"Oh?" said Smith. "And where do we get these tools, Mr. Kelvin? From
the circumambient ether?"
"Not at all," said Jayjay. "Did you ever chip flint?"
"What?"
"Never mind. All we have to do is use that quarter-inch bit."
Smith still looked confused. "I don't get it. A bit that big won't fit
in."
"We simply crack a piece off that hard carbon steel," Jayjay said. "We
can make a lathe tool that will fit into the small space between the
inner and outer tubes. The fractured edge will be sharp enough to take
out the excess metal. The male plug can move in, and we'll have
contact."
"Well, I'll be--" Smith used another French word.
Captain Atef Al-Amin cast his eyes upwards. "_Creatio ex nihilo_," he
said softly.
* * * * *
When the Interplanetary Police ship took the five men and the cargo
from the wreck of the _Persephone_, the major in command of the ship,
who knew that he had rescued the great J. J. Kelvin, asked him: "Mr.
Kelvin, what do you plan to do when you return to Ceres City?"
And Jayjay, who knew that both he and the major were speaking for the
newsfacs and for posterity, said:
"I'm going to make sure that Kelvin Associates learns to make
emergency equipment properly. We will never again put faulty equipment
aboard a ship."