Production Test

A slow, shrill screaming in his ears. Trilling up and down the scale, it escaped momentarily beyond the range of audibility, then slid down in wild, despairing crescendo.

The hair prickled on the back of his neck. He turned the heater up a notch and whirled about, as if to find the source of the wailing behind him.

There was nothing, of course. And Johnson's words came back to him. "Your suits are haunted."

Of all the incredible nonsense! But where did the sound come from?

He realized now that it had been there all the time just on the verge of perceptibility. But his senses had not recorded it until the cold, depressing surroundings began to weigh on him.

Psychological.

He listened hard, straining his ears with all the voluntary effort he could muster. Even his heartbeat began to sound loud inside the suit.

It was there. Actual, physical sound waves were producing that sensation. It was no mere delusion of the senses. He was certain of that.

He looked at the row of carcasses that had almost stopped swaying. Fiercely, he jabbed out again.

A wild scream pierced his ears. Simultaneously, his arm snapped back as if it had been hit with a club. In half numbing pain, he regarded his arm. It projected straight out at his side — immovable.

For a moment he looked at the swinging carcasses. It was almost as if they had struck back.

But he knew what it was. The elbow and shoulder joints had broken down completely.

Springs, he thought, that could withstand five million flexings in the test machines in the icebox, yet they failed with a few flexings when in a suit.

He made a tentative gesture to bend the stiffened arm. It only made his bruised muscles ache worse. The sleeve would not move — as he well knew.

He tried the left arm, flexing it slowly. It seemed all right. He dug his manipulators into the thick plastic of the right sleeve to feel of the springs in the joints. There simply weren't any. He rubbed the fabric back and forth between the manipulators. Lacking a sense of touch, he couldn't be sure, but it seemed as if there were fine metallic shards in the thin sheaths where the springs should have been. They had shattered to bits.

Cold?

They had been tested for months in the icebox. Stationary, flexed at a hundred cycles per minute, heated, cooled again — everything the test engineers could think of had been done to those springs to break them down. And they held.

Until now.

He moved towards the swaying carcasses.

"How are you boys doing? Let's feel that muscle." He flexed the arms of the nearest suit with his left hand. The legs. The joints seemed satisfactory. He went on down the line. As he reached for the next to the last one, his left arm snapped back.

He stood there like some fantastic scarecrow, arms outstretched — swearing very softly to himself.

With impotent rage, he tried to bring his arms together. It was like trying to squeeze a block of cement. That was the physical factor behind his rage. But the psychological was greater. The inability to even guess at what was going on right under his nose. It was almost as if the springs were allergic to man. They withstood every physical torture that engineering could devise. But mounted in a suit and worn by a man, they failed.

Kimberly gave a shrug of disgust. He'd be suspecting somebody of hexing the suits next if he kept up that line of reasoning. There was a perfectly logical, physical explanation for the failure of the springs. It was right under his nose. It must be fatigue that kept him from seeing it, he thought. At any rate, there was nothing more to be done, now. He couldn't accomplish anything with his arms sticking out like boards.

He might as well get out of the suit and have some dinner. Then he'd call the engineers down for an all-night session if necessary. The week end vacation was off. He'd have to let Bernice know he hadn't left. He started for the door.

And nearly fell on his face.

He hadn't even heard it or felt it. But while he'd stood there the entire set of springs in the left leg of the suit had collapsed and left him stifflegged.

Sweat suddenly formed a moist film on his face. If the right leg should also go, he'd be in one sweet jam!

Cautiously, he tested it. He raised one foot slowly and carefully, making sure to maintain his balance on the leg that couldn't be shifted if he needed its sudden counteraction.

All the joints of the right side were still good. But it was a gamble how long they would hold. More than seventy-five percent of the springs in the suits were gone now. He couldn't expect the rest to last much longer at that rate.

Irritation gave way to apprehension lest he fail to make it to the door of the chamber. Carefully, he put his foot down and gave an awkward hop. His instinctive dependence on both legs nearly undid him. He tottered in the heavy suit and fell against the row of carcasses.