"The whole damned crew are butterfingers," Klythe was complaining. "I think they've all got arthritis. Why, oh, why couldn't they let me use my own crew?"
"Speed things up, I suppose," Crayley said cautiously.
"Oh, hell yes! Speed things up! Sure, I'll admit that it would have taken my boys a little time in disassembly to get the hang of this new generator, but we'd have made it up in recording time. That's the way the goddam military mind works! Nuts!"
Crayley rubbed the tip of his nose with a finger. "Is the team ready for recording today?"
Klythe grinned. "As close as they'll ever be. It takes time to get a team accustomed to my way of doing things. They hate my guts for the way I've yelled at them. But it's as much my fault as theirs. If their own engineer were to take over one of my crews, he wouldn't have any better results. The military just has to do things differently, that's all."
They recorded that afternoon. This time, when Klythe pressed the starter, he said nothing. Only his hands and eyes directed the men through their tasks. And every motion of the men's fingers and arms sent their special impulses to the recording tape that hummed through the machinery.
Crayley looked out from behind his face and smiled secretly.
When the recording was finished, Klythe nodded with satisfaction. "I think we could have shaved a few more seconds off that," he said, "but it'll do. Now disassemble it and we'll run her through on the tape."
They took the model down below to the radiation-proofed assembly tables for the test. The thing was pulled to pieces and each piece positioned. Then Klythe threw the switch that started the waldoes.
The tape purred through the pickup head, transmitting the little bits of information it had received, squirting little pulses of energy to the steel-and-plastic arms that jutted out of the domes atop the pillars. In exact duplication of the men's motions, the waldoes picked up the pieces and put them in their proper places.