Howland looked over his shoulder as he was setting up the programing panel. Morey studied the matrices silently, then got busy reading the summary tapes, checking them back against the schematics, setting up the instructions on the programing board. Howland kept quiet as Morey completed the setup and ran off a test tape. It checked perfectly; Morey stepped back to light a cigarette in celebration before pushing the start button.
Howland said, “Go on, run it. I can’t go until you put it in the works.”
Morey grinned and pushed the button. The board lighted up; within it, a tiny metronomic beep began to pulse. That was all. At the other end of the quarter-mile shed, Morey knew, the automatic sorters and conveyers were fingering through the copper reels and steel ingots, measuring hoppers of plastic powder and colors, setting up an intricate weaving path for the thousands of individual components that would make up Bradmoor’s new K-50 Spin-a-Game. But from where they stood, in the elaborately muraled programing room, nothing showed. Bradmoor was an ultra-modernized plant; in the manufacturing end, even robots had been dispensed with in favor of machines that guided themselves.
Morey glanced at his watch and logged in the starting time while Howland quickly counter-checked Morey’s raw-material flow program.
“Checks out,” Howland said solemnly, slapping him on the back. “Calls for a celebration. Anyway, it’s your first design, isn’t it?”
“Yes. First all by myself, at any rate.”
Howland was already fishing in his private locker for the bottle he kept against emergency needs. He poured with a flourish. “To Morey Fry,” he said, “our most favorite designer, in whom we are much pleased.”
Morey drank. It went down easily enough. Morey had conscientiously used his liquor rations for years, but he had never gone beyond the minimum, so that although liquor was no new experience to him, the single drink immediately warmed him. It warmed his mouth, his throat, the hollows of his chest; and it settled down with a warm glow inside him. Howland, exerting himself to be nice, complimented Morey fatuously on the design and poured another drink. Morey didn’t utter any protest at all.
Howland drained his glass. “You may wonder,” he said formally, “why I am so pleased with you, Morey Fry. I will tell you why this is.”
Morey grinned. “Please do.”