It all adds up to using the right component for the job, and that's only good engineering. You wouldn't try to use a 600 volt by-pass on a 10,000 volt plate supply. Nor a 10,000 volt by-pass in that beautiful little BC-62.
I'm the right component for this job. You're not equipped for it, but you're swell in the job you're doing. Let's not get hashed up with a lot of feedback over this business. I've talked Tarman into smuggling me into his age. He's no different than the Chinese bandits I once slugged it out with in Manchuria, sort of a truck driver and petty racketeer in his own day. He'd have your hide in an hour, Chris. I don't know what I'll find in his territory, but I suspect that there are pretty strict rules against interlopers from unauthorized ages. It won't be easy to fake their customs and mores sufficiently to get by as a local citizen. And then there's the job of getting back if I do succeed in passing myself off and collecting some of their science. Tarman gave me some tips on how it might be done, but I don't trust him. I feel reasonably sure I can do it. This chance at their science is worth the gamble. If I lose there'll be no loss — to Martha and Kip and Pat.
So calm down and squelch those parasitics that are no doubt burning up your plates. Look for me back any time. I'll try to swing my return as close to my departure as possible. But when I come I'll have a slug of stuff that'll make us the top outfit in the business — Devon and Kennely. Better start looking around for some offices. If any of the boys ask about me just say I'm on an indefinite binge. Be looking for me.
Devon put the letter down slowly. As he did so, he felt as if cooling, placid currents had begun to flow through him, quenching the bitter fires that had raged, and smothering the disappointment.
The right component.
Yeah, that applied to men as well as engineering factors and Kennely was right. He was the component for this job, not Devon.
Was there anything that Kennely didn't understand? Devon wondered. The man's genius extended not merely into the broad field of electronics where he was master, but into all the facets of life.
Devon felt sudden, bitter shame for the feelings he'd had. They were both the right components for the jobs they were doing. As a team they'd be great, as long as he could keep from trying to invade Kennely's half of the partnership.
Right now he had a big enough job to keep him busy until Kennely's return. He had to get an entire new model of the weather station out of the model shop by another week. The Weather Bureau could use the prognosticator circuits, all right, but not in the little remote stations. It would be worth plenty to North State. That aspect of it made Devon momentarily unhappy, but there'd be plenty more where that came from — when Kennely came back.
When Kennely came back —
For a single bleak and bitter moment he considered the alternative to Kennely's return. Then he forced the dark vision out of his mind. Kennely'd be back. He was the right component for the job. That was foolproof engineering.
Devon suddenly leaned back and grinned to himself. There was one nice, unlooked for advantage in Kennely's absence. It would be possible now for somebody else to get a job out of the model shop.