Again George tried to make out Trevelyan. Too far.
The clear, polished voice of the announcer sounded. “Distinguished Novian sponsors. Ladies. Gentlemen. The Olympics competition for Metallurgist, Nonferrous, is about to begin. The contestants are—”
Carefully and conscientiously, he read off the list in the program. Names. Home towns. Educative years. Each name received its cheers, the San Franciscans among them receiving the loudest. When Trevelyan’s name was reached, George surprised himself by shouting and waving madly. The gray-haired man next to him surprised him even more by cheering likewise.
George could not help but stare in astonishment and his neighbor leaned over to say (speaking loudly in order to be heard over the hubbub), “No one here from my home town; I’ll root for yours. Someone you know?”
George shrank back. “No.”
“I noticed you looking in that direction. Would you like to borrow my glasses?”
“No. Thank you.” (Why didn’t the old fool mind his own business?)
The announcer went on with other formal details concerning the serial number of the competition, the method of timing and scoring and so on. Finally, he approached the meat of the matter and the audience grew silent as it listened.
“Each contestant will be supplied with a bar of nonferrous alloy of unspecified composition. He will be required to sample and assay the bar, reporting all results correctly to four decimals in per cent. All will utilize for this purpose a Beeman Microspectrograph, Model FX-2, each of which is, at the moment, not in working order.”
There was an appreciative shout from the audience.
“Each contestant will be required to analyze the fault of his machine and correct it. Tools and spare parts are supplied. The spare part necessary may not be present, in which case it must be asked for, and time of delivery thereof will be deducted from final time. Are all contestants ready?”
The board above Contestant Five flashed a frantic red signal. Contestant Five ran off the floor and returned a moment later. The audience laughed good-naturedly.
“Are all contestants ready?”
The boards remained blank.
“Any questions?”
Still blank.
“You may begin.”
There was, of course, no way anyone in the audience could tell how any contestant was progressing except for whatever notations went up on the notice board. But then, that didn’t matter. Except for what professional Metallurgists there might be in the audience, none would understand anything about the contest professionally in any case. What was important was who won, who was second, who was third. For those who had bets on the standings (illegal, but unpreventable) that was all-important. Everything else might go hang.
George watched as eagerly as the rest, glancing from one contestant to the next, observing how this one had removed the cover from his microspectrograph with deft strokes of a small instrument; how that one was peering into the face of the thing; how still a third was setting his alloy bar into its holder; and how a fourth adjusted a vernier with such small touches that he seemed momentarily frozen.
Trevelyan was as absorbed as the rest. George had no wav of telling how he was doing.
The notice board over Contestant Seventeen flashed: Focus plate out of adjustment.
The audience cheered wildly.
Contestant Seventeen might be right and he might, of course, be wrong. If the latter, he would have to correct his diagnosis later and lose time. Or he might never correct his diagnosis and be unable to complete his analysis or, worse still, end with a completely wrong analysis.
Never mind. For the moment, the audience cheered.
Other boards lit up. George watched for Board Twelve. That came on finally: “Sample holder off-center. New clamp depresser needed.”
An attendant went running to him with a new part. If Trevelyan was wrong, it would mean useless delay. Nor would the time elapsed in waiting for the part be deducted. George found himself holding his breath.
Results were beginning to go up on Board Seventeen, in gleaming letters: aluminum, 41.2649; magnesium, 22.1914; copper, 10.1001.
Here and there, other boards began sprouting figures.
The audience was in bedlam.
George wondered how the contestants could work in such pandemonium, then wondered if that were not even a good thing. A first-class technician should work best under pressure.
Seventeen rose from his place as his board went red-rimmed to signify completion. Four was only two seconds behind him. Another, then another.
Trevelyan was still working, the minor constituents of his alloy bar still unreported. With nearly all contestants standing, Trevelyan finally rose, also. Then, tailing off, Five rose, and received an ironic cheer.
It wasn’t over. Official announcements were naturally delayed. Time elapsed was something, but accuracy was just as important. And not all diagnoses were of equal difficulty. A dozen factors had to be weighed.
Finally, the announcer’s voice sounded, “Winner in the time of four minutes and twelve seconds, diagnosis correct, analysis correct within an average of zero point seven parts per hundred thousand, Contestant Number—Seventeen, Henry Anton Schmidt of—”
What followed was drowned in the screaming. Number Eight was next and then Four, whose good time was spoiled by a five part in ten thousand error in the niobium figure. Twelve was never mentioned. He was an also-ran.
George made his way through the crowd to the Contestant’s Door and found a large clot of humanity ahead of him. There would be weeping relatives (joy or sorrow, depending) to greet them, newsmen to interview the top-scorers, or the home-town boys, autograph hounds, publicity seekers and the just plain curious. Girls, too, who might hope to catch the eye of a top-scorer, almost certainly headed for Novia (or perhaps a low-scorer who needed consolation and had the cash to afford it).
George hung back. He saw no one he knew. With San Francisco so far from home, it seemed pretty safe to assume that there would be no relatives to condole with Trev on the spot.
Contestants emerged, smiling weakly, nodding at shouts of approval. Policemen kept the crowds far enough away to allow a lane for walking. Each high-scorer drew a portion of the crowd off with him, like a magnet pushing through a mound of iron filings.
When Trevelyan walked out, scarcely anyone was left, (George felt somehow that he had delayed coming out until just that had come to pass.) There was a cigarette in his dour mouth and he turned, eyes downcast, to walk off.
It was the first hint of home George had had in what was almost a year and a half and seemed almost a decade and a half. He was almost amazed that Trevelyan hadn’t aged, that he was the same Trev he had last seen.
George sprang forward. “Trev!”
Trevelyan spun about, astonished. He stared at George and then his hand shot out “George Platen, what the devil—”
And almost as soon as the look of pleasure had crossed his face, it left. His hand dropped before George had quite the chance of seizing it.
“Were you in there?” A curt jerk of Trev’s head indicated the hall.
“I was.”
’To see me?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t do so well, did I?” He dropped his cigarette and stepped on it, staring off to the street, where the emerging crowd was slowly eddying and finding its way into skimmers, while new lines were forming for the next scheduled Olympics.
Trevelyan said heavily, “So what? It’s only the second time I missed. Novia can go shove after the deal I got today. There are planets that would jump at me fast enough—But, listen, I haven’t seen you since Education Day. Where did you go? Your folks said you were on special assignment but gave no details and you never wrote. You might have written.”