Production Test

"I have discovered that in spite of the fact that this company is supposed to have a test department and has a number of test engineers on the payroll we, nevertheless, turn over untested spacesuits for sale to our customers."

Lane bristled, terrierlike, and squirmed out of the chair to a standing position. "If there have been complaints against my department, I'll back up every suit that's got my inspectors' stamps on — and none go out without them."

"No — none go out without them," said Kimberly with slow, even precision, gently dangling the hook he had them on. "But there is one other great lesson of general semantics that you seem to have forgotten, Mr. Lane. The word is not the object. Remember?"

"But what -"

"It simply means that because a suit bears an inspector's stamp there is no reason to assume the suit is tested and perfect."

"Then what does it mean?" asked Lane.

"It means that we have a test department manned by thick-headed, vacuum-brained imbeciles," roared Kimberly. "Kids who play like engineers —"

Lane trembled before the blast, but remained standing. "Mr. Kimberly, we are engineers with reputations to maintain. We back up our reputations with our work and —"

"Would you like to back them up — on your back for a day or two in one of those blasted tested suits of yours?"

"I would appreciate knowing what factors we overlooked in our test procedures."

"That's simple. You forgot to put a man inside."

Lane swallowed. The others looked baffled.

"You don't expect us to give each suit an occupation test, surely," said Brown, "It's not practical and ... and surely not necessary. We test for operation, durability. We test the final suit for pressure. It seems to be there's nothing omitted."

"Piece by piece!" growled Kimberly, his fist banging the table. "And the whole is not the sum of the parts! Will you get that through your heads? A suit is not tested until it's shown that a man can wear it. Your tests do not show that. Look at this."

He pressed a button connected to the apparatus on the table. A projected silhouette flashed on the wall.

"A spring from a Kimberly Joint," said Bryan Kimberly. "Those wonderful Kimberly Joints! I took this off the production line. The test sample out of this bunch flexed four million and was still good. Now, watch."

He pressed another button. "This box is near zero, Kelvin. The spring is cooled with liquid helium to near operating temperatures. There it goes!"

As they watched, the silhouette shattered. The pieces seemed to explode, then trickled out of sight and there was nothing where the spring had been.

The engineers sat as if stunned. They knew the strength of that bit of metal, the implications of the force that could shatter it like glass.

"What did you do?" breathed Lane.

"Ghost," said Kimberly. "Don't you hear it? Our suits are also haunted, you know."

They listened. Then they heard — the high-pitched screaming that came out of the apparatus.

"One of our tested valves," said Kimberly.

"But they don't squeal like that," said Lane.

"How do you know? Do you test for squeal?"

"No, but -"

"Supersonic, mostly," said Kimberly. "At operational temperatures that vibration will shatter those springs to bits. Seventeen men of Flightways were left spread-eagled for a day and a half on the Moon. Your tested suit almost killed me when I tried one on in the icebox. Now, does anybody want to claim these suits are tested before they go out?"

"But a squeal —" Lane protested weakly.

"A squeal. You test the valves in an icebox. Nobody learns whether they squeal or not because the sound is too high for the mike in there. You put them in a suit and test the suit for pressure — constant pressure where there's no squeal. But when a man puts the suit on and the valve starts working, the springs go to pot. We gave the suits a thorough occupational test when the springs were designed, and then we changed the valves after such tests were made. Any questions now, gentlemen?"

He looked them over with savage enjoyment of their discomfiture. "Good, then we may expect a revision of the test procedures and a correction of the valve design."