Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

20 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION combining the principles of many instruments into one. The human eye contains a hundred and thirty million light sensitive cells. It would be nice if they could get their camera orifices as tidy and sensitive. Each of the departments put its best students to work on its own problem, until the entire university was co- ordinated into working on some aspect of the job. The singleness of purpose, the drive for accomplishment was as much as could be asked by any industrialist. Rogan, too, was caught up in the enthusiasm, and surveyed the activity with a certain approval—for busy hands have no time for mischief. And he found himself with new duties, strange for a Resident Investigator. Hoxworth University did not have all the talent and equipment it needed for this project, not by any means. Rogan found himself assuming the role of go-between with Washington, requesting, requisitioning, requiring services and specialists not only from other schools, but from industry itself. Operation Bossy became a familiar term in the administrative offices of Washington, and throughout the in- dustrial and educational life of the nation. As with most other top-secret projects, everybody knew about it and was talking about it. The stories grew with the telling, and Joe’s insistence to Billings that it be kept in the mech- anical language began to have reason behind it. It was merely another form of the guided missile. No one realized what was really happening, not even the men working at its central core— not even Billings. Things were happening too fast for that. It was as if the pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle, cast carelesly upon a table, began to assemble them- selves at various places, without much regard for one another, or where each would fit into the whole once the picture was done. connicloookks.c© nn