Title: Stroke of Genius
Author: Garrett, Randall
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Stroke of Genius" ***


                           Stroke of Genius

                          by RANDALL GARRETT

                        Illustrated by PHILLIPS

                  _Crayley plotted a murder that was
               scientific in both motive and method--and
                 as perfect as the mask of his face!_

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                Infinity Science Fiction, August 1956.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


Crayley stood thoughtfully before the huge screen and watched the
fingers move.

Metal fingers, five on each hand; each hand attached to an arm, and
each pair of arms connected to a silvery sphere that sat atop a
four-foot pillar. Within the pillar, micro-relays ticked and chuckled,
sending delicately measured surges of power here and there through
silver nerves to metal muscles. Responding, the hands built an energy
generator. And when they finished, they built another. And another. On
and on, monotonously.

Crayley rubbed absently at his mustache and plotted murder.

"--be a great deal cheaper, Mr. Crayley?"

Crayley realized he hadn't been listening to what the man beside him
was saying. He turned his head to look at the Space Force officer and
said quietly, "I'm sorry, major; I didn't quite get you."

"I said that it seems to me that ordinary production machinery would be
a great deal cheaper. Why do they use those waldoes?"

Crayley smiled faintly. "Why do you use waldoes to repair a generator
on a ship?"

The major looked at Crayley to see if he was kidding, then said, "A man
can't live five seconds near an unshielded generator, and you have to
take the shielding off to get at the innards. But I don't see how that
applies. Each repair job is different. I'll admit that I'm not a drive
engineer--I wouldn't know the first thing about repairing one--but I do
know that the engineer has to use remote control hands because the work
is so delicate.

"But this--" He waved a hand at the screen. "--is recorded. It's
routine. Why spend all the money on those tape-controlled robots when
much simpler machines can be made to do the job?"

_I wonder_, Crayley thought to himself, _if this blockhead knows which
end of his ship to point up when he's taking off?_ "Two reasons, Major.
In the first place, building a sub-nucleonic converter is also a
delicate job--as delicate as repairing it. In the second place, we have
something here that will save money in the long run. Do you know what
re-tooling would cost in this business if we used ordinary bit-by-bit
production line methods?"

The major spread his hands. "I have no idea."

"Millions. Every day, some physicist comes up with a new idea on
sub-nucleonics. Within a week or so, enough of these ideas have
snowballed to produce a slight modification that will improve a
spacedrive--increase its speed, improve its efficiency, and so on.
Within six or eight months, enough improvements have built up to make
it worthwhile to incorporate them into the drive we're building. If
North American used production line robots, we'd have to rip out the
whole bunch and rebuild 'em to make the new generator. Why? Because the
ordinary robotic device is a specialist; it can, at most, do two or
three things--usually only one. And if you eliminate the thing that a
particular robot does, or change it a little, you have to rebuild the
tools and re-arrange them before reprogramming the whole line.

"The waldo, a working replica of the human arm and hand, isn't
specialized like that; it's adaptable; it can do anything. If we have
to modify the design, all we have to do is reprogram the tapes, which
is a comparatively easy job.

"And besides, if anything goes wrong down there, we can put the hands
on manual and go trouble-shooting, something we couldn't do with
production line stuff."

"I see," the major said, nodding. "Ingenious." He glanced at his wrist.
"Do you suppose Mr. Klythe is through yet?"

The smile that touched Crayley's mind did not reach his face. "I think
he's just about through." His voice was completely innocent of any
subtle innuendoes.

       *       *       *       *       *

He glanced again at the screen that pictured the hundreds of hands
moving automatically through their intricate motions in the production
tunnel deep underground, then touched a switch. As the screen faded
to blankness, he turned and led the way down the corridor to Klythe's
office.

Crayley paced his steps neatly so that he would stay just a foot in
the lead. A foot, no more. Too much would be obvious. A foot was quite
enough to show who was leading.

His lean face was, as always, set in a placid mask. A thousand years
before, Lewis Crayley might have worn a helmet of steel to hide his
thoughts. Two hundred years before, he might have worn eyeglasses.
Now, since there was no excuse to wear either, Crayley could only hide
behind his own face.

It was a face well constructed for the purpose. The nose was large and
prominent--plenty of room to hide behind a nose like that. The brows
were craggy and shaggy, overshadowing the half-closed eyes beneath
them. The heavy mustache, which he wore in spite of the fact that it
was looked upon as an anachronism, effectively concealed any expression
the thin, firm mouth might show.

His hands, too, were useful. Their quick, nervous movements distracted
attention from the face when they were away from it, and effectively
concealed it when they were nervously rubbing his nose or stroking his
mustache.

Using only God-given materials, Lewis Crayley had built a magnificently
efficient wall between himself and the world. He could see out, but no
one could see in.

Not that Crayley thought of it that way. Crayley was just calm, that
was all. He had control over his emotions; he didn't let them run away
with him. Poise and impartial objectivity were his. He allowed nothing
to bother him, and no one to thwart him.

Berin Klythe was attempting to do just that. There was, Crayley
admitted, nothing malicious about it. Klythe was not trying to suppress
Crayley; there was just nothing else he could do. There is nothing
malicious about an asteroid, either, but when one lies directly athwart
the orbit of a spaceship, either the ship must veer aside or the
asteroid blasted out of the way. And Crayley was not the type to change
his orbit.

There was no malice or hatred on Crayley's part, either. One does not
hate an asteroid.

He pushed open the door to Klythe's outer office and allowed the Space
Force major to follow him in. The girl behind the desk was sliding her
fingers expertly over the sparkling panel of a photowriter, and her
pace didn't change as she looked up.

"Yes, Mr. Crayley?"

"Is Mr. Klythe through yet?"

Her hand touched another panel. "Mr. Crayley is here with the gentleman
from the Space Force." She listened for a moment to a sonobeam the men
couldn't hear, then she nodded. "Go right in."

Berin Klythe was coming out from behind his desk when they stepped
into the inner office. His smile was broad and his hand outstretched.
Crayley snapped his voice into action.

"Berin, this is Major Stratford. Major--Mr. Klythe, our Director."

Klythe was pumping the major's hand. "Sorry to have kept you waiting,
Major. Just one of those things that has to be cleared up to keep
things moving."

"Perfectly all right. I was a little bit early, and Mr. Crayley was
good enough to show me around."

Crayley rubbed his mustache and waited for the greetings to get
themselves over with. The major was trying to act nonchalant, but it
was easy to see that he was somewhat in awe of Klythe. Klythe had taken
the Big Gamble and won, and not very many people had done that. In the
first place, the government only picked a few of the very best men to
go through Rejuvenation. Men who were necessary, brilliant, useful. Men
like Berin Klythe, who was important and a genius.

That was a point that Crayley admitted. Klythe was a genius. And, very
likely, a more capable one than Crayley. But Crayley, too, was a genius
in his own way, and he didn't feel that mere brilliancy should allow
Klythe to block his path.

Three years ago, Berin Klythe had been a graying, stocky, aging man of
sixty. Now he was lithe, dark of hair, clear of eye, and full of the
energy of a twenty-five year old body.

He'd be good for another century. And Lewis Crayley wouldn't.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Sit down, Major," Berin was saying. "Commander Edder told me you'd be
around, but he only hinted at the trouble."

"Is this room sealed, Mr. Klythe?" the major asked calmly.

Klythe reached across his desk and touched a panel. "It is now."

The major nodded. "We don't want any of this to leak out; it might
cause panic." He paused for a moment. "You're a Sirian by birth, aren't
you, Mr. Klythe?"

Klythe nodded. "My grandparents were among the first colonists on New
Brooklyn."

"Then you probably know first hand how tough it is to tame an
extra-solar planet, no matter how closely it approaches Earth-type."

Klythe nodded, narrowing his eyes.

"So when a colony disappears, we don't think anything of it--"
Stratford stopped, frowning. "No, I don't mean that. What I mean is, we
usually attribute it to another loss in our fight against the natural
forces of the planet. The colony's gone; you blame disease, the flora,
the fauna, the storms, everything else. Then you try to re-establish
the colony.

"But lately things have been happening in a certain sector. I'm not
at liberty to say where, nor what happened. Whole colonies were gone
when the five-year check came. The pattern was only in one area, but
we're pretty sure of what's happening. Something out there, something
intelligent in its own way, is erasing those colonies. Our analysts
suspect that whoever or whatever is doing it doesn't know we're
intelligent. What it boils down to is this: we have an interstellar war
on our hands."

Klythe nodded slowly after a moment. "I get it. That's why you asked
for this funny modification of the drive generator--the new J-233. It
isn't supposed to be a drive generator at all."

"That's right," said Major Stratford, "it's a weapon."

"Why tell us now?" Crayley asked softly. "I mean, you've ordered the
thing; we've practically got it ready. Why not leave us in the dark?"

"We don't want you to build it now. We've got a better one--much
better. But it calls for a gadget that you'd immediately know was not a
driver. We decided to tell you rather than have you asking embarrassing
questions.

"And we have neither the facilities nor the capacity to build it
ourselves."

Crayley said slowly, "You mean the J-233 is obsolete? We scrap it
without ever putting it in production?"

"That's right," said the major. He grinned. "You were just telling me
how adaptable your production machinery is to--ah--re-tooling, I think
you called it. I was glad to hear it."

_Damn!_ Crayley thought. _Damdamdamdamdamn!_

His mind whirled for a moment, hopping frantically from one point to
another. Then he forced it to be calm. Everything wasn't lost--just
delayed.

"--in the strictest confidence," the major was saying. "Nothing must
leak out. We don't want to throw a scare into the world population just
now."

Klythe looked as though he had a good case of goosebumps himself.

Crayley felt nothing. He said, "How soon can you get the original down
here?"

The major spread his hands. "I'm not prepared to say. You'll have to
take that up with our technicians. Out of my field, you understand.

"I am also to ask you how soon you can get this into production. We'll
need five thousand units."

Klythe looked thoughtful. "It'll depend on the breakdown, of course;
these things take time. Five thousand units. Hmmmm. Assuming increasing
complexity--figure twice the time for a regular model and extra time
for analysis--mmmm." He appeared to be figuring deeply.

_Five days_, thought Crayley contemptuously.

"It'll take all of a week to set up for it," Klythe said. "If we get
three tunnels running, you can have your five thousand units in--say
twelve weeks."

"Fine," said Stratford. "I am also informed that our own technicians
will be on hand for the recording. I have no idea what that may mean,
but--"

"I see. Very well, tell them we'll expect them to be here with the
original!" Klythe said sharply.

       *       *       *       *       *

The major raised his eyebrows at Klythe's voice. "Is there something
wrong, Mr. Klythe?"

"There is," Klythe said blandly. "But I'm not blaming you, of course. A
question of the specialty."

"I see," said the major. One did not question another's work too
closely. Get nosy with other people, and they get nosy with you.

"It's rather as though I hired you to take a cargo to Sirius for me
and then insisted that you use my crew instead of your own," Klythe
explained. "Perhaps the parallel isn't too good--I know nothing of
interstellar commerce--but that may get the idea across."

"I sympathize," said Stratford. "If there's anything I can do--?"

"Nothing," said Klythe, smiling. "It isn't fatal. Now--" He rubbed his
hands briskly. "Unless there's further business, perhaps you'd like a
little something? I know I do; I have a cold kink in my guts."

The major grinned. "Liaison officers are permitted to drink on duty.
Pour away."

Klythe poured. As he studiously watched the stream of liquor flow into
one of the cups, he said: "Major, may I ask--ah--just how much danger
there is to Earth?"

The major appeared to consider this for a moment before answering. "At
the moment, none. We know that they can not trace us back here, and
they're quite a long distance away. Without violation of confidence, I
can say that the distance is several thousand light years."

"Thank you." Klythe passed the cups around.

Crayley eyed the major suspiciously. He had answered the question too
readily. Was he lying? No. What, then? The major ran the tip of his
tongue over his lips, and Crayley understood. He was going to trade
information for information.

Stratford swirled his drink around in his cup and looked at the
whirlpool it made. "Mr. Klythe, may I ask you a--a question?" It was
properly worded, hesitation and all.

"I shall not be offended by your question," Klythe replied with the
standard friendly acceptance of the gambit, "If you will not be
offended by my reply."

The major whirled his cup once more, then downed its contents quickly.
"I--uh--understand you took the Big Gamble." He paused to see how his
opening would be accepted.

Klythe nodded. "I was honored to be chosen; how could I refuse?"

Crayley was enjoying the scene immensely. Both of the men were
distinctly uncomfortable.

"I'm afraid I would have been--uh, well--afraid."

"Perhaps I was," Klythe said softly. "But I don't know. That whole year
of my life is gone. That's why they call it the Big Gamble, you know;
you bet one year of your life against the chance that you'll get an
additional century or two. I don't know whether I was frightened or
not."

"I'm very happy for you," said the major, closing the subject.

Crayley held out his cup for another drink.

The Big Gamble had paid off for Berin Klythe. The year-long physical
reconstruction had not resulted in his death, as it had for so many.
But Klythe's gamble hadn't paid off for Lewis Crayley.

Klythe held the Directorship. Crayley was in line for the position.
Klythe would never leave of his own accord. It came out as a simple
equation in symbolic logic.

Before Klythe had been offered the chance for the Big Gamble, Crayley
had been content to wait. At sixty, Klythe had been thirty years
older than Crayley. Normally, he would have retired at seventy-five.
He would have another forty years of life to go, but they would not
be productive years. But if you survived the Big Gamble, you were in
better health, both physically and mentally, than you had been at
twenty-five. By the time Klythe was ready to retire, Crayley would be
dead.

Therefore, Klythe had to go.

       *       *       *       *       *

The three men finished their drinks; the major shook hands all around,
and left quietly.

Klythe's eyes narrowed as he looked at the door through which the Space
Force officer had departed. "Running in their own recording technicians
on us, eh, Lew? Well, by God, we'll see about that! They'll be working
under me; I'll make 'em jump!"

"Jump it is, Berin." Crayley's voice was quiet, but his blood was
singing.

The Space Force Research Command team delivered the original two days
later. It was obvious that the thing was not a drive generator. The
sub-nucleonic converter had been elongated along the acceleration axis
and reduced a bit in diameter. Evidently the Space Force wanted a
high-velocity beam without much actual volume of energy.

The thing looked like an over-decorated length of sewer pipe instead of
having the normal converter's barrel shape.

Crayley himself had accepted delivery of the original. He wanted to
have a good look at it before Klythe did. He prowled around it, a
handful of schematic prints in his hand, checking the symbols on the
schematic against the reality of the converter before him.

For the first time in his life, he wished he knew the theory behind a
converter. That wasn't his job, of course, but he had a hunch it would
be useful knowledge.

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?"

The Space Force men looked embarrassed, and Crayley smiled one-sidedly.
Nobody but Klythe could have gotten away with that crack. Berin Klythe
had been trained by, and had worked under, no less a person than the
great Fenwick Greene, acknowledged Grand Old Man of the profession.
Crayley recalled that Fenwick Greene, too, had been offered and had
survived the Big Gamble.

Klythe began asking questions about the new unit. His tone was
sarcastic, and his manner biting. He spent better than an hour singling
each man out for some remark about his ability or lack of it.

When he was finally through, he leaned forward on his desk, his
knuckles white. "All right, let's get busy and build this thing! But
we'll build it my way, understand?"

None of the technicians said a word.

       *       *       *       *       *

Klythe turned and headed for the door, followed by Crayley and the
other engineers. Silently, the technicians followed after.

The original model of the generator lay on a work table in one of the
recording rooms. Around it were the recording stations, the seats and
controls each of the techs would occupy.

Klythe waved at the seats. "All right, men--to begin with, each of you
occupy your regular team position. Let's get this thing disassembled. I
want to see how it goes."

The model was just that--a model. It had been built with ordinary
metal and plastic; it could never be energized. The wiring was copper,
the casing of steel. But it had been built as carefully and with as
great precision as if it had actually been constructed of the fiercely
radioactive materials that would go into the production models.

The recorders seated themselves around the hulking object, checking and
rechecking the intricate controls of the waldoes they were to operate.
Finally, they fitted their hands into the glove pickups and waited,
watching Klythe.

"Set?" Klythe asked.

"Set!" they said in one voice.

Klythe tapped his finger on the control board at which he had seated
himself. The technicians began to disassemble the model, stripping it
down to its last essential part, as Klythe watched with a critical eye.

Klythe had tapped the board, but he hadn't actually energized the
gloves. This was to be a dry run; there was no need to record a
disassembly; it was the assembly that would go down on tape.

It took an hour to complete the job, and all that time Klythe said
nothing. He watched the men work, eying each move, each nut removed,
each wire unwound.

When it was over, the men folded their hands in their laps, and Klythe
tapped the control board once more.

"Let's see if we can't assemble it a little faster than that," he said
coldly. He pressed the recording button, and the technicians began
rebuilding the model.

Crayley stepped over to the monitor screen set in one wall of the
recording room and switched it on. Then he cut in the experimental
secondaries, connecting them to the recording primaries. They went
through the same motions, their arms waving and gesticulating oddly in
the air, since there was nothing for them to work on.

Klythe wasn't silent during the rebuilding. The disassembly had taught
him everything he needed to know about the new unit; that was his job
and his genius.

"Seven! Move that plate in straight next time! And you, Four, keep your
guides straighter!" His voice rang clearly and concisely in the huge
room. "Eighty-four! Don't wait so long before you hit that welder! As
soon as Nine moves his left away from the shell, hit it!"

Little things, small savings of time, but they added up to greater
efficiency in the long run. Klythe watched for every wasted motion,
every fumble, every tiny error in timing or spacing, and corrected it
with a whiplash voice.

When they had put the model completely back together, they folded their
hands and looked at Klythe. Klythe jammed his finger down on the stop
button and set the machine to erase the tape they had just made.

He scowled at the men. "I have seen more fumble-fingered recorders," he
said acidly, "but they were trainees." He sighed as though his burden
was too much. "All right. Rip her down and let's try it again."

The next time through, he was even more vituperative. If a man made an
error the second time, Klythe was not above insults--personal ones.

An emergency call came in for Crayley. Something wrong on the second
level. He stepped out the door in the middle of one of Klythe's
high-tension blasts at a technician.

All the way down to the second level, Crayley was happy.

       *       *       *       *       *

It took three days of hard work to pound all the kinks out of the
recorders' technique. Not all, actually; Klythe still expressed
dissatisfaction.

Crayley was in Klythe's office on the morning of the fourth day,
sitting on Klythe's desk and smoking one of Klythe's cigarettes.

"The whole damned crew are butterfingers," Klythe was complaining. "I
think they've all got arthritis. Why, oh, why couldn't they let me use
my own crew?"

"Speed things up, I suppose," Crayley said cautiously.

"Oh, hell yes! Speed things up! Sure, I'll admit that it would have
taken my boys a little time in disassembly to get the hang of this new
generator, but we'd have made it up in recording time. That's the way
the goddam military mind works! Nuts!"

Crayley rubbed the tip of his nose with a finger. "Is the team ready
for recording today?"

Klythe grinned. "As close as they'll ever be. It takes time to get a
team accustomed to my way of doing things. They hate my guts for the
way I've yelled at them. But it's as much my fault as theirs. If their
own engineer were to take over one of my crews, he wouldn't have any
better results. The military just has to do things differently, that's
all."

They recorded that afternoon. This time, when Klythe pressed the
starter, he said nothing. Only his hands and eyes directed the men
through their tasks. And every motion of the men's fingers and arms
sent their special impulses to the recording tape that hummed through
the machinery.

Crayley looked out from behind his face and smiled secretly.

When the recording was finished, Klythe nodded with satisfaction. "I
think we could have shaved a few more seconds off that," he said, "but
it'll do. Now disassemble it and we'll run her through on the tape."

They took the model down below to the radiation-proofed assembly tables
for the test. The thing was pulled to pieces and each piece positioned.
Then Klythe threw the switch that started the waldoes.

The tape purred through the pickup head, transmitting the little bits
of information it had received, squirting little pulses of energy
to the steel-and-plastic arms that jutted out of the domes atop the
pillars. In exact duplication of the men's motions, the waldoes picked
up the pieces and put them in their proper places.

It was like a great four-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. Each piece not only
had to be located properly in space, but placed there at just exactly
the right time. If there were any bugs in the recording, now was the
time to find out. When the real thing was assembled, mistakes could be
costly.

But there were no flaws in the recording. The model was rebuilt exactly
as the men themselves had rebuilt it. That was Klythe's genius; he
worked for perfection and got it.

Klythe looked at the model after the last pair of hands had fallen
inert, and nodded slowly. Then he climbed all over the model, checking
for errors. The interior circuits were tested electrically, one by one
and in co-ordination with each other. The test machines showed it clear.

Finally, Klythe said: "I think it'll do. But now we'll disassemble it
again by hand--slowly, this time--and see if we've screwed up anywhere."

That night, Crayley went out and got drunk. He sat by himself, grinning
and thinking secret thoughts in a booth at the _Peg & Wassail_,
dropping coins in the slot and dialing one beer after another. He
managed to maneuver himself home at three o'clock in the morning,
singing softly to himself.

He woke up with a horrible headache, but he felt wonderful inside.

       *       *       *       *       *

Sure enough, Berin was in his usual state of "first-run jitters."
Crayley had been a little afraid that Klythe's enthusiasm wouldn't be
up to par on this project, but it evidently was.

He was rubbing his hands together, a nervous smile playing around his
mouth, coming and going unpredictably.

"Well, we'll see today. Major Stratford will be here with the Space
Force Research Staff at fourteen hundred to watch the first one off. I
hope the bugs aren't too rough on us."

"Nothing will go wrong," Crayley assured him.

"That's easy to say," Klythe grumbled, "but you know how things can go
at the last minute. I'm worried about those tensile differences."

Crayley stroked his mustache and nodded. The material used in
the interior of the model was supposed to approximate the highly
radioactive material in the real thing as closely as possible, but
there might be just enough difference in critical spots to require some
small adjustments in the tape. If a man's hand applied just enough
pressure and torque to twist a piece of copper wire just so, it might
be too much or too little for a radioactive alloy wire that would be
used in the same place in the production piece.

After the suppressor field had been switched on in the hull of the
finished generator, the energy generated by the workings of the
intensely radioactive interior would be compressed to the sub-nucleonic
level, where it could be controlled. Unfortunately, the machine
couldn't be built inside a suppressor field; that would be like trying
to build a ship in a bottle when the bottle's neck was sealed shut.

Crayley said, "I've got a lot of stuff to do on Line Number Two this
morning, but I'd like to see the run-off."

"Sure," said Klythe abstractedly, "come ahead."

Crayley didn't go to Number Two. He headed directly for the recording
room. All he needed was ten minutes alone in there. Provided, of
course, that it was empty.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was. Crayley took a quick look up and down the corridor and stepped
inside. He locked the door behind him. If anyone tried to come in, he'd
be able to cover. It was better to have someone wonder why the door was
locked than to be caught messing with the tapes when he shouldn't be.
Of course, if someone did try the door, it would mean that his chance
of getting Klythe this time would be gone. But there would always be
another time.

First, the tape. He flipped open the cover to the receiving reel. Sure
enough, it was still there from yesterday's trial run, a huge reel of
foot-wide blue plastic ribbon. Good enough.

He punched the "fast" button and ran it through to the last few minutes
of the recording. He glanced at the monitor screen. The model was still
on the assembly table in the tunnel deep underground.

He cut off the current to the secondaries and switched on the manual
controls. Then he put his hands into one set of gloves and wiggled his
fingers. The secondaries in the room below remained motionless.

Number Nineteen Experimental ought to be empty. He withdrew his hand
and turned the selector knob on the monitor screen to Nineteen. No one
there. He switched on the power, letting the last few minutes of the
taped recording feed into the secondaries in Nineteen.

The waldoes in the screen went through the motions of finishing the
assembly--meaningless gestures in the empty air--then fell into the
"ready" position. Crayley hit the stop button, then switched back to
the tunnel where the model lay.

He took a deep breath. Now came the touchy part. He hadn't handled a
pair of primary waldoes for years, and this thing had to be done just
right.

He had already decided which of the positions he would have to use and
what he would have to do. Now, if only his timing was good. It didn't
have to be perfect; that was the beauty of the plan. But it did have to
be pretty close.

He turned on the waldoes without turning on the recorder and slipped
his hands into the gloves. Then, using the foot switch, he kicked on
the close-up screen for the position he was occupying. The screen
showed the secondaries of the hands he was using. He wiggled his
fingers. The secondaries wiggled theirs.

Then he reached out and gingerly touched the model. The secondaries
touched the steel plate, and the feedbacks sent back a signal.
Crayley's gloves felt the resistance just as though the model were
right there in the room.

Several times, he reached out his right hand to one particular spot on
the model, practicing to make sure he could hit it every time. Fine,
fine.

Then he took his left hand out of the glove, eyed the wall clock, and
turned on the recorder. The tape began to move through the recording
heads. For five minutes he waited.

Then, suddenly, he reached out with his right hand and grabbed the
regulator coil housing on the side of the model. As soon as his fingers
touched it, he hit the cut-off for the secondaries, knowing the
primaries would continue to record. He didn't want to ruin the model.
Simultaneously, he punched the high-power switch.

His right hand, in the primary, grasped at mid-air and jerked down
violently.

The thing was done. Had he forgotten anything? He thought for a moment.
No. All was well.

He cut off the recorder and started to shut off the primaries when his
eyes went to the screen. The secondary arm was still frozen where he
had left it, grasping the regulator coil housing!

He shuddered. If he'd missed that....

Quickly, he lowered the secondary to the "ready" position.

Had he forgotten anything? Anything at all?

He thought not, but he went over the whole thing in his mind again,
step by step, to make sure.

Nothing wrong, nothing missing. Fine. He wiped out the inside of the
primary gloves and walked to the door. No need to worry about any other
prints; he had been in that room often, and it might look funny if the
whole place was wiped clean. As a matter of fact, he really didn't need
to worry about the primaries; the grid inside them probably wouldn't
take a print anyway. Still, there was nothing like being cautious.

He opened the door and stepped out as if he had every right to be
there. No use peeking around corners; that would only rouse suspicion.

He strolled on down the corridor to the tube lift. He felt wonderful.
He actually grinned with his face. There was no one around to see it.

       *       *       *       *       *

The job he had to do in Number Two kept him busy until well after
fourteen hundred, as he intended it should. He didn't want to get
there early, but he wanted to have a good excuse for being late.

He actually walked into the monitor room for Number Nine Production
Tunnel at fifteen-twenty. The Space Force officers were gathered around
the screen watching the unit take shape under the deft, mindless
fingers of the waldoes. The weird blue glow of radioactivity obscured
the finer details a little, but the operation was worth watching.

Major Stratford turned as he came in. "Hello, Mr. Crayley. I thought
you were down below with Mr. Klythe."

Crayley stroked his mustache and smiled a little. "I had some work to
do," he said apologetically. "I didn't get through until a few minutes
ago. I figured this would be as good a place to watch from as down
below."

Stratford grinned. "I suppose so. One screen is as good as another."

They watched. Stratford introduced him around to the other Space Force
officers, including a short little man with nervous eyes named Colonel
Green who was evidently Stratford's superior. Then everything became
silent as they watched the generator being built.

Crayley smiled inwardly as he saw that the hulking generator had
already blocked off the view of the one waldo he'd gimmicked. No one
would be able to see what happened on the screen, and those who saw it
directly wouldn't tell anyone.

Exultant, Crayley watched the screen through the mask of his face. Very
shortly, he would again be Director. When Klythe had gone to Denver to
take the Big Gamble, he'd left Crayley as Acting Director, with the
stipulation that he was to become Permanent Director if Klythe failed
to live through the grueling torture of the Rejuvenation chambers.
Naturally, Crayley had had every right to feel that the position was
already his. He had never considered that Klythe might be one of those
few who would live through the Big Gamble.

Even when Klythe had come back, Crayley hadn't immediately considered
him as a block in his path; there was always the chance of the
Breakdown.

Sometimes something went wrong with Rejuvenation, even when the patient
lived through the year. Instead of being better than normal, the body
went out of kilter. Some little thing, probably--they hadn't pinpointed
it yet. A gland that malfunctioned, a nerve blockage, something.
Whatever it was, the rejuvenee suddenly began to age rapidly after a
few months, dying of acute senility within the year.

But when a year had passed and Berin Klythe was as healthy as ever,
Lewis Crayley had begun to plot murder. And now the plans had matured;
soon they would bear fruit. Soon he would be Director--_Permanent_
Director. As Director, it would be easy to erase the end of that tape
before anyone else got their hands on it. He, himself, would be the one
to head the investigation of the accident.

Crayley watched the assembly impatiently from behind his face.

The hands and arms and fingers of the waldoes in the screen worked
together with precision as they put the last finishing touches to
the generator unit. Finally they were finished; the arms assumed the
"ready" position.

Crayley almost held his breath. Everything depended on Klythe now.
Klythe, with his impatience, his pride in a piece of work well done,
his eagerness to be sure of perfection; Klythe himself was the only
weak link in the chain that led to his own death.

The tunnel was still flooded with radioactivity. In production, that
wouldn't matter; the next set would slide into place and the hands
would begin again. But this was a test run; the record would be allowed
to run to the end instead of recycling, while the huge pumps replaced
the argon atmosphere with air suitable for breathing. The radioactive
stuff was pumped to a cooling chamber, where its silent violence would
be allowed to expend itself below the danger point.

Five minutes. Crayley could see in his mind's eye that tape running
through the pickup head, running through five minutes of nothing. Then
a light flashed above the door to the tunnel as the detectors signalled
the all-clear. It was safe to enter the tunnel now.

Crayley found himself clenching his teeth for a fraction of a second
before Klythe opened the door and stepped through. There was a long,
almost timeless instant as Crayley watched Klythe's face on the screen.
Then there was a sudden sound, a brilliant light, and the screen went
dead.

       *       *       *       *       *

Crayley smiled inside himself as he yelled and sprinted out to the tube
lift. The hidden hand of the secondary had reached up and ripped off
the regulator coil--housing, innards, and all. The resulting explosion
had been felt, even up here, as a dull rumble.

The lower level was a mess. The emergency door had slammed down to
prevent the spread of contaminated air, and the huge pumps were going
full blast to clear the area. At the first door, Lesker, one of the
safety engineers, stopped him.

"You can't go in there, Lew. One whiff of that stuff, and you'd be
gone."

"What happened?" Crayley asked briskly.

Lesker shrugged. "Who knows? That new generator blew, somehow. Not much
harm done, really; as far as we can tell, the only real damage was in
the tunnel itself. The temperature must have averaged better than a
thousand Centigrade for a few seconds, though it was a lot hotter than
that at the center of the blaze. It's cooled down a little now, but
that generator must still be burning." He stopped for a second, then:
"Nobody got out of it alive. We're sending in the mobiles now. The
secondaries in there won't work. It's going to be a rough job because
we'll have to use cables; we couldn't possibly get a UHF beam through
that static."

The safety men were setting up a monitor screen bank for the mobile
waldoes. Two of them, four-foot wheeled robots with TV cameras mounted
where human heads would be, rolled up to the closed door.

"It's safe in that first section," Lesker said. "Roll 'em in." He
turned back to Crayley. "You'd better get on a radiation suit if you
want to watch this. We've got to seal off this section from the rest
and open up the corridor all the way down to let the cables through.
There's still a lot of hot air in there in spite of the pumps."

Crayley climbed into a suit and adjusted the air flow. Then he walked
over to where the safety technicians were putting on the primary gloves
for the mobile waldoes. From each control board, a long snake of cable
ran to the mobile it controlled. The safety men switched on the power
and the mobiles rolled down the corridor out of sight.

Crayley watched their progress over the shoulder of one of the safety
techs. The screen showed the walls of the corridor sliding by. Then
there was a shifting as the camera panned to the left. After several
more turns, the robot came to the door of Tunnel Nine. The door itself
lay crumpled against the far wall. Two bodies lay near it. The robot
glided into the tunnel itself.

The inside of the tunnel was still fiercely hot; the new generator
glowed a yellow orange, and the waldo secondaries had been warped and
ruined by the heat.

And on the floor, human in shape only, lay what had once been Berin
Klythe.

The mobiles went to work to take care of the glowing hulk of the ruined
generator.

Crayley looked at the safety engineer. "There's not much I can do down
here," he said. "You take care of the bodies, will you?"

Lesker nodded. He seemed suddenly to realize that he was speaking to
the new Director. "You can shuck your suit in the next section. I'll
let you know how things are going."

Crayley felt quite light-hearted by the time he reached the upper
levels again. In fact, he was almost ready to sing. It had been so
easy, so simple! They had called Berin Klythe a genius and given him a
chance at the Big Gamble; well, let them see who was the genius now!
The plan itself had been a stroke of genius.

There was only one thing left to do; slip into the control room and
erase the tail end of that tape. The explosion would go down as
"unexplained." Berin Klythe had died in an industrial accident--and
Lewis Crayley would replace him.

       *       *       *       *       *

When he opened the control room door, only his mask of a face saved
him. The room was full of men.

"What's going on here?" he asked softly.

One of the younger engineers turned toward him. "These men say they're
going to confiscate the tape, Mr. Crayley." He waved in the direction
of the uniformed Space Force men.

Crayley looked mildly at Major Stratford. "I'm Acting Director here,
Major. I'm afraid I can't let you take our property."

The major turned to the smaller man standing nearby. "Colonel, perhaps
you'd better--"

"I'll take care of it," the smaller man said choppily. "We're not
confiscating it, exactly, Mr. Crayley. The tape will remain where it
is. Immediately after the accident, I phoned the Executive Secretary at
the capital. He is sending down an investigating board by special jet."

"May I ask why this rather high-handed action, Colonel Green?"

The colonel patted the air with a nervous hand. "Calm yourself, Mr.
Crayley. I am Fenwick Greene; the 'colonel' is merely a military title
I have to put up with."

"_Fenwick_ Greene!" It was one of the few times in his life that
Crayley's screen, his wall, his defense, collapsed. "My--my apologies,
sir! I didn't realize--I mean, I had no idea it was you--in the Space
Force!"

He had never seen Fenwick Greene's picture, of course. No newspaper
would dare commit such a flagrant violation of privacy.

Greene accepted Crayley's hand for a few seconds, then withdrew his own
hand. "I was--ah--drafted," he explained.

Major Stratford smiled. "When the Space Force needs men, they pick the
best."

Crayley nodded dumbly. Fenwick Greene was undoubtedly the greatest
co-ordination engineer who had ever lived. The late Berin Klythe
couldn't hold a candle to him. His waldo recordings were like
symphonies of precision and speed. Someone had once said that, given
enough recording technicians and enough time to train them his way,
Fenwick Greene could build a spaceship faster than parts could be made
for it. It was an exaggeration, of course, but it showed what the trade
thought of Fenwick Greene.

Greene tapped his teeth with his thumbnail. "We aren't confiscating the
tape; we simply want it run. We're guarding it."

"Why?" Crayley asked bluntly.

Greene pulled a folded sheet of paper from his pocket. "This is a
communication from Berin Klythe to the Construction Command of the
Space Force. In it, he notified us that the test would be run today.
He also says--" Greene held up the paper. "Quote: 'due to the fact
that the Space Force has insisted that I use their technicians for the
recording of this unit, I hardly feel I can claim that the recording is
up to my usual standards. Had I been permitted to use my own men, I am
sure better construction would have been obtained.'" Greene replaced
the paper in his pocket.

"Naturally," he continued, "we don't think there is anything really
wrong with the recording. Klythe, like myself, was a perfectionist.
However, we would like to have the tape played before an examining
board in order to clear ourselves and possibly clear Berin's own name.
I watched the construction from beginning to end, and I could find
no fault with it. However, we want a qualified board to check it.
You see--" He coughed apologetically. "--I trained those technicians
myself."

Crayley nodded. "I see."

There was nothing he could do. If he objected, they'd know who
gimmicked the tape. Well, no matter. They'd know how Berin Klythe had
died, but they wouldn't know who had done it.

He was in hot water, and he knew it, but he wasn't licked yet.

       *       *       *       *       *

If only he hadn't tried to play his part so well! If only he'd gone
straight to the control room instead of down below! Nothing to do about
it now, he told himself. He couldn't waste time wishing he'd done
something else; he had to see what could be done next.

Two hours later, the big jet job carrying the special Executive
inquiry board landed on the roof of North American Sub-nucleonics.
Crayley himself had to do all the honors. As Acting Director, he had
to play host to the men who were--although they did not know it
yet--investigating the murder of Berin Klythe.

That was the way Crayley thought of it. The fact that four other men
had died with Klythe was immaterial; it meant nothing in the final
analysis.

Crayley decided that his best bet was to mislead them. When they saw
the extra operation at the end of the tape, he'd do his best to make
them think it was a case of sabotage. Someone--probably South Asian
Generators, Unltd.--had sent a man in to wreck the unit. Or perhaps
bribed one of the technicians. South Asian was perennially trying to
get the Space Force contract.

They used the model for the investigation run. The technicians tore it
down and placed it on the table. Crayley tried to get to the control
panel to run the tape through, hoping he could jab the erase button as
soon as the tape was through and the model built, but Fenwick Greene
was there ahead of him.

They switched the secondary control over to the experimental room. Half
of the inquiry board went there to watch the process first-hand, while
the other half watched it from the screens in the control room. They
had cameras watching it from every angle this time; they didn't miss a
thing.

Greene started the tape and watched closely, his eyes darting from
screen to screen as the generator dummy took shape.

Greene's eyes missed nothing. There was actually no necessity for
the dummy to be there, as far as he was concerned; he could read the
motions of a set of secondaries as accurately as an average man could
read a page of print. What appeared to be meaningless wavings in empty
air were deft, purposeful action to Fenwick Greene. Mentally, he could
see every component as the fingers grasped it. But the inquiry board
could work better with a model actually on the board.

Finally it was over. The secondaries fell to the ready position.
Crayley had five minutes to get to that erase button.

Fenwick Greene didn't move from the control panel.

"Gentlemen," he said, "that was a beautiful job. I don't think that
even I could improve on it much. In my opinion, there is no reason
why that unit should have blown." He paused, looking at one of the
designers. "Unless, of course, there is something amiss in the theory
or design. That, naturally, is out of my province."

There was discussion back and forth among the men.

Crayley's nerves tightened as the minutes slipped away. Would that fool
Greene never step away from the control board, even for a minute? Why
didn't he shut the damned thing off?

He finally gave up and forced himself to relax. It was too late now.
He'd have to talk fast.

"Look!" one of the men snapped. He was pointing at one of the screens.
Right on schedule, the waldo's arm reached up, grabbed the regulator
coil housing, and ripped it off.

There was an excited babble of voices, and Crayley forced himself to
look as flabbergasted as the rest.

The hand dropped down again to the ready position.

Crayley turned to Greene and started to say something that would keep
the board's mind on the sabotage track, but he noticed that everyone
was looking at the screen again. He swiveled his head around.

The secondary hand had lifted into the air. It extended its forefinger
and made meaningless motions.

Crayley's jaw muscles tightened. What the devil did it mean? How had
_that_ got on the tape?

The hand dropped. There came a faint chime which signaled the end of
the tape.

"Let's run through that again," said Fenwick Greene, an odd note in his
voice.

Crayley didn't understand. Had the shrewd, calculating eyes of Fenwick
Greene read meaning into that meaningless movement?

Again the hand lifted into the air, extended a finger, and moved it.
Then it dropped.

Crayley started to move his own hand, and stopped it in mid-air. He
knew in that instant what the gesture was.

The rest were talking, buzzing among themselves; no one was looking at
him yet. Only Fenwick Greene gave him a short, sharp glance.

Greene ran the tape back through for a third replay, and watched the
hand lift again.

Crayley stared at it as if hypnotized. His mind was a mass of
self-hatred. Fool! Fool! _Clumsy fool!_ This was it; this was the
end of everything. It wouldn't take them long now--they'd at least
have enough evidence to use a lie probe on him. Someone would see it.
Someone would see how Lewis Crayley's subconscious mind had betrayed
him when he'd made the recording.

Fenwick Greene saw it. His eyes moved from the screen to Crayley's face.

"You," he said very softly. "You're the only one who has one."

And Crayley knew he was right. If there had been a head on the waldo,
they'd have understood instantly.

The finger was stroking an invisible mustache.



*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Stroke of Genius" ***

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