Hull nodded thoughtfully. "It makes sense, Mr. Kelvin. If they'd known that you were ... well ... Mister Spaceship Himself, they'd have let you do all the thinking. And that would have left you high and dry, wouldn't it?"
Jayjay put the deck of cards in his pocket. "You're a pretty good sociologist, after all, Mr. Hull. You're right. Face any group with Authority—with a capital A—and they quit thinking for themselves. And if they do, then the poor slob of an Authority doesn't have anything to tickle his own brains, so everybody loses."
"Well, do you have an answer?" Captain Al-Amin asked.
Jayjay shook his head. "Not yet. I think I've got one coming up, but I wish you two would go on talking while I think."
"I'll try," Smith said wryly.
The problem was both simple and complex. The female socket lacked one single turn of thread to make a perfect connection. A few hundredths of an inch separated success from disaster.
Five men, including the unconscious Vandenbosch, were only a fraction of an inch away from death.
Jayjay Kelvin listened to Smith talk for another half hour, throwing in objections when necessary, but offering no opinions.
"All we have to do," Smith said at last, "is get rid of that little bit of metal beyond the thread in the female socket. But there's no way to get it out. We can't use a chisel because the force would warp the threads. Besides, we couldn't get a chisel in there."