"I'm afraid you'll have to make it brief, Bob," he grinned. "I've a whale of a lot of work to do, and I seem to be developing a splitting headache. Nerves, you know." "Sure, Mister Partch. I won't take a minute; I just thought you'd like to have a look at the first model of our widget and get clued in on our progress so far...." "Yes, yes, just go ahead. How does the thing work?" Bob smiled and set the grey steel chassis on Partch's desk, sat down in front of it, and began tracing the wiring for Joseph. It was an interesting problem, or at any rate should have been. It was one that had been harassing cities, industry, and particularly air-fields, for many years. Of course, every one wore earplugs--and that helped a little. And some firms had partially solved the problem by using personnel that were totally deaf, because such persons were the only ones who could stand the terrific noise levels that a technological civilization forced everyone to endure. The noise from a commercial rocket motor on the ground had been known to drive men mad, and sometimes kill them. There had never seemed to be any wholly satisfactory solution. But now Bob Wills apparently had the beginnings of a real answer. A device that would use the principle of interference to cancel out sound waves, leaving behind only heat. It should have been fascinating to Partch, but somehow he couldn't make himself get interested in it. "The really big problem is the power requirement," Wills was saying. "We've got to use a lot of energy to cancel out big sound waves, but we've got several possible answers in mind and we're working on all of them." He caressed the crackle-finish box fondly. "The basic gimmick works fine, though. Yesterday I took it down to a static test stand over in building 90 and had them turn on a pretty fair-sized steering rocket for one of the big moon-ships. Reduced the noise-level by about 25 per cent, it did. Of course, I still needed my plugs." Joseph nodded approvingly and stared vacantly into the maze of transistors and tubes. "I've built it to work on ordinary 60 cycle house current," Wills told him. "In case you should want to demonstrate it to anybody." Partch became brusque. He liked Bob, but he had work to do. "Yes, I probably shall, Bob. I tell you what, why don't you just leave it here in my office and I'll look it over later, hm?" "Okay, Mr. Partch." Joseph ushered him out of the office, complimenting him profusely on the good work he was doing. Only after he was gone and Joseph was alone again behind the closed door, did he realize that he had a sudden yearning for company, for someone to talk to. <tb> Partch had Betty send him in a light lunch and he sat behind his desk nibbling the tasteless stuff without much enthusiasm. He wondered if he was getting an ulcer.