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 News and give ’em a couple of thousand credits apiece and a couple of weeks vacation to spend it in. … Yeah, I’ll send ’em in.” He turned to the flabbergasted three. “Take your dope in to Rand—now. Show him what you’ve got; then tear into that pilot plant.”
And, a little later, Molly and May again met in the powder room.
“So your new boss is a fisherman!” Molly snickered. “And they say he paid over two hundred credits for a reel! You were right, May; a boss’s life must be mighty hard to take. And he sits around more and does less, they say, than any other exec in the plant.”
“Who says so, the dirty, sneaking liars?” the redhead blazed, completely unaware that she had reversed her former position. “And even if it was so, which it isn’t, he can do more work sitting perfectly still than any other boss in the whole Works can do tearing around at forty parsecs a minute, so there!”
George Olmstead was earning his salary.
His position was fully consolidated when, a few days later, a tremor of excitement ran through the Research Department. “Heads up, everybody! Mr. Isaacson—himself—is coming—here! What for, I wonder? Y’don’t s’pose he’s going to take the Old Man away from us already, do you?”
He came. He went through, for the first time, the entire department. He observed minutely, and he understood what he saw.
Olmstead led the Big Boss into his private office and flipped the switch which supposedly rendered that sanctum proof against any and all forms of spying, eavesdropping, intrusion, and communication. It did not, however, close the deeper, subtler channels which the Lensmen used.
“Good work, George. So damned good that I’m going to have to take you out of Department Q entirely and make you Works Manager of our new plant on Vegia. Have you got a man you can break in to take your place here?”
“Including Department Q? No.” Although Olmstead did not show it, he was disappointed at hearing the word “Vegia.” He had been aiming much higher than that—at the secret planet of the Boskonian Armed Forces, no less—but there might still be enough time to win a transfer there.
“Excluding. I’ve got another good man here now for that. Jones. Not heavy enough, though, for Vegia.”
“In that case, yes. Dr. Whitworth, one of the boys who worked out the new process. It’ll take a little time, though. Three weeks minimum.”
“Three weeks it is. Today’s Friday. You’ve got things in shape, haven’t you, so that you can take the weekend off?”
“I was figuring on it. I’m not going where I thought I was, though, I imagine.”
“Probably not. Lake Chesuncook, on Route 273. Rough country, and the hotel is something less than fourth rate, but the fishing can’t be beat.”
“I’m glad of that. When I fish, I like to catch something.”
“It would smell if you didn’t. They stock lunch-boxes in the cafeteria, you know. Have your girl get you one, full of sandwiches and stuff. Start early this afternoon, as soon as you can after I leave. Be sure and see Jones, with your lunch-box, before you leave. Goodbye.”
“Miss Reed, please send Whitworth in. Then skip down to the cafeteria and get me a lunch-box. Sandwiches and a thermos of coffee. Provender suitable for a wet and hungry fisherman.”
“Yes, sir!” There were no chips now; the redhead’s boss was the top ace of the whole plant.
“Hi, Ned. Take the throne.” Olmstead waved his hand at the now vacant chair behind the big desk. “Hold it down ’til I get back. Monday, maybe.”
“Going fishing, huh?” Gone was all trace of stiffness, of reserve, of unfriendliness. “You big, lucky stiff!”
“Well, my brilliant young squirt, maybe you’ll get old and fat enough to go fishing yourself some day. Who knows? ’Bye.”
Lunch-box in hand and encumbered with tackle, Olmstead walked blithely along the corridor to the office of Assistant Works Manager Jones. While he had not known just what to expect, he was not surprised to see a lunch-box exactly like his own upon the side-table. He placed his box beside it.
“Hi, Olmstead.” By no slightest flicker of expression did either Lensman step out of character. “Shoving off early?”
“Yeah. Dropped by to let the Head Office know I won’t be in ’til Monday.”
“OK. So’m I, but more speed for me. Chemquassabamticook Lake.”
“Do you pronounce that or sneeze it? But have fun, my boy. I’m combining business with pleasure, though—breaking in Whitworth on my job. That Fairplay thing is going to break in about an hour, and it’ll scare the pants off
