Dolan turned to the girl. "OK, Miss Jones," he said. "Now let's see what we can figure out about this gear." He strolled completely around it, eyeing it from all sides.
"Well ..." he said dubiously. "First, I guess, control. How do you start it up, make it go?"
"We push these buttons, in this sequence," the girl told him. She moved her fingers lightly over a series of studs set in a small cube.
"OK, push 'em. Let's see what happens."
"Nothing happens," the girl said. "The machine just doesn't work."
"Well, then, what's supposed to happen?"
The girl looked unhappy. "I'm sorry," she said finally, "didn't Mr. Brown say you weren't to ask such questions?"
"OK," Dolan said resignedly, "we'll let that go then. How about this: What indications do you have when it is operating normally? Anything light up, move, buzz, hum, spin around?"
The girl frowned thoughtfully and shook her head. "Nothing lights up, moves, buzzes, hums, spins around. When the machine works, it ... well, it just works, and that's all." She studied him with troubled eyes. "You are an expert, it seems to me an expert should be able to look at a machine and see what parts are faulty, isn't that true? Why must you know what the machine does?"
Dolan leaned back against the machine and lit a cigarette. He squinted thoughtfully at her through the smoke. Well, what the hell, with looks like that, why should she need brains?