First Lensman, E. E. Smith [early readers TXT] 📗

no detectable residue, either solid, liquid, or gaseous. The platinum-alloy bracelet remained intact."

"And then?"

"The Patrol attacked in force and our expedition was destroyed."

"You are sure of these observational facts?"

"I have the detailed records. Would you like to see them?"

"Send them to my office. I hereby relieve you of all responsibility in the matter of the Lens. In fact, even I may decide to refer it to a higher echelon. Have you any other material, not necessarily facts, which may have bearing?"

"None," Morgan replied; and it was just as well for Virgilia Samms' continued well-being that the Senator did not think it worth while to mention the traceless disappearance of his Number One secretary and a few members of a certain unsavory gang. To his way of thinking, the Lens was not involved, except perhaps very incidentally. Herkimer, in spite of advice and orders, had probably got rough with the girl, and Samms' mob had rubbed him out. Served him right.

"I have no criticism of any phase of your work. You are doing a particularly nice job on thionite. You are of course observing all specified precautions as to key personnel?"

"Certainly. Thorough testing and unremitting watchfulness. Our Mr. Isaacson is about to promote a man who has proved very capable. Would you like to observe the proceedings?"

"No. I have no time for minor matters. Your results have been satisfactory. Keep them that way. Good-bye." The visitor strode out.

Morgan reached for a switch, then drew his hand back. No. He would like to sit in on the forthcoming interview, but he did not have the time. He had tested Olmstead repeatedly and personally; he knew what the man was. It was Isaacson's department; let Isaacson handle it. He himself must work full time at the job which only he could handle; the Nationalists must and would win this forthcoming election.

And in the office of the president of Interstellar Spaceways, Isaacson got up and shook hands with George Olmstead.

"I called you in for two reasons. First, in reply to your message that you were ready for a bigger job. What makes you think that any such are available?"

"Do I need to answer that?"

"Perhaps not ... no." The magnate smiled quietly. Morgan was right; this man could not be accused of being dumb. "There is such a job, you are ready for it, and you have your successor trained in the work of harvesting. Second, why did you cut down, instead of increasing as ordered, the weight of broadleaf per trip? This, Olmstead, is really serious."

"I explained why. It would have been more serious the other way. Didn't you believe I knew what I was talking about?"

"Your reasoning may have been distorted in transmittal. I want it straight from you."

"Very well. It isn't smart to be greedy. There's a point at which something that has been merely a nuisance becomes a thing that has to be wiped out. Since I didn't want to be in that ferry when the Patrol blows it out of the ether, I cut down the take, and I advise you to keep it down. What you're getting now is a lot more than you ever got before, and a hell of a lot more than none at all. Think it over."

"I see. Upon what basis did you arrive at the figure you established?"

"Pure guesswork, nothing else. I guessed that about three hundred percent of the previous average per month ought to satisfy anybody who wasn't too greedy to have good sense, and that more than that would ring a loud, clear bell right where we don't want any noise made. So I cut it down to three, and advised Ferdy either to keep it at three or quit while he was still all in one piece."

"You exceeded your authority ... and were insubordinate ... but it wouldn't surprise me if you were right. You are certainly right in principle, and the poundage can be determined by statistical and psychological analysis. But in the meantime, there is tremendous pressure for increased production."

"I know it. Pressure be damned. My dear cousin Virgil is, as you already know, a crackpot. He is visionary, idealistic, full of sweet and beautiful concepts of what the universe would be like if there weren't so many people like you and me in it; but don't ever make the mistake of writing him off as anybody's fool. And you know, probably better than I do, what Rod Kinnison is like. If I were you I'd tell whoever is doing the screaming to shut their damn mouths before they get their teeth kicked down their throats."

"I'm very much inclined to take your advice. And now as to this proposed promotion. You are of course familiar in a general way with our operation at Northport?"

"I could scarcely help knowing something about the biggest uranium works on Earth. However, I am not well enough qualified in detail to make a good technical executive."

"Nor is it necessary. Our thought is to make you a key man in a new and increasingly important branch of the business, known as Department Q. It is concerned neither with production nor with uranium."

"Q as in 'quiet', eh? I'm listening with both ears. What duties would be connected with this ... er ... position? What would I really do?"

Two pairs of hard eyes locked and held, staring yieldlessly into each other's depths.

"You would not be unduly surprised to learn that substances other than uranium occasionally reach Northport?"

"Not too surprised, no," Olmstead replied dryly. "What would I do with it?"

"We need not go into that here or now. I offer you the position."

"I accept it."

"Very well. I will take you to Northport, and we will continue our talk en route."

And in a spy-ray-proof, sound-proof compartment of a Spaceways-owned stratoliner they did so.

"Just for my information, Mr. Isaacson, how many predecessors have I had on this particular job, and what happened to them? The Patrol get them?"

"Two. No; we have not been able to find any evidence that the Samms crowd has any suspicion of us. Both were too small for the job; neither could handle personnel. One got funny ideas, the other couldn't stand the strain. If you don't get funny ideas, and don't crack up, you will make out in a big—and I mean really big—way."

"If I do either I'll be more than somewhat surprised." Olmstead's features set themselves into a mirthless, uncompromising, somehow bitter grin.

"So will I." Isaacson agreed.

He knew what this man was, and just how case-hardened he was. He knew that he had fought Morgan himself to a scoreless tie after twisting Herkimer—and he was no soft touch—into a pretzel in nothing flat. At the thought of the secretary, so recently and so mysteriously vanished, the magnate's mind left for a moment the matter in hand. What was at the bottom of that affair—the Lens or the woman? Or both? If he were in Morgan's shoes ... but he wasn't. He had enough grief of his own, without worrying about any of Morgan's stinkeroos. He studied Olmstead's inscrutable, subtly sneering smile and knew that he had made a wise decision.

"I gather that I am going to be one of the main links in the primary chain of deliveries. What's the technique, and how do I cover up?"

"Technique first. You go fishing. You are an expert at that, I believe?"

"You might say so. I won't have to do any faking there."

"Some week-end soon, and every week-end later on, we hope, you will indulge in your favorite sport at some lake or other. You will take the customary solid and liquid refreshments along in a lunch-box. When you have finished eating you will toss the lunch-box overboard."

"That all?"

"That's all."

"The lunch-box, then, will be slightly special?"

"More or less, although it will look ordinary enough. Now as to the cover-up. How would 'Director of Research' sound?"

"I don't know. Depends on what the researchers are doing. Before I became an engineer I was a pure scientist of sorts; but that was quite a while ago and I was never a specialist."

"That is one reason why I think you will do. We have plenty of specialists—too many, I often think. They dash off in all directions, without rhyme or reason. What we want is a man with enough scientific training to know in general what is going on, but what he will need mostly is hard common sense, and enough ability—mental force, you might call it—to hold the specialists down to earth and make them pull together. If you can do it—and if I didn't think you could I wouldn't be talking to you—the whole force will know that you are earning your pay; just as we could not hide the fact that your two predecessors weren't."

"Put that way it sounds good. I wouldn't wonder if I could handle it."

The conversation went on, but the rest of it is of little importance here. The plane landed. Isaacson introduced the new Director of Research to Works Manager Rand, who in turn introduced him to a few of his scientists and to the svelte and spectacular red-head who was to be his private secretary.

It was clear from the first that the Research Department was not going to be an easy one to manage. The top men were defiant, the middle ranks were sullen, the smaller fry were apprehensive as well as sullen. The secretary flaunted chips on both shapely shoulders. Men and women alike expected the application of the old wheeze "a new broom sweeps clean" for the third time in scarcely twice that many months, and they were defying him to do his worst. Wherefore they were very much surprised when the new boss did nothing whatever for two solid weeks except read reports and get acquainted with his department.

"How d'ya like your new boss, May?" another secretary asked, during a break.

"Oh, not too bad ... I guess." May's tone was full of reservations. "He's quiet—sort of reserved—no passes or anything like that—it'd be funny if I finally got a boss that had something on the ball, wouldn't it? But you know what, Molly?" The red-head giggled suddenly. "I had a camera-fiend first, you know, with a million credits' worth of stereo-cams and such stuff, and then a golf-nut. I wonder what this Dr. Olmstead does with his spare cash?"

"You'll find out, dearie, no doubt." Molly's tone gave the words a meaning slightly different from the semantic one of their arrangement.

"I intend to, Molly—I fully intend to." May's meaning, too, was not expressed exactly by the sequence of words used. "It must be tough, a boss's life. Having to sit at a desk or be in conference six or seven hours a day—when he isn't playing around somewhere—for a measly thousand credits or so a month. How do they get that way?"

"You said it, May. You really said it. But we'll get ours, huh?"

Time went on. George Olmstead studied reports, and more reports. He read one, and re-read it, frowning. He compared it minutely with another; then sent red-headed May to hunt up one which had been turned in a couple of weeks before. He took them home that evening, and in the morning he punched three buttons. Three stiffly polite young men obeyed his summons.

"Good morning, Doctor Olmstead."

"Morning, boys. I'm not up on the fundamental theory of any one of these three reports, but if you combine this, and this, and this," indicating heavily-penciled sections of the three documents, "would you, or would you not, be able to work out a process that would do away with about three-quarters of the final purification and separation processes?"

They did not know. It had not been the business of any one of them, or of all them collectively, to find out.

"I'm making it your business as of now. Drop whatever you're doing, put your heads together, and find out. Theory first, then a small-scale laboratory experiment. Then come back here on the double."

"Yes, sir," and in a few days they were back.

"Does it work?"

"In theory it should, sir, and on a laboratory scale it does." The three young men were, if possible, even stiffer than before. It was not the first time, nor would it be the last, that a Director of Research would seize credit for work which he was not capable of doing.

"Good. Miss Reed, get me Rand ... Rand? Olmstead. Three of my boys have just hatched out something that may be worth quite a few million credits a year to us.... Me? Hell, no! Talk to them. I can't understand any one of the three parts of it, to say nothing of inventing it. I want you to give 'em a class AAA priority on the pilot plant, as of right now. If they can develop it, and I'm betting they can, I'm going to put their pictures in the Northport