ter said. "What are they doing over there?"

"There's a fellow who's offered Adacam his project for testing. They're
highly interested, but they're not going to handle it."

"Why not?"

Quay shrugged. "Too touchy. It's a device that's based on electronics--"

"What the hell is touchy about electronics?"

"This deals with the human personality," Quay said, as though that were
explanation enough.

Cutter understood. He snorted. "Christ, anything that deals with the
human personality scares them over there, doesn't it?"

Quay spread his hands.

"All right," Cutter said. "What's this device supposed to do?"

"The theory behind it is to produce energy units which reach a plane of
intensity great enough to affect the function of the human ego."

"Will it?" Cutter never wasted time on surprise or curiosity or theory.
His mind acted directly. Would it or wouldn't it? Performance versus
non-performance. Efficiency versus inefficiency. Would it improve
production of Cutter Products, Inc., or would it not?

"Sid swears they're convinced it will. The factors, on paper, check out.
But there's been no experimentation, because it involves the human
personality. This thing, when used, is supposed to perform a definite
personality change on the individual subjected."

"How?"

"You know the theory of psychiatric therapy--the theory of shock
treatment. The effect is some what similar, but a thousand times more
effective."

"What _is_ the effect?"

"A gradual dissolving of inferiority influences, or inhibitions, from
the personality. A clear mind resulting. A healthy ego."

"And?"

"Confidence."

Cutter stared at Quay's eyes, assimilating the information. "That's all
very damned nice. Now where does it fit in with Cutter Products?"

Quay drew a notebook from his coat pocket swiftly. "You remember that
efficiency check we had made two months ago--the rating of individual
departments on comparable work produced?"

Cutter nodded.

Quay looked at his notebook. "All administrative personnel departments
showed an average of--"

"Thirty-six point eight less efficiency than the skilled and unskilled
labor departments," Cutter finished.

Quay smiled slightly. He snapped the notebook shut. "Right. So that's
our personnel efficiency bug."

"Christ, I've known that for twenty years," Cutter snapped.

"Okay," Quay said quickly, alerting himself back to the serious effort.
"Now then, you'll remember we submitted this eff