It was a new idea. The mechanics had other and immediate problems beside the overall disaster of the fleet. Pumps that did not work. Motors that heated up. They could envision the meeting of those problems, and they could envision the obtaining of jungle-plows. But they could not imagine anything in between. They were capable of learning how to make tools for repairs. * * * * * Hoddan taught them. In one day there were five ships being brought into better operating condition--for ultimate futility--because of what he'd brought. Two days. Three. Mechanics began to come to the liner. Those who'd learned first pompously passed on what they knew. On the fourth day somebody began to use a vision-tape machine to get information on a fine point in welding. On the fifth day there were lines of men waiting to use them. On the sixth day a mechanic on what had been a luxury passenger liner on the other side of the galaxy--but it was scores of years ago--asked to talk to Hoddan by spacephone. He'd been working feverishly at the minor repairs he'd been unable to make for so long. To get material he pulled a crate off one of the junk machines supplied the fleet. He looked it over. He believed that if this piece were made new, and that replaced with sound metal, the machine might be usable! Hoddan had him come to the liner which was now the flagship of the fleet. Discussion began. Shaping such large pieces of metal which could be taken from here or there--shaping such large pieces of metal.... Hoddan began to draw diagrams. They were not clear. He drew more. Abruptly, he stared at what he'd outlined. Electronics.... He saw something remarkable. If one applied a perfectly well-known bit of pure-science information that nobody bothered with-- He finished the diagram and a vast, soothing satisfaction came over him. "We've got to get out of here!" he said. "Not enough room!" He looked about him. Insensibly, as he talked to the first man on the fleet to show imagination, other men had gathered around. They were now absorbed. "I think," said Hoddan, "that we can make an electronic field that'll soften the cementite between the crystals of steel, without heating up anything else. If it works, we can make die-forgings and die-stampings with plastic dies! And then that useless junk you've got can be rebuilt--" They listened gravely, nodding as he talked. They did not quite understand everything, but they had the habit of believing him now. He needed this and that in the huge cargo spaces of the ship the leader had formerly used. "Hm-m-m," said Hoddan. "How about duplicating these machines and sending them over?" They looked estimatingly at the tool-shop equipment. It could be made to duplicate itself-- The new machine shop, in the ancient ark of space, made another machine shop for another ship. In the other ship that tool shop would make another for another ship, which in turn....