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Updated: June 24, 2025
"Granted," the colonel said agreeably, "but it's quite obvious that there are parts of our technology that are just as alien to him as parts of his are to us. Remember how he went to all the trouble of building a pentode vacuum tube for a job that could have been done by transistors. His knowledge of solid-state physics seems to be about a century and a half behind ours."
We'll check your inventory with Pat O'Connor." Pat O'Connor was the base supply officer. Preston and the clerk departed. Hank paused long enough to say, "Better take the stuff you have, Rick. Looks as if you'll have to wait for the transistors." Obviously there wasn't anything else to be done. Rick found a hand truck, loaded on the supplies, and went back to his shed.
Scotty tossed the stone away. "How much space would that many transistors take up?" "Hard to say. We could find out, I suppose. But transistors are small, and they don't weigh much. Besides, some of the types used here are fantastically expensive. A couple of hundred dollars might pay for a transistor the size of a kidney bean." Scotty whistled. "They must be made of diamonds!
As Rick walked back to his barracks he pondered over the meaning of the day's development. For one thing, theft of the transistors put a new light on the Earthman's activities. It added a profit motive to whatever else motivated the mysterious saboteur. Or did it? How Big Mac and Pancho fitted into all this remained to be determined.
"I'd go gaga trying to keep track of those circuits," Bud said, as he watched Tom installing the delicate transistors and other components with an electric soldering gun. The young inventor grinned. "It'll be simple enough when the control unit's all put together," he replied. "Just a single on-off switch and one test circuit." By noon, after working at a frenzied pace, the job was done.
Day by day, we're shattering accepted notions of what is possible. When I was growing up, we failed to see how a new thing called radio would transform our marketplace. Well, today, many have not yet seen how advances in technology are transforming our lives. In the late 1950's workers at the AT&T semiconductor plant in Pennsylvania produced five transistors a day for $7.50 apiece.
We're no closer to finding out who sabotaged the rockets or who stole the transistors and the servomotors." "What?" the boys exclaimed in unison. Tom Preston's eyebrows went up. "You haven't heard? But of course you haven't, because you weren't here when we finished inventory. We're missing ninety thousand dollars' worth of servomotors." "Suffering spacefish!" Rick groaned.
But twenty tons of transistors could be in plain sight and we'd never know it. How would you hide stolen goods, if you had to do it?" Rick turned and surveyed the base of the cliff that led to the top of the mesa. "I'd probably hunt for a space between two big rocks, pack it in, and load rocks on top." "And that ain't stuff and nonsense," Scotty agreed. "Come on. Let's start moving boulders."
The electronics chief waved at him and trotted by into the project office. He returned in a moment with a portable tube and circuit tester under his arm and paused to ask, "What's up, boy-oh?" Rick answered briefly, "No transistors, no work." "Bored?" "Not exactly, sir. But I wish I could do something useful instead of just hanging around." Gee-Gee stroked his magnificent mustache.
You'll find most of the tools you used in your world waiting there and all the engineers we could get or make for you." He'd been considering stalling while he demanded exactly such things. He was reasonably sure by now that they had no transistors, signal generators, frequency meters or whatever else he could demand.
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