He knew _what_ a standard converter did, but he didn't know _how_.
Therefore, he only knew approximately what this new modification would
do.
The Space Force technicians stood off to one side, waiting respectfully
for Crayley to finish his examination. Crayley could feel their eyes
on him, and he knew full well that the respectful attitude was only
superficial; a Space Force man has respect only for the officers above
him.
When he was thoroughly satisfied that he could learn nothing more from
a superficial examination of the machine, he turned to the technicians.
"All right, let's go upstairs. Mr. Klythe wants to talk to you."
It was the incident in the hall of the executive offices that decided
Lewis Crayley once and for all that he now had not only a motive but a
method for murdering Berin Klythe.
As the recording technicians were filing into the briefing room, Berin
stepped out of the lift tube and headed toward the door. Several other
engineering executives of North American Sub-nucleonics followed him.
Klythe started to walk in through the door of the conference room, and
one of the Space Force techs stepped on his toe. It wasn't painful,
and it wasn't done on purpose; the tech was quite polite when he said,
"Excuse me, sonny."
Klythe said nothing, but his eyes blazed with sudden anger, and his
face grew crimson as he tried successfully to suppress it.
Behind his face, Crayley grinned gleefully. He rubbed his nose with a
concealing hand.
Inside the room, as they all seated themselves in the chairs, Crayley
watched the face of the man who had done the toe-mashing. He was
solidly-built, young, good-looking in an ugly sort of way, sensitive
and intelligent, as a waldo recorder had to be. When Klythe walked up
behind the desk and said: "Good morning, gentlemen: I'm Berin Klythe,"
the tech's eyes opened a little wider for a fraction of a second, but
there was no further reaction. Crayley was satisfied; he turned to
watch Klythe.
Klythe was furious, but there was nothing he could do about it. The
crimson in his face had died, to be replaced by the faint pallor of
anger.
"You may ask me questions later," he said bluntly. "Right now, I'd like
to ask you one. Which one of you is co-ordinator here?" One of the men
stood. "Your name? Russ? Mr. Russ, may I ask why the Space Force felt
that our recording men were not capable of doing this job?"
Russ fumbled uncomfortably. Finally: "Well, sir, this gadget is
of--uh--rather radically new design. Since we, as a team, had built
the various designs that led up to this one, our superiors felt that
we would have a better working knowledge of the piece. They felt it
would save time if we made the recording. I'm sure there was no slight
intended to your own recording staff."
"I see," Klythe said coldly. "Very well." He turned his head a fraction
and looked directly at Crayley. "Lew, what do you think the Space Force
will do next time? Send over their own Director?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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