tribution of spare
parts. As such it had become one of Lee's favorite observation posts.
Here he could get a closeup view of all types of electronic and
radioactive cells; he could even touch and handle them because they were
not hooked up in any circuit of The Brain; and above all there was Gus
Krinsley, master electrician, who never tired of telling Lee whatever he
wanted to know. Gus was a real friend....

* * * * *

He had left the glideway on the point of its nearest approach; the
pineal gland in front of him looked like a miniature barrage balloon;
egg-shaped, it hung suspended from the cerebral roof, a shell of
plastics which could be entered only over a bridge across a dark abyss.
Inside, its walls were aglitter with sound-proofing aluminum foil, it
was piled with a bewildering variety of electronic parts on shelves
somewhat like an over-stocked radio store. Near the door a counter
divided the room; Gus used it and a little cubicle of an office to fill
the orders as the maintenance engineers handed in their slips. As usual
there was nobody in sight. "Gus!" he called.

Out of the jungle of machinery way back a head popped up like a
Jack-in-the-box. It was as bald and shiny as an electric bulb. High up
on its dome it balanced gold-rimmed glasses which quivered as it moved
seachingly from side to side. Then, with an amazing twisting of big
ears, the head caused the biofocals to drop onto a saddle near the tip
of a long, sensitive nose; and now the head could see.

"It's you Aussie, is it? Come over."

Gus Krinsley was a pony edition of a man; in fact he had once been hired
as a midget to install automatic bomb-sights in the confined spaces of
the early bombers of the second World War. Before long, however, he
became respectfully known as "the mighty midget" in the California
factory, and he had ended up as their master electrician before
Braintrust made him the head of one of its experimental divisions. The
midnight hours he spent in the pineal gland were only a sideline of his
work. Like many a small man in a country where six-footers enjoy a
preferred status, Gus made up for lack of size by mobility. He reminded
one much of a billiard ball in the way he bounced, collided and
ricocheted amongst taller men. That this was no more than act became
manifest the moment one saw Gus at work.

As Lee reached the spot where Gus' head had shown, he found his friend
crouching, his hands t