The Trouble with Telstar Read online

thesis."

  "Sure," he said contentedly, puffing more smoke. "So we made a testingengineer out of you. And you may amount to something, to hear FredStone tell it."

  "Thanks," I said.

  "Now let me hear what you've been doing for Fred," Cleary suggested,in a sort of avuncular tone. "I'd like to measure you myself."

  "You mean the tests I ran on the switching gate?" I asked.

  "Why, yes, we can start there," he nodded, squinting his blue eyesmore and blowing a real screen up between us.

  * * * * *

  "When Telstar One packed up, they sent me down the whole gate fromthat sector," I said. "Dr. Stone asked me to run destruct tests on thewhole assembly, which I did. The only failures I have induced so farare failures in M1537, the solenoid that all the shouting is about."

  "What kind of failures did you get?"

  "Armature froze on the field," I said. "I guess the bearings reallywent. When there was enough load on them, they couldn't maintainconcentricity."

  "What kind of loads?" he growled, sinking down lower in his chair. Heput his elbows on the arm and laced hairy-backed fingers togetherunder his chin.

  "I put the whole gate on the centrifuge and swung it up to twelvegees" I said. "Switching was normal there for the twenty thousandcycles I gave the gate. But when I added undamped vibration at twelvethousand to fifteen thousand cycles per second, I could induce failurepretty quickly. Say an hour or so."

  "You had to apply the vibration throughout the whole test period toget these failures?"

  "Yes, Mr. Cleary."

  "Then how do you explain how vibration during no more than six oreight minutes of blast-off and launch could have the same effect onthe actual installation on M1537 in a satellite, Mr. Seaman?" Smokepoured from the curve-stem.

  "I don't have to explain it," I said, beginning to get a little hot."All I have done is find a way to make one part quit. I haven't saidit did quit in use, or that it could be made to quit in use."

  "Then what the hell are you good for?" Cleary growled.

  I didn't have any answer for that.

  He repeated his question, blue eyes glittering. "I asked you what thehell you were good for, Seaman!" he said, much more loudly.

  "For putting in the middle," I snapped back.

  "That's how you interpret this affair, then?"

  "Yes."

  "All right," Cleary said, straightening up. "We'll stop talking aboutyour work as if it were scientific study and talk about it as a playin office politics. Is that what you want?"

  "I don't want any part of it," I said, hoping I wasn't plaintive. "Iwork under orders. The director of assembly asked me to test the partto destruction. I tested it. I'm sorry that it wasn't a soldered jointthat failed. It wasn't. It was a solenoid. What has that got to dowith me?"

  "Nothing, maybe," Cleary conceded, pushing himself up out of hischair. He went to his window to stare out at the parking lot. "You canbe a test engineer all your life, if that's what you want."

  "It isn't."

  "And what do you want, Mike?" he said, turning back to face me.

  "Your job," I said. "In time."

  * * * * *

  He nodded. "Well said," he decided. "But if you want it, you'll haveto learn that business is about ninety per cent people and about tenper cent operations. You know, as you have clearly shown, that FredStone is pushing to get me out of here a little before my time, andpushing to make sure that he gets this spot, for which there are otherclaimants of equal rank in the organization. Oh no," he said, holdingup his hand. "Don't tell me that is none of your affair. Right now youare in the unusual position of being able to cast a vote that willdecide just how soon Fred Stone can make his move for the top spot.And as long as you sit there and try that smug line of 'I just test'em and let the chips fall where they may,' you are really siding withFred Stone. I need something else out of you, and you know it. What'sit going to be? Are you a wise enough head at your years to pick awinner in this scrap? And what if it _isn't_ Fred? I'll have yourhide, young man."

  "That's what your snippy little brunette said," I told him. "She toldme that you'd eat me for breakfast, and she was right." I got to myfeet.

  "Where are you going," he growled. He was still standing behind hischair.

  "To look for another job, Mr. Cleary. There must be some place wherethe honest result of a test will be assessed as the honest result of atest rather than a move in a political fight."

  "Honest result?" he echoed, and snorted. "_Was_ your test honest? What_really_ happened out there in space?"

  "Nobody asked me," I said hotly. "My assignment was to test that gateuntil a part failed."

  "A dishonest assignment," Cleary said. "Sit down a minute." We bothcalmed down and took our seats. I got a cigar out of my coat, peeledthe wrapper and made counter-smoke. "Here, I'll give you an honestassignment, Seaman. You're a test engineer. Tell me what happened _outthere in space_. Why did that switching operation fail?"

  "I haven't the faintest idea," I said.

  "Then find out!"

  I chewed my cigar. "Without duplicating the conditions?" I protested."And how can we? There's zero gravity--zero pressure--all sorts ofthings going on out there we can't duplicate in a lab."

  "I really don't care how you do it," he said. "But if it were my jobI'd just light my pipe and sit here and think for a week or so. Whydon't _you_ try it?"

  I got up again. "Yes, sir," I said. "I suppose it would help to havethe original telemetry data so that I could evaluate for myself whatwent wrong."

  "I thought you'd get to that," he said, passing me a fat file-folder."Here it is." He stood up, too, and led me to the door. "And otherdata you might want?" he asked, now a good deal more kindly. His handwas on my elbow.

  I looked at him. "How about the phone number of the brunette outthere?" I asked without taking the stogey from my teeth.

  "Sylvia? That's pretty valuable information," he said, beginning togrin in a sleepy old fashion. "But she only dates astronauts. If youhaven't made at least three orbits, she won't even have dinner withyou."

  I stopped at Sylvia's desk with half an idea of asking her for a date."Well, Dr. Seaman," she demanded as I chewed on my pacifier. "What didyou learn?"

  I thought about it. "That a lot depends on knowing where to put yourfeet," I said, puffing smoke. "And my name is Mike."

  She sniffed. "If you think Paul Cleary hasn't been around long enoughto catch Fred Stone trying to fake him out of position with ameaningless test," she said, "you have another think coming!"

  "He'd never have tried it," I told her, "if he'd known Cleary had youto look after him." That got me a much louder sniff and toss of thedark curly head, which broke up my plans to ask her to dinner.

  The telemetry results had been decoded, of course, so that a meremortal could read them. I didn't have a pipe, which probably meant I'dbe a failure as a physicist, so I chewed cigars ragged for about threedays and did some serious thinking. When I got a result, I looked upShouff, Sylvia, Secy./Mgr./Dsgn., in the phone directory, and talkedto my favorite brunette.

  "Mr. Cleary's office," she said.

  "When would he like to see Mike Seaman?" I tried.

  "Probably never," she told me. "But I suppose he'll have to. Isn'tFred Stone going to run your errand for you?"

  "I'm running Fred Stone's errands, isn't that what you really think,Sylvia?" I asked her.

  Sniff! "He can see you at eleven." Click.

  Paul Cleary had his coat off and was poring over a largeblack-on-white schematic when I was shown in by sniffin' Sylvia."Hello, Mike," he growled. "Here, Sylvia. Mike's not supposed to seethis stuff. Drag it away, honey. Drag it away!"

  With quick motions she rolled up the drawings, snapped a rubber binderaround them and went out. Cleary wagged his hairy old paw to the chairbeside his desk.

  "So you've been thinking?" he asked, reaching for his curve-stemmedpipe.

  "How do
you know?"

  "My spies tell me you haven't been out in the lab since the other day.Certainly you were doing something besides sulk in your office."

  "Yes."

  "Well, what did