"It doesn't take a lot to keep things ship-shape. Faulty wiring, frayed connections, generators with rattles, loose bearings, electron tubes working past their safety-period. I found three hydrogen thyatrons running at one-and-one-half times their rating because they were so old that they were beginning to get sluggish. Just last week in one of your ships. "Sure," sneered Steve, "you can get another couple of hundred operating hours out of a tube by running the filament hotter than normal when it starts to get weak. But you're running a spaceline, not a spot-welder; when one of them blows, it's a job for the mop-up squad. Someone's cutting corners, saving a hundred bucks worth of tubes for a couple of weeks doesn't pay for lost lives and--" "I'm aware of the safety factors," said Wrightwood angrily. "The trouble with these safety factors is that they've been set up because someone in your outfit took the figures presented by the tube manufacturers and divided them by two. Instead of running on a hundred percent safety factor, you've forced us to run on five or six hundred percent. And do you know why?" Steve did not reply. "Because one of the guys who makes standards for the Guardians holds some stock in a tube company." "That's a lie!" roared Steve, slamming his fist on the table. "It's no lie; it's just a fine way to raise the sale of tubes. And tubes are only one part of the whole. Now--" Steve roared again. "When the lives of a couple of hundred people depend upon a chunk of wire the size of a piece of string, heated to incandescence by electric current, any safety factor can damn well afford to be trebled and trebled again!" Wrightwood shook his head solemnly. "This isn't all," he said; "this is only the beginning. The whole adds up to a staggering sum. But I didn't bring you in here to hurl accusations at you. I merely want to ask you to use a bit of tolerant common sense." "Now I'm lacking in com--" "Now, now, let's stop roaring like a ruffled lion. The only common sense you lack, Steve, is the sense that should tell you that running Interstellar is more self-satisfying than being commissioner of the Guardians. But look. Let's for the moment admit that a ship--called X--comes into Tandrel and as it arrives the time-meters on the thyratrons say that their safe life is up. What then?" "Replace 'em." Wrightwood nodded. * * * * * Steve looked at the man quizzically. If one of the first tenets of argument is never to admit for a moment that you are wrong, then why was William Wrightwood doing it? Wrightwood shrugged. "Replace them," he agreed. "However, remember the following items: "One: Thyratrons such as we use are manufactured on Earth; that's a long way from here. "Two: If we replace the thyratrons on Tandrel, the replacements must be shipped out from Earth as unpaid cargo, and entry-duty, taxes, shipping charges, and the rest of the hidden costs cause an increase in their price.