Page:Astounding Science Fiction (1950-01).djvu/40

 and took them down to the plant.

The purple dye code on them was first. He checked against the book and found sixty-eight stampings were from sixteen different lots to leave Tredel & Morton.

Then he had them magnarayed. Sixty-eight of them failed to meet specifications.

It meant, with very little shadow of doubt, that the receiving department at Triesting Company was making the inspections. Only rejected parts were going into Mystery Ray Pistols.

The stampings that met spec? Where were they going?

Tredel considered getting into the toy factory to find out. Then thought made it seem that would not be the best way. Working in a factory, in some small section of it, he would have less opportunity to discover many things than would someone on the outside.

Perhaps what happened to the stampings inside the plant wasn't too important. It was where they went from there that mattered. Who did their shipping?

It took a week to check, make sure. All of their out-going freight was handled by Higgenson Rapid Transit, a well known trucking firm.

It took a month to trace down, to come to the conclusion that if anything were to be learned it would be something not obvious. All the shipments from Triesting went to the dock at Higgenson to be routed according to destination. So far as it was possible to check, without arousing suspicion, all shipments were aboveboard. They went to toy stores, to jobbers and distributors throughout the country, to factories in England, to representatives around the world.

I've spent, in cash outlay, about a thousand dollars, Tredel thought, summing it up, ''and I've yet to eliminate a negative. It's not that I've got to find something positive, but—''

He saw it, then, as having the makings of a really long-range project. To come, eventually, close to the positive, he must eliminate the things that couldn't be.

So far, he had eliminated nothing. It wasn't a question of starting over. It was more that he went back to the beginning and chose a parallel line to check.

Tredel & Morton made a stamping that was in question. Who made the other parts of the assembly that he had visualized?

He built up the assembly, carefully, on paper, deciding how it must look in order to use the stamping. He did it again and again, checking his reasoning carefully, as though Big Tom Tredel were looking over his shoulder.

No. That was the way it had to be. Had to be.

He chose, finally, a part that would be the most unusual in shape. That would be the one to work on.

Then he thought about that part. Just thought about it for days. He guessed, discarded, guessed again. And discarded. 40