Production Test

Raymond F. Jones

Production Test

Bryan Kimberly looked with satisfaction at the two-page, four-color advertisement in the magazine on his desk. He leaned back in his chair to get a better perspective. A beautiful piece of art work, the illustration showed a bulbous suited spaceman halfway inside the main tube of one of the ponderous lunar freights. The dazzling streamers of light from his torch illumined the black bore of the tube, to which he was applying an emergency reline patch.

All this against the platinum Moonscape and the black night of space above. Beside the workman stood two companions, watching.

That was nice the way they were arranged, Kimberly thought. One showed the front of the spacesuit; the other gave a clear view of the rear, showing the minimum of equipment which the wearer was required to support.

Blazoned across the bottom of the picture, like a rocket trail going up, was the caption: "Only in a Kimberly can you do this!"

Bryan Kimberly settled deeper in the chair to read contentedly. "Since the first thrust-jet reached escape velocity, Kimberly has meant — freedom! Freedom to leave the prison of the ships that carry men across space, freedom to make the Moon's surface as familiar as our own home towns. Kimberly is the suit that has made the animal, man, adaptable to an environment for which he was never meant. The first human footprint upon the lunar surface was made in a Kimberly. Since then, nearly twenty thousand of these superb spacesuits have carried the pioneers of a new age into the realms of the stars.

"Now, we announce a new and improved Kimberly suit that means even greater freedom, ease, and safely in man's eternal quest to reach out and touch the stars!"

Bryan Kimberly pinched his lower lip thoughtfully. That had looked pretty good in script when he'd first read it. Now, in his pages of "Rocket Flight," it seemed just a trifle too purple. Oh, well — nobody could blame the company for going overboard on this new suit. It was good.

He read on. "For the first time, spacemen are offered an all-fabric suit. In weight alone, this means a reduction of thirty-eight pounds, Earth. The new plastic, Cordolite, of which the carcass is constructed, is conservatively rated at an inflation pressure of three hundred pounds per square inch.

"Most important of all, however, is the tremendous, epoch-making invention, the Kimberly Joint. It is with the utmost pride that we present this new joint to the spacemen of the world.

"Gone forever are the tragic blowouts of the old ground metallic joints. Though the greatest precision has always characterized Kimberly products, we were well aware of the imperfections of the ground joint, and we have devoted the full resources of our laboratories for many years to find a better solution.

"We have it. The Kimberly Joint is a continuous connection, spring compensated joint. Four hundred metallic springs embedded within the Cordolite carcass provide a completely compensated set of joints which assures the spaceman the mobility and freedom of a trunk clad swimmer. The illustration above, taken from an actual photograph, shows the first performance of its kind in history — made possible by Kimberly.

"Note also the new size of communication and pressure compensation equipment. No longer is the spaceman a walking Gargantua with a machine shop on his back!

"Trim! Safe! Comfortable! Kimberly!"

Bryan Kimberly finished with great satisfaction and folded his hands over his just barely perceptible paunch to enjoy the picture. Twenty-seven months of the hardest work he'd ever put in were represented there. He wished there had been time to get in the announcement that Lunar Flightways had equipped their new Lunar Queen all the way through with new Kimberlys for her maiden flight that was even now being completed. They had thirty-six Kimberlys on the Queen and four hundred more ordered for the rest of their fleet.

Maybe they'd run the advertisement again next month. It wouldn't be necessary in order to get business, Kimberly knew. Spacemen had been looking for a continuous, compensated joint since before the first rocket took off.

He glanced at the clock. Time to knock off, and this was going to be one week end that was really off. Two days at their cabin. His wife, Bernice, and their son, Roy would drive up Sunday but for one day of solid sleeping and fishing he'd not see a human being. Bernice was away visiting and he planned to go directly from the office. But it was time to be going if he expected to make it by dark.

His anticipation was broken by the flashing of his secretary's light. He answered with expectant irritation. "Yes?"

"Mr. Johnson of Flightways is on the phone, Mr. Kimberly."

"Tell him I — Oh, put him on!"

Johnson appeared on the small phone panel, sputtering and redfaced, "Kimberly! Where have you been? I've been trying to get you all afternoon."

That was Johnson's customary approach and Kimberly paid no attention.