a rather disjointed portrayal of a detective finding
meaningless clues and ultimately the criminal. There was a suggestion
at the end that the detective and the criminal had fought it out, but
whether it was with pistols, field pieces, knives, cream puffs or words
was left to the imagination. It was also to be assumed that he and the
heroine, who went into a partial blackout every time she sat down,
finally got acquainted enough to hold hands after the picture.
Channing stormed out of the theatre after seeing the above and finding
that the only cartoon had been barred because it showed an innocuous
cow without benefit of shorts.
He troubled Joe for a bottle of the best and took to his apartment
in disappointment. By eight o'clock in the evening, Don Channing was
asleep with all of his clothing on. The bed rolled and refused to stay
on an even keel, but Channing found a necktie and tied himself securely
in the bed and died off in a beautiful, boiled cloud.
* * * * *
He awoke to the tune of a beautiful hangover. He gulped seven glasses
of water and staggered to the shower. Fifteen minutes of iced needles
and some coffee brought him part way back to his own, cheerful self. He
headed down the hall toward the elevator.
He found a note in his office directing him to appear at a conference
in Burbank's office. Groaning in anguish, Don went to the Director's
office expecting the worst.
It was bad. In fact, it was enough to drive everyone in the conference
to drink. Burbank asked opinions on everything, and then tore the
opinions apart with little regard to their validity. He expressed his
own opinion many times, which was a disgusted sense of the personnel's
inability to do anything of real value.
"Certainly," he stormed, "I know you are operating. But have there been
any new developments coming out of your laboratory, Mr. Channing?"
Someone was about to tell Burbank that Channing had a doctor's degree,
but Don shook his head.
"We've been working on a lot of small items," said Channing. "I cannot
say whether there has been any one big thing that we could point to. As
we make developments, we put them into service. Added together, they
make quite an honest effort."
"What, for instance?" stormed Burbank.
"The last one was the coupler machine improvement that permitted better
than ten thousand words per minute."
"Up to that time the best wordage was something like eight thousand
words," said Burbank. "I think that you have been resting too long
on your laurels. Unless you can bring me something big enough to
advertise, I shall have to take measures."
"Now you, Mr. Warren," continued Burbank. "You are the man who is
supposed to be superintendent of maintenance. May I ask why the outer
hull is not painted?"
"Because it would be a waste of paint," said Warren. "Figure out the
acreage of a surface of a cylinder three miles long and a mile in
diameter. It is almost eleven square miles! Eleven square miles to
paint from scaffolding hung from the outside itself."
"Use bos'n's chairs," snapped Burbank.
"A bos'n's chair would be worthless," Warren informed Burbank. "You
must remember that to anyone trying to operate on the outer hull, the
outer hull is a ceiling and directly overhead.
"Another thing," said Warren, "you paint that hull and you'll run this
station by yourself. Why d'ya think we have it shiny?"
"If we paint the hull," persisted Burbank, "it will be more presentable
than that nondescript steel color."
"That steel color is as shiny as we could make it," growled Warren. "We
want to get rid of as much radiated heat as we can. You slap a coat of
any kind of paint on that hull and you'll have plenty of heat in here."
"Ah, that sounds interesting. We'll save heating costs--"
"Don't be an idiot," snapped Warren. "Heating costs, my grandmother's
eye. Look, Burbank, did you ever hear of the Uranium Pile? Part of our
income comes from refining uranium and plutonium and the preparation
of radioisotopes. And--Good Lord, I'm not going to try to explain
fission-reacting materials to you; get that first old copy of the Smyth
Report and get caught up to date.
"The fact remains," continued Warren, cooling somewhat after displaying
Burbank's ignorance, "that we have more power than we know what to do
with. We're operating on a safe margin by radiating just a little more
than we generate. We make up the rest by the old methods of artificial
heating.
"But there have been a lot of times when it became necessary to
dissipate a lot of energy for divers reasons and then we've had to shut
off the heating. What would happen if we couldn't cool off the damned
coffee can? We'd roast to death the first time we got a new employee
with a body temperature a degree above normal."
"You're being openly rebellious," Burbank warned him.
"So I am. And if you persist in your attempt to make this place
presentable, you'll find me and my gang outright mutinous! Good day,
sir!"
He stormed out of the office and slammed the door.
"Take a note, Miss Westland, 'Interplanetary Communications Commission,
Terra. Gentlemen: Michael Warren, superintendent of maintenance at
Venus Equilateral, has proven to be unreceptive to certain suggestions
as to the appearance and/or operation of Venus Equilateral. It is my
request that he be replaced immediately. Signed, Francis Burbank,
Director.'" He paused to see what effect that message had upon the
faces of the men around the table. "Send that by special delivery!"
Johnny Billings opened his mouth to say something, but shut it with
a snap. Westland looked up at Burbank, but she said nothing. Arden
gave Channing a sly smile, and Channing smiled back. There were grins
about the table, too, for everyone recognized the boner. Burbank had
just sent a letter from the interworld communications relay station by
special delivery _mail_. It would not get to Terra for better than two
weeks; a use of the station's facilities would have the message in the
hands of the Commission within the hour.
"That will be all, gentlemen." Burbank smiled smugly. "Our next
conference will be next Monday morning!"
* * * * *
"Mr. Channing," chortled the pleasant voice of Arden Westland, "now
that the trifling influence of the boss versus secretary taboo is off,
will you have the pleasure of buying me a drink?"
"Can you repeat that word for word and explain it?" grinned Don.
"A man isn't supposed to make eyes at his secretary. A gal ain't
supposed to seduce her boss. Now that you are no longer Acting
Director, and I no longer your stenog, how about some sociability?"
"I never thought that I'd be propositioned by a typewriter jockey,"
said Channing, "but I'll do it. What time is it? Do we do it openly, or
must we sneak over to the apartment and snaffle a snort on the sly?"
"We snaffle. That is, if you trust me in your apartment."
"I'm scared to death," Channing informed her. "But if I should fail to
defend my honor, we must remember that it is no dishonor to try and
fail."
"That sounds like a nice alibi," said Arden with a smile. "Or a
come-on. I don't know which. Or, Mr. Channing, am I being told that my
advances might not be welcome?"
"We shall see," Channing said. "We'll have to make a careful study
of the matter. I cannot make any statements without first making a
thorough examination under all sorts of conditions. Here we are. You
will precede me through the door, please."
"Why?" asked Arden.
"So that you cannot back out at the last possible moment. Once I get
you inside, I'll think about keeping you there!"
"As long as you have some illegal fluid, I'll stay." She tried to leer
at Don but failed because she had had all too little experience in
leering. "Bring it on!"
"Here's to the good old days," toasted Don as the drinks were raised.
"Nope. Here's to the future," proposed Arden. "Those good old days--all
they were was old. If you were back in them, you'd still have to have
the pleasure of meeting Burbank."
"_Grrrr_," growled Channing. "That name is never mentioned in this
household."
"You haven't a pix of the old bird turned to the wall, have you?" asked
Arden.
"I tossed it out."
"We'll drink to that." They drained glasses. "And we'll have another."
"I need another," said Channing. "Can you imagine that buzzard asking
me to invent something big in seven days?"
"Sure. By the same reasoning that he uses to send a letter from Venus
Equilateral instead of just slipping it in on the Terra beam. Faulty."
"Phony."
The door opened abruptly and Walt Franks entered. "D'ja hear the
latest?" he asked breathlessly.
"No," said Channing. He was reaching for another glass automatically.
He poured, and Walt watched the amber fluid creep up the glass, led by
a sheet of white foam.
"Then look!" Walt handed Channing an official envelope. It was a
regular notice to the effect that there had been eleven failures of
service through Venus Equilateral.
"Eleven! What makes?"
"Mastermind."
"What's he done?"
"Remember the removal of my jurisdiction over the beam control
operators? Well, in the last ten days, Burbank has installed some new
features to cut expenses. I think that he hopes to lay off a couple of
hundred men."
"What's he doing, do you know?"
"He's shortening the dispersion. He intends to cut the power by
slamming more of the widespread beam into the receptor. The tighter
beam makes aiming more difficult, you know, because at seventy million
miles, every time little Joey on Mars swings his toy horseshoe magnet
on the end of his string, the beam wabbles. And at seventy million
miles, how much wabbling does it take to send a narrow beam clear off
the target?"
"The normal dispersion of the beam from Venus is over a thousand miles
wide. It gyrates and wabbles through most of that arc. That is why we
picked that particular dispersion. If we could have pointed the thing
like an arrow, we'd have kept the dispersion down."
"Right. And he's tightened the beam to less than a hundred miles'
dispersion. Now, every time a sunspot gets hit amidships with a lady
sunspot, the beam goes off on a tangent. We've lost the beam eleven
times in a week. That's more times than I've lost it in three years!"
"O.K.," said Channing. "So what? Mastermind is responsible. We'll sit
tight and wait for developments. In any display of abilities, we can
spike Mr. Burbank. Have another drink?"
"Got any more? If you're out, I've got a couple of cases cached
underneath the bed in my apartment."
"I've plenty," said Channing. "And I'll need plenty. I have exactly
twenty-two hours left in which to produce something comparable to the
telephone, the electric light, the airplane, or the expanding universe!
Phooey. Pour me another, Arden."
A knock at the door; a feminine voice interrupted simultaneously. "May
I come in?"
It was Walt's secretary. She looked worried. In one hand she waved
another letter.
"Another communiqué?" asked Channing.
"Worse. Notice that for the last three hours, there have been less than
twelve percent of messages relayed!"
"Five minutes' operation out of an hour," said Channing. "Where's that
from?"
"Came out on the Terra beam. It's marked number seventeen, so I guess
that sixteen other tries have been made."
"What has Mastermind tried this time?" stormed Channing. He tore out
of the room and headed for the Director's office on a dead run. On the
way, he hit his shoulder on the door, caromed off the opposite wall,
righted himself, and was gone in a flurry of flying feet. Three heads
popped out of doors to see who was making the noise.
Channing skidded into Burbank's office on his heels. "What gives?" he
snapped. "D'ya realize that we've lost the beam? What have you been
doing?"
"It is a minor difficulty," said Burbank calmly. "We will iron it out
presently."
"Presently! Our charter doesn't permit interruptions of service of that
magnitude. I ask again: What are you doing?"
"You, as electronics engineer, have no right to question me. I repeat,
we shall iron out the difficulty presently."
Channing snorted and tore out of Burbank's office. He headed for the
Office of Beam Control, turned the corner on one foot, and slammed the
door in roughly.
"Chuck!" he yelled. "Chuck Thomas! Where are you?"
No answer. Channing left the beam office and headed for the master
control panels, out near the air lock end of Venus Equilateral. He
found Thomas stewing over a complicated piece of apparatus.
"Chuck, for the Love of Michael, what in the devil is going on?"
"Thought you knew," answered Thomas. "Burbank had the crew install
photoelectric mosaic banks on the beam controls. He intends to use the
photomosaics to keep Venus, Terra, and Mars on the beam."
"Great Snivelling Scott! They tried that in the last century and tossed
it out three days later. Where's the crew now?"
"Packing for home. They've been laid off!"
"Get 'em back! Put 'em to work. Turn off those darned photomosaics and
use the manual again. We've lost every beam we ever had."
A sarcastic voice came in at this point. "For what reason do you
interfere with my improvements?" sneered the voice. "Could it be that
you are accepting graft from the employees to keep them on the job by
preventing the installation of superior equipment?"
Channing turned on his toe and let Burbank have one. It was a neat job,
coming up at the right time and connecting sweetly. Burbank went over
on his head.
"Get going," Channing snapped at Thomas.
Charles Thomas grinned. It was not Channing's one-ninety that decided
him to comply. He left.
Channing shook Burbank's shoulder. He slapped the man's face. Eyes
opened, accusing eyes rendered mute by a very sore jaw, tongue, and
throat.
"Now listen," snapped Channing. "Listen to every word! Mosaic directors
are useless. Know why? It is because of the lag. At planetary
distances, light takes an appreciable time to reach. Your beam wabbles.
Your planet swerves out of line because of intervening factors; varying
magnetic fields, even the bending of light due to gravitational fields
will shake the beam microscopically. But, Burbank, a microscopic
discrepancy is all that is needed to bust things wide open. You've
got to have experienced men to operate the beam controls. Men who can
think. Men who can, from experience, reason that this fluctuation will
not last, but will swing back in a few seconds, or that this type of
swerving will increase in magnitude for a half-hour, maintain the
status, and then return, pass through zero and find the same level on
the minus side.
"Since light and centimeter waves are not exactly alike in performance,
a field that will swerve one may not affect the other as much. Ergo
your photomosaic is useless. The photoelectric mosaic is a brilliant
gadget for keeping a plane in a spotlight or for aiming a sixteen-inch
gun, but it is worthless for anything over a couple of million miles.
"So I've called the men back to their stations. And don't try anything
foolish again without consulting the men who are paid to think!"
Channing got up and left. As he strode down the stairs to the apartment
level, he met many of the men who had been laid off. None of them said
a word, but all of them wore bright, knowing smiles.
By Monday morning, however, Burbank was himself again. The rebuff given
him by Don Channing had worn off and he was sparkling with ideas. He
speared Franks with the glitter in his eye and said: "If our beams are
always on the center, why is it necessary to use multiplex diversity?"
Franks smiled. "You're mistaken," he told Burbank. "They're not always
on the button. They vary. Therefore, we use diversity transmission
so that if one beam fails momentarily, one of the other beams will
bring the signal in. It is analogous to tying five or six ropes onto a
hoisted stone. If one breaks, you have the others."
"You have them running all the time, then?"
"Certainly. At several minutes of time-lag in transmission, to try
and establish a beam failure of a few seconds' duration is utter
foolishness."
"And you disperse the beam to a thousand miles wide to keep the beam
centered at any variation?" Burbank shot at Channing.
"Not for any variation. Make that any _normal_ gyration and I'll buy
it."
"Then why don't we disperse the beam to two or three thousand miles and
do away with diversity transmission?" asked Burbank triumphantly.
"Ever heard of fading?" asked Channing with a grin. "Your signal comes
and goes. Not gyration, it just gets weaker. It fails for want of
something to eat, I guess, and takes off after a wandering cosmic ray.
At any rate, there are many times per minute that one beam will be
right on the nose and yet so weak that our strippers cannot clean it
enough to make it usable. Then the diversity system comes in handy. Our
coupling detectors automatically select the proper signal channel. It
takes the one that is the strongest and subdues the rest within itself."
"Complicated?"
"It was done in the heyday of radio--1935 or so. Your two channels
come in to a common detector. Automatic volume control voltage
comes from the single detector and is applied to all channels. This
voltage is proper for the strongest channel, but is too high for the
ones receiving the weaker signal; blocking them by rendering them
insensitive. When the strong channel fades and the weak channel rises,
the detector follows down until the two signal channels are equal and
then it rises with the stronger channel."
"I see," said Burbank, "Has anything been done about fading?"
"It is like the weather, according to Mark Twain," smiled Channing.
"'Everybody talks about it, but nobody does anything about it.' About
all we've learned is that we can cuss it out and it doesn't cuss back."
"I think it should be tried," said Burbank.
"If you'll pardon me, it has been tried. The first installation at
Venus Equilateral was made that way. It didn't work, though we used
more power than all of our diversity transmitters together. Sorry."
"Have you anything to report?" Burbank asked Channing.
"Nothing. I've been more than busy investigating the trouble we've had
in keeping the beams centered."
Burbank said nothing. He was stopped. He hoped that the secret of his
failure was not generally known, but he knew at the same time that when
three hundred men are aware of something interesting, some of them will
see to it that all the others involved will surely know. He looked
at the faces of the men around the table and saw suppressed mirth in
every one of them. Burbank writhed in inward anger. He was a good poker
player. He didn't show it at all.
He then went on to other problems. He ironed some out, others he
shelved for the time being. Burbank was a good business man. But like
so many other businessmen, Burbank had the firm conviction that if he
had the time to spare and at the same time was free of the worries and
paper work of his position, he could step into the laboratory and show
the engineers how to make things hum. He was infuriated every time he
saw one of the engineering staff sitting with hands behind head, lost
in a gazy, unreal land of deep thought. Though he knew better, he was
often tempted to raise hell because the man was obviously loafing.
But give him credit. He could handle business angles to perfection.
In spite of his tangle over the beam control, he had rebounded
excellently and had ironed out all of the complaints that had poured
in. Ironed it out to the satisfaction of the injured party as well as
the Interplanetary Communications Commission, who were interested in
anything that cost money.
He dismissed the conference and went to thinking. And he assumed the
same pose that infuriated him in other men under him; hands behind
head, feet upon desk.
* * * * *
The moving picture theater was dark. The hero reached longing arms
to the heroine, and there was a sort of magnetic attraction. They
approached one another. But the spark misfired. It was blacked out with
a nice slice of utter blackness that came from the screen and spread
its lightlessness all over the theater. In the ensuing darkness, there
were several osculations that were more personal and more satisfying
than the censored clinch. The lights flashed on and several male heads
moved back hastily. Female lips smiled happily. Some of them parted in
speech.