"Kinnison, I like your work," the Chief Chemist began, gruffly, and Kinnison's mouth almost dropped open. "Anybody who ever got a Ph.D. under Montrose would have to know explosives, and the F.B.I. report on you showed that you had brains, ability, and guts. But none of that explains how you can get along so well with those damned Siberians. I want to make you Assistant Chief and put you in charge of Siberia. Formally, I mean—actually, you have been for months."
"Why, no ... I didn't.... Besides, how about Barton? He's too good a man to kick in the teeth that way."
"Admitted." This did surprise Kinnison. He had never thought that the irascible and tempestuous Chief would ever confess to a mistake. This was a Cappy he had never known. "I discussed it with him yesterday. He's a damned good man—but it's decidedly questionable whether he has got whatever it is that made Tugwell, Wanacek and Charlevoix work straight through for seventy two hours, napping now and then on benches and grabbing coffee and sandwiches when they could, until they got that frag bomb straightened out."
Sumner did not mention the fact that Kinnison had worked straight through, too. That was taken for granted.
"Well, I don't know." Kinnison's head was spinning. "I'd like to check with Barton first. O.K.?"
"I expected that. O.K."
Kinnison found Barton and led him out behind the testing shed.
"Bart, Cappy tells me that he figures on kicking you in the face by making me Assistant and that you O.K.'d it. One word and I'll tell the old buzzard just where to stick the job and exactly where to go to do it."
"Reaction, perfect. Yield, one hundred percent." Barton stuck out his hand. "Otherwise, I would tell him all that myself and more. As it is, Uncle Ralph, smooth out the ruffled plumage. They'd go to hell for you, wading in standing straight up—they might do the same with me in the driver's seat, and they might not. Why take a chance? You're IT. Some things about the deal I don't like, of course—but at that, it makes me about the only man working for Stoner and Black who can get a release any time a good permanent job breaks. I'll stick until then. O.K.?" It was unnecessary for Barton to add that as long as he was there he would really work.
"I'll say it's O.K.!" and Kinnison reported to Sumner.
"All right, Chief, I'll try it—if you can square it with the Siberians."
"That will not be too difficult."
Nor was it. The Siberians' reaction brought a lump to Kinnison's throat.
"Ralph the First, Czar of Siberia!" they yelled. "Long live the Czar! Kowtow, serfs and vassals, to Czar Ralph the First!"
Kinnison was still glowing when he got home that night, to the Government Housing Project and to the three-room "mansionette" in which he and Eunice lived. He would never forget the events of that day.
"What a gang! What a gang! But listen, ace—they work under their own power—you couldn't keep those kids from working. Why should I get the credit for what they do?"
"I haven't the foggiest." Eunice wrinkled her forehead—and her nose—but the corners of her mouth quirked up. "Are you quite sure that you haven't had anything to do with it? But supper is ready—let's eat."
More months passed. Work went on. Absorbing work, and highly varied; the details of which are of no importance here. Paul Jones, a big, hard, top-drawer chicle technologist, set up the Four line to pour demolition blocks. Frederick Hinton came in, qualified as a Siberian, and went to work on Anti-Personnel mines.
Kinnison was promoted again: to Chief Chemist. He and Sumner had never been friendly; he made no effort to find out why Cappy had quit, or had been terminated, whichever it was. This promotion made no difference. Barton, now Assistant, ran the whole Chemical Section save for one unit—Siberia—and did a superlative job. The Chief Chemist's secretary worked for Barton, not for Kinnison. Kinnison was the Czar of Siberia.
The Anti-Personnel mines had been giving trouble. Too many men were being killed by prematures, and nobody could find out why. The problem was handed to Siberia. Hinton tackled it, missed, and called for help. The Siberians rallied round. Kinnison loaded and tested mines. So did Paul and Tug and Blondie. Kinnison was testing, out in the Firing Area, when he was called to Administration to attend a Staff Meeting. Hinton relieved him. He had not reached the gate, however, when a guard car flagged him down.
"Sorry, sir, but there has been an accident at Pit Five and you are needed out there."
"Accident! Fred Hinton! Is he...?"
"I'm afraid so, sir."
It is a harrowing thing to have to help gather up what fragments can be found of one of your best friends. Kinnison was white and sick as he got back to the firing station, just in time to hear the Chief Safety Officer say:
"Must have been carelessness—rank carelessness. I warned this man Hinton myself, on one occasion."
"Carelessness, hell!" Kinnison blazed. "You had the guts to warn me once, too, and I've forgotten more about safety in explosives than you ever will know. Fred Hinton was not careless—if I hadn't been called in, that would have been me."
"What is it, then?"
"I don't know—yet. I tell you now, though, Major Moulton, that I will know, and the minute I find out I'll talk to you again."
He went back to Siberia, where he found Tug and Paul, faces still tear-streaked, staring at something that looked like a small piece of wire.
"This is it, Uncle Ralph," Tug said, brokenly. "Don't see how it could be, but it is."
"What is what?" Kinnison demanded.
"Firing pin. Brittle. When you pull the safety, the force of the spring must break it off at this constricted section here."
"But damn it, Tug, it doesn't make sense. It's tension ... but wait—there'd be some horizontal component, at that. But they'd have to be brittle as glass."
"I know it. It doesn't seem to make much sense. But we were there, you know—and I assembled every one of those God damned mines myself. Nothing else could possibly have made that mine go off just when it did."
"O.K., Tug. We'll test 'em. Call Bart in—he can have the scale-lab boys rig us up a gadget by the time we can get some more of those pins in off the line."
They tested a hundred, under the normal tension of the spring, and three of them broke. They tested another hundred. Five broke. They stared at each other.
"That's it." Kinnison declared. "But this will stink to high Heaven—have Inspection break out a new lot and we'll test a thousand."
Of that thousand pins, thirty two broke.
"Bart, will you dictate a one-page preliminary report to Vera and rush it over to Building One as fast as you can? I'll go over and tell Moulton a few things."
Major Moulton was, as usual, "in conference," but Kinnison was in no mood to wait.
"Tell him," he instructed the Major's private secretary, who had barred his way, "that either he will talk to me right now or I will call District Safety over his head. I'll give him sixty seconds to decide which."
Moulton decided to see him. "I'm very busy, Doctor Kinnison, but...."
"I don't give a swivel-eyed tinker's damn how busy you are. I told you that the minute I found out what was the matter with the M2 mine I'd talk to you again. Here I am. Brittle firing pins. Three and two-tenths percent defective. So I'm...."
"Very irregular, Doctor. The matter will have to go through channels...."
"Not this one. The formal report is going through channels, but as I started to tell you, this is an emergency report to you as Chief of Safety. Since the defect is not covered by specs, neither Process nor Ordnance can reject except by test, and whoever does the testing will very probably be killed. Therefore, as every employee of Stoner and Black