Garamond turned to face Litman. “All right — who was responsible for the welding of this panel, and who was supposed to inspect?”

“It’s hard to say,” Litman replied.

“Hard to say?” “That’s what I said.”

“Then check it out on the work cards.” Garamond spoke with insulting gentleness.

“What work cards?” Litman, suddenly tired of being pushed, turned a red, resentful face up to Garamond’s. “Where have you been, Mister Garamond? Did nobody tell you we’ve only got bits of a workshop left? Did nobody tell you that winter’s coming and we just can’t afford all the time and material that’s going into these flying toys of yours?”

“That isn’t in your area of competence.”

“Of course not!” The redness had spread into Litman’s eyes as he glanced around the gathering crowd. “I’m only a production man. I’m just one of the slobs who has to meet your airy-fairy target dates with no bloody equipment. But there’s something you seem to forget, Mister Garamond. Out here a man who knows how to use his hands is worth twenty Starflight commanders who have nothing left to command.”

“What’ll you do if we decide not to finish your planes?” A low, interested murmur arose from the men behind Litman.

Cliff Napier stepped into the arena. “For a so-called production man,” he said, “you seem to do a lot of work with your mouth, Litman. I suggest that you…”

“It’s all right,” Garamond cut in, placing a restraining hand on Napier’s arm. He raised his voice so that he could be heard by everybody in the vicinity. “I know how most of you feel about settling down here and making the best of things. And I know you want to get on with survival work before the weather turns. Furthermore, I can sympathize with your point of view about obsolescent Starflight commanders — but let me assure you of one thing. I’m leaving here with a fleet of airplanes, and the airplanes are going to be built properly, to the very highest standards of which we are capable. If I find they don’t work as well as they ought to I’ll simply turn them around and fly them right back to you.

“So the only way — the only way — you’ll get me out of your hair permanently is by building good airplanes. And don’t come sniffling to me about target dates or shortage of equipment. Don’t forget — I’ve seen how you can work when you feel like it. What sort of a target date did we have when we were getting ready to punch a hole right through the middle of Beachhead City?” Garamond paused and out-stared the man nearest to him.

“A nice finishing touch,” Napier whispered. “If they still have pride.”

“Ah, hell,” somebody growled from several rows back. “We might as well finish the job now we’ve done most of the work.” There was a general rumble of assent and the crowd, after a moment’s hesitation, began to disperse. The response was not as wholehearted as Garamond could have wished for, but he felt a sense of relief at having secured any kind of decision over Litman. The production executive, his face expressionless, was turning away with the others.

“Troy,” Garamond said to him, “we could have talked that one out in private.”

Litman shrugged. “I’m satisfied with the way things went.”

“Are you? You used to be known as the best production controller in the S.E.A. fleet.”

“That’s all in the past, Vance. I’ve got bigger things on my mind now.”

“Bigger than a man’s life? Braunek could have been killed over that sloppy workmanship.” “I’m sorry about young Braunek getting hurt, and I’m glad he’s all right.” Litman paused and retraced his steps towards Garamond. The reason the men went along with you a moment ago is that you gave them Orbitsville — and that’s important to them. They’re going to spread out through Orbitsville, Vance. This camp won’t hold together more than a year or two, and then most likely it will be left empty.“

“We were talking about the plane crash.”

“We don’t stand united any more. Any man who trusts his life to a machine he hasn’t made by himself and personally checked out by himself is a fool. You should remember that.” Litman turned and plodded away down the hillside, probably intent on retrieving his coolie hat. Garamond stared after the compact figure, filled with the uneasy dislike that a man always feels for another who seems in closer touch with the realities of a situation. He thought hard about Litman’s words during the midday meal and as a result decided to turn himself into a one-man inspection and quality assurance team, with entire responsibility for the airworthiness of his aircraft.

The self-imposed task — with its round of visual and physical checking of every aspect of the fleet production — occupied nine-tenths of Garamond’s working hours, and brought the discovery that he still retained the ability to sleep without stunning his system with alcohol.

Garamond was spreadeagled across the tailplane of the seventh aircraft, examining the elevator hinges, when he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was late in the day and therefore hot — temperatures on Orbitsville built up steadily throughout each daylight period, before dropping abruptly at nightfall — and he had been hoping to finish the particular job without interruption. He kept his head inside the resinous darkness of the inspection hatch, hoping the interloper would take the hint and go away, but there came another and more insistent tap. Garamond twisted into a sitting position and found himself looking into the creased dry face of O’Hagan. The scientist had never been a happy-looking man but on this occasion his expression was more bleak than usual, and Garamond felt a stab of concern.

He switched off his inspection light and slid to the ground. “Has anything happened, Dennis?”

O’Hagan gave a reluctant nod. “We’ve recorded a delta particle.”

“You’ve recorded a…” Garamond pressed the back of his hand to his forehead and fought to control his elation. “Isn’t that what we’ve been trying to do? What’s your worry?”

“We’ve only got about eighty per cent of the original screen rebuilt.”

“So?”

“It’s too soon, Vance. I’ve been through Mike Moncaster’s math a couple of times and I can’t fault him. With two complete screens — which is what we planned for — giving a receiving area of five hundred square metres, we should have had to wait eighty or ninety days even to…”

“We were lucky,” Garamond interrupted, laughing and astonished to realize he still remembered how. “It just shows that the laws of probability are bound to give you a break eventually. Come on, Dennis, admit it.”

O’Hagan shook his head with sombre conviction. “The laws of probability are not bound to give you anything, my friend.”

The eight aircraft took off at first light, while the air was cool and thick, and climbed steadily against the seriate blue archways of the Orbitsville sky. At the agreed cruising height of five hundred metres the ungainly, stiff-winged birds levelled off, exchanging brief communications through pulses of modulated light. They assumed a V-formation, and circled once around the base camp, their shadows falling vertically on to the remains of the Bissendorf, the metallic egg which had brought about their slow and painful birth. And then, without lingering further, they set course towards the prismatic mists which lay to the east.