Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition — page 15: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

TRADE SECRET aS small fry citizens as the successor to all horse and pistol paraphernalia and the pseudo rocket equipment with which they had been kidding themselves. This was the real thing. Re-orders flowed into the plant almost on the heels of the shipments going out. . Within two weeks of initial manu- facture Sam Marvenstein was hope- lessly behind schedule. He called Mart on the phone. “The toy business is like flowers and fresh vegetables,” he said. “One minute you’re in and the next minute you're out. One good item and a man can retire. A real blooper and you have to start all over again.” “What’s the matter?” said Mart. “The rocket is selling, isn’t it?” “That’s the trouble. It’s selling too well.” “What are you talking about?” “We need more factory space. We're behind far enough on the orders we’ve got now to warrant doubling our floor space. But how long can we sell rockets without reaching the saturation point? “It looks to me like Christmas would do it. If we turned them out, we could sell a rocket to every kid in the country above crawling age. SO suppose we went ahead and in- creased our floor space with all the necessary jigs and dies—what happens afterwards? Can you give us a new item that will make the expansion worth while, or do you intend to be strictly a one-shot?” **T won’t be a one-shot,” said Mart. “I’ve been thinking of the same problems. In the spring we'll have another little gadget to follow up the rocket. I think we should acquire the increased space on a rental basis. Tool up to produce all the rockets the trade can stand. We can afford the capital investment and any sub- sequent loss on it.” “That’s all I wanted to know,”’ said Sam. 3 Although every news service in the country had given the Nagle Rocket a brief play, it was Joe Baird, the nightly TV columnist, who continued to pick at the bones of the story as if not satisfied that all the meat was out of it. Mart was never quite sure where Baird got his leads, but he was quite satisfied to see the columnist’s thin face and hear his somewhat squeaky voice announce with its full capacity for insinuation: ‘What former high-rank- ing Government scientist is now peddl- ing toys for a living because Uncle’s pay check wasn’t big enough? This same scientist is scheduled shortly to be the subject of a series of in- vestigations regarding his use of certain scientific principles for the production of toys instead of for the essential welfare of our nation. A big ripe, raspberry to the man who might be among the first to take his nation to the Moon—and is content merely to entertain the kids.” Mart had no idea whether Baird had inside information or whether he was shooting in the dark. At any rate his agitation was encouraging. It promised results. The office of Nagle and Berkeley, Basic Research Consultants, was not one to attract customers in large ‘numbers, or particularly before hours. But on the morning following Baird’s denunciation Mart came down to open up and found a visitor waiting at the end of the long hall near the locked door of the office. The man was wearing a gray, slightly mashed felt hat and carried a brief case which he rested on the radiator as he looked out the window. Mart gave him a curious glance and fitted the key to the lock. Then he almost closed the = ECoOmMmichooks.co im