have repaired hyperspace beacons
from one arm of the Galaxy to the other and was sure I had worked on
every type or model made. But I had never heard of this kind.

"Mark III," the Old Man repeated, practically chortling. "I never heard
of it either until Records dug up the specs. They found them buried in
the back of their oldest warehouse. This was the earliest type of beacon
ever built--by Earth, no less. Considering its location on one of the
Proxima Centauri planets, it might very well be the first beacon."

* * * * *

I looked at the blueprints he handed me and felt my eyes glaze with
horror. "It's a monstrosity! It looks more like a distillery than a
beacon--must be at least a few hundred meters high. I'm a repairman, not
an archeologist. This pile of junk is over 2000 years old. Just forget
about it and build a new one."

The Old Man leaned over his desk, breathing into my face. "It would take
a year to install a new beacon--besides being too expensive--and this
relic is on one of the main routes. We have ships making
fifteen-light-year detours now."

He leaned back, wiped his hands on his handkerchief and gave me Lecture
Forty-four on Company Duty and My Troubles.

"This department is officially called Maintenance and Repair, when it
really should be called trouble-shooting. Hyperspace beacons are made to
last forever--or damn close to it. When one of them breaks down, it is
_never_ an accident, and repairing the thing is never a matter of just
plugging in a new part."

He was telling _me_--the guy who did the job while he sat back on his
fat paycheck in an air-conditioned office.

He rambled on. "How I wish that were all it took! I would have a fleet
of parts ships and junior mechanics to install them. But its not like
that at all. I have a fleet of expensive ships that are equipped to do
almost anything--manned by a bunch of irresponsibles like _you_."

I nodded moodily at his pointing finger.

"How I wish I could fire you all! Combination space-jockeys, mechanics,
engineers, soldiers, con-men and anything else it takes to do the
repairs. I have to browbeat, bribe, blackmail and bulldoze you thugs
into doing a simple job. If you think you're fed up, just think how I
feel. But the ships must go through! The beacons must operate!"

I recognized this deathless line as the curtain speech and crawled to my
feet. He threw the Mark III file at me and went back to scratching