Goil had thunderclouds ready to burst hanging around his head. I could see that as soon as we entered the room. Orrin's spirits visibly dropped. So did mine.
The black cloud over Goil burst. For five minutes without letup he stormed. When Orrin and I recovered a little from the deluge, Goil was saying:
"... complete indications of careless management. And management, Mr. Orrin, starts at the top." He looked hard at Orrin. Then he turned to me adding, "And goes on down. How can you account for a missing sub-space energizer, especially one as large and powerful as the ones we use? And one gravity generator?"
"Huh?" said Orrin, seeming to come out of a daze. "What's missing?"
Goil slowed down a bit. "One gravity generator and one sub-space energizer, Mr. Orrin. One each of these items is used for each vaporizing process. And you have one too few vaporizing projects on record. And one each gravity generator and energizer unsigned for, completely unaccounted for—so far."
"What do you mean, 'so far'?" I asked. "Have you any idea how we can account for these two items?"
"I have indeed," said Goil.
"I don't understand," said Orrin in a helpless tone. "How could anyone lose or misplace anything as big as those? It doesn't make sense."
I was glad Orrin had put the question that way.
"Precisely," said Goil. "I don't believe someone did misplace or lose those items. I believe someone took them for a purpose."