In 1940, all through a sleepless night, Lee Garth watched his racing pencil write factor after factor, watched the equations grow from page to page. Still the pencil raced. He watched it.
He did not think of Leonidas, who had withstood Xerxes, or of Charles Martel, or of Jan Lippershey, or any of the thousands of others who have warped the course of human destiny—Kepler, Newton, Watt, Einstein, Galileo, Copernicus, the little corporal who went down to Saint Helena. He did not even think of Lee Garth. For that night Lee Garth did not matter to himself. Nor ever again.
The dawn came in through the windows of the old house where he worked. Softly, quietly, silently, the night went and the day came. Another tomorrow became today, another dark reality lifted out of the formless void of the future.
George McNeil, Scot production foreman in charge of the cable manufacturing department on United Electric's vast plant, stared at the order that had come down to him. His face a wrinkled frown, he studied the blue prints.
"Those domned monkeys with their domned slip-sticks," he grunted, referring to the drafting department, "have made another mistake."
Specification sheets in hands, he stalked out of his cubby-hole and headed for the office of the production manager.
The production manager examined the specifications. He called the head of the drafting department on the office phone and got a short answer for his trouble.
"The specifications are right," he said testily to McNeil. "Go ahead and fabricate them."