Trouble By GEORGE O. SMITH [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science-Fiction, July 1946. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Tom Lionel, Consulting Engineer, awoke with a shake of his head. At once, he was out of bed. He consulted first the calendar and then the clock. The thought struck him funny. He hadn't been drinking, but the idea of looking at a calendar upon awakening might be construed as an admission that he didn't know what time of what day it was. _Or mayhap what month._ "Ding it," he grunted. "I've been away again." He dressed by stages. At the trousers department, Tom wandered out into the living room and stood over a chessboard, studying the set-up. The opponent had moved the queen to the rook's fourth, menacing his bishop. Tom smiled and moved his knight to his knight's sixth and checked the opponent's king on the rook's first, and the queen simultaneously. He slid the drawer below the table open and removed a little standing sign that said, in red, block letters: CHECK! "Let him try that one, will he?" laughed Tom. The move was basic; in checking the king and menacing the queen simultaneously, Tom had--or would upon the next move--collect himself his opponent's queen with no great loss. At the shirt and necktie stage, Tom Lionel stood teetering on his heels before the bookcase on the right of the fireplace. He took from the case a slim volume and read the title with considerable distaste: "Theory of Monomolecular Films in Fission-Reaction" By A. G. Rodan, Ph.D., M.M., LL.D. "Yipe!" exploded Tom as he opened the book and glanced at the price: $9.50. With ease he prorated the price against the thickness of the volume and came to the estimate that the book had cost approximately nineteen dollars per inch excluding covers. He riffled through the pages and paused here and there to read, but the pages themselves were a good average of four lines of text to the rest of the page full of nuclear equations. Tom Lionel snorted. He ran down through one of the arguments and followed it to conclusion. "Why can't he get something worth reading?" he yawned, putting the book back in its place. "Darned impractical stuff." As usual with a man who spends much time in his own company, Tom Lionel talked aloud to himself--and occasionally was known to answer himself back. "The whole trouble with the entire tribe of physicists per se is the fact that once, someone told one of them that he was a theorist, an idealist, and a dealer in the abstract. Now the bunch of them are afraid to do anything practical because they're afraid if they do, people won't know they're physicists. Physicists are a sort of necessary, end-product evil." * * * * *