He listened closely. Hiss, hiss, hiss. No, it was a rubbing sound, with a scrape and an occasional hollow thump. Not loud, but close at hand. The ventilating system—how obvious, now! He watched a white hand disengage the catches and carefully lower the grill to his desk. A small figure in white cover-alls wormed its way out of the opening, landed on its hands on top of his desk, kicked feet clear and cartwheeled to the floor with disdainful ease. A head-shake settled a long bob in place; who could do that? Virginia Hermosa, and no one else!
She couldn't see him against the shine of the window. She turned ICWEA on and let her warm up, meanwhile fastening a large sheet of paper on the bed of the curve-tracer with tape. She put a blank card in the punching head, opened the door of the patching-panel cabinet and rearranged the patch-cords there.
What a lab assistant she would make! Wasted in Set-up; anyone could punch cards, with a little practice. Well, not anyone, but any mathematician could. How thoroughly she knew this machine! Charley must have told her, or her brother, plenty!
With the curve-tracer running at slow speed, she held the stylus steadily on the words she had written on the paper; the coordinates and rates were fed into ICWEA's brain, she derived the horrible equations corresponding to the script, and obligingly translated these in turn to punchings on the card.
So simple, when you saw it. But who would think of putting a burglar alarm on an air-duct? She could go all over the building through the walls if she chose. She was small enough to get through the ducts easily, though the vertical sections must be tough, even for so athletic a girl.
The punching head stopped. Virginia restored everything to its original condition, stuck the card she had punched into a pile of them, folded the paper and stuffed it into her pocket, and turned to go. Norm put on the lights.
tartled, she whirled, churning the air with her hands to keep her balance. He held his hand out for the paper.
"No!" she said, her voice shrill with excitement.