pt that they had standby lights which
flickered meditatively when they weren't being used.

* * * * *

The television receivers looked like other TV sets, except for minute
and wavering standby lights which were never quite as bright or dim one
moment as the next. The jeeps--used strictly within the barbed-wire
fence around the post--had similar yellow glowings on their
instrument-boards, and they were very remarkable jeeps. They never ran
off the graveled roads onto the grass, and they never collided with each
other, and it was said that the nine-year-old son of a lieutenant-colonel
had tried to drive one and it would not stir. Its motor cut off when he
forced it into gear. When he tried to re-start it, the starter did not
turn. But when an adult stepped into it, it operated perfectly--only it
braked and stopped itself when a small child toddled into its path.

There were some people who said that this story was not true, but other
people insisted that it was. Anyhow the washing-machines were perfect.
They never tangled clothes put into them. It was reported that Mrs.
So-and-so's washing-machine had found a load of clothes tangled, and
reversed itself and worked backward until they were straightened out.

Television sets turned to the proper channels--different ones at
different times of day--with incredible facility. The smallest child
could wrench at a tuning-knob and the desired station came on. All the
operating devices of Research Installation 83 worked as if they liked
to--which might have been alarming except that they never did anything
of themselves. They initiated nothing. But each one acted like an old,
favorite possession. They fitted their masters. They seemed to tune
themselves to the habits of their owners. They were infinitely easy to
work right, and practically impossible to work wrong.

Such machines, of course, had not been designed to cope with enigmatic
broadcasts or for military purposes. But the jet-planes on the small
airfield were very remarkable indeed, and the other and lesser devices
had been made for better understanding of the Mahon units which made
machines into practically a new order of creation.

* * * * *

Sergeant Bellews ushered Lecky into the Rehab Shop. There was the
pleasant, disorderly array of devices with their wavering standby
lights. They gave an effect of being alive, but somehow it was not
disturbing. The