The mob parted its ranks to let Devon through. He pushed his way in and stood face to face with the disaster. Webber was there, bleak with mystification and anger looking for a place to strike.
"The watchman says you and Kennely left around midnight. Kennely says you didn't hear a thing or see any signs of this, then."
"No. Not a thing," said Devon. Somehow the daylight and the mob lent an aspect of magnitude to the disaster that dwarfed his feelings of the night before.
"As I told you," Kennely broke in, "we just unpacked the case to see if it was my missing equipment —"
Webber glowered down into the hole another thirty seconds, then turned to Mac. "Get maintenance to clean this mess up as soon as possible. Reorder the machine tools you need. I'll push the papers through. We can't get much farther behind on the model work. We'll be making last year's equipment next year at this rate!"
Back in their own lab, Kennely and Devon sat down at their desks. "Figure out anything?" asked Kennely.
"Nothing but nightmares all night."
"Me, too. An engineer is no good in a situation like this. An average smart business man would be able to think up a deal that would bring Tarman across pronto. But here we are, can't think of a thing."
"Well, let's get to work. Let's analyse that prognosticator panel and maybe we'll think of something as we go along."
They spent the remainder of the day delving into the complex circuits of the weather forecaster. The components were there; their circuit connections became apparent as the engineers proceeded, but the actual principle of operation was still elusive.