"That's ridiculous!" snapped Orrin. "Out here in space? For what?"
"Maybe we'll learn soon," said Goil. "One William Maloon should be on his way here right now to do some explaining."
I turned cold all over. What had Willy done to expose himself so? I wondered. Aloud I said:
"What has Willy to do with this, Mr. Goil? Willy is one of our best men, completely trustworthy."
"A hard worker and really ambitious," added Orrin.
"No doubt," Goil said acidly. "Ambitious to his own ends. I've checked Mr. Maloon's personnel records and I found some interesting things. Mr. Maloon is not any sort of qualified engineer. Or even an expert technician. Why, he's not even a good journeyman of any trade. His only approach to some sort of claim to formal training is a single correspondence course!"
"He's a good hard-working technician!" defended Orrin.
"Sure," said Goil. "He learned the hard way. Through experience," he added sarcastically. "Can you tell me, Mr. Orrin, exactly what is Mr. Maloon's job here?"
"He's an engineer fill-in," said Orrin with a trace of doubt in his voice. "He's on call and handy for just about any job around here."
"In a limited capacity, no doubt," Goil said dryly. "And he apparently does a lot of jobs around here he's not expected to do. A check of your tool cribs and equipment storage shows that Maloon has had his hands on just about everything you have available at one time or another since he has been here. Mr. Maloon is a very busy man during his off-duty hours, it seems."