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Manalone could probably have gained managerial control of the plant. However, his horror of being overwhelmed by what he regarded as administrative trivia led him to concentrate his talents on the purely technical aspects of the venture, whilst Adam Vickers had gained overall control as Comptroller. This was a situation which Manalone accepted quite happily, even if Sandra did not.
    As he entered the computer block, Manalone could hear the autophone shrilling in his office, but so many people appeared with minor queries for him to answer as he traversed the polished corridor that by the time he had reached the autophone the caller had rescinded. All that remained was the instrument’s log which displayed the caller’s code. Manalone regarded the instrument with disfavour, and keyed it to remember the number for later use. He had enough trouble establishing contact with people directly, without the hindrance of the faceless, pulse-code-modulated and usually distorted autophone.
    His firstand most immediate job of the day was to check the on-line processing computer’s returns for evidence of long-term drift of critical parameters. This was something which Manalone was uniquely qualified to do, since he had an implicit understanding of both the computer’s blind logic and the complex processes being controlled. There was an inevitable gap between the logical control function and faultless machine performance, and this gap he filled competently from the wide range of his knowledge and experience.
    He was barely halfway through dictating his notes on the range of minor adjustments to be made, when Vickers’ secretary came into the office. Maurine van Holt and Manalone had maintained a fragile and slightly antagonistic relationship for several guarded years. Her twisted, almost sardonic grin, and her discomforting comprehension of the private workings of his mind, were two of the very few aspects of personal relationships which ever got very far through Manalone’s defences. To Manalone, she was a character very much larger than life, and he was usually both annoyed and slightly flattered by her determined ability to get through to the person underneath his skin.
    ‘And what’s our tame genius found to worry about this morning?’ Her voice was richer and had a greater range of nuance and inflection than any other voice Manalone had ever heard. Her words and the range of meanings behind them were hardly ever in complete coincidence.
    ‘Leave me alone, will you, Mau. I’ve a pile of work to get through.’
    ‘Uh! So it’s going to be another of those mornings, is it?’ She dropped into the chair near his desk and fixed him with her peculiarly penetrating gaze which she knew he found impossible to ignore.
    ‘I’ll have to see Vickers later, Mau – about Mrs Hiller. Five times I’ve asked her to re-programme the iso-potentials on the pH monitoring loop, and she still isn’t allowing for electrode drift. Either we get ourselves a new programmer or we get a new set of instruments.’
    ‘What’s worrying you, Manalone?’
    ‘I just told you. Now if you’d…’
    ‘You haven’t told me a damn thing. I mean, what’s
really
worrying you? You’re up against something big.’
    ‘Just anotherbrush with San, I guess.’
    ‘I said big, Manalone. The way Sandra affects you, you wouldn’t even notice if she got up and quit. But sure as hell something’s got into you this morning.’
    ‘Nothing that need concern you, Mau.’
    ‘Isn’t it? If something eats you, then Adam Vickers is likely to fall, because he hasn’t a ghost of a chance of holding the Mills together by himself. And if he falls, then I’m out of a job. With the national unemployment figure topping fifty-three percent, that’s not a prospect I welcome very much. You might say I’ve a vested interest in your welfare.’
    ‘Leave it alone, Mau. It’s not the sort of problem that bites.’
    ‘Well, it’s not another woman, that’s for