The recorders seated themselves around the hulking object, checking and rechecking the intricate controls of the waldoes they were to operate. Finally, they fitted their hands into the glove pickups and waited, watching Klythe.
"Set?" Klythe asked.
"Set!" they said in one voice.
Klythe tapped his finger on the control board at which he had seated himself. The technicians began to disassemble the model, stripping it down to its last essential part, as Klythe watched with a critical eye.
Klythe had tapped the board, but he hadn't actually energized the gloves. This was to be a dry run; there was no need to record a disassembly; it was the assembly that would go down on tape.
It took an hour to complete the job, and all that time Klythe said nothing. He watched the men work, eying each move, each nut removed, each wire unwound.
When it was over, the men folded their hands in their laps, and Klythe tapped the control board once more.
"Let's see if we can't assemble it a little faster than that," he said coldly. He pressed the recording button, and the technicians began rebuilding the model.
Crayley stepped over to the monitor screen set in one wall of the recording room and switched it on. Then he cut in the experimental secondaries, connecting them to the recording primaries. They went through the same motions, their arms waving and gesticulating oddly in the air, since there was nothing for them to work on.
Klythe wasn't silent during the rebuilding. The disassembly had taught him everything he needed to know about the new unit; that was his job and his genius.