close, thought feetch, wearily. it had been a man-killing job, and it had been close, but he'd made it. beat the time limit by a half-day. the first tentative shipments of piltdon super-openers had gone to distributors along the eastern seaboard. the first advertisements blazed in selected media. the first reorders came back, and then: "it's a sell-out!" crowed piltdon, waving a sheaf of telegrams. "step up production! let 'er rip!"
the super-openers rolled over the country. in a remarkably short time they appeared in millions of kitchens from coast-to-coast. sales climbed to hundreds of thousands per day. piltdon opener went into peak production in three shifts, but was still unable to keep up with the demand. construction was begun on a new plant, and additional plants were planned. long lines waited in front of houseware stores. department stores, lucky enough to have super-openers on hand, limited sales to one to a customer. piltdon cancelled his advertising program. newspapers, magazines, radio, television and word-of-mouth spread the fame of the opener so that advertising was unnecessary.
meanwhile, of course, government scientists, research foundations, universities and independent investigators began to look into this new phenomonen. receiving no satisfactory explanation from piltdon, they set up their own research.
far into the night burned the lights of countless laboratories. noted physicists probed, measured, weighed, traced, x-rayed, dissolved, spun, peered at, photographed, magnetized, exploded, shattered and analyzed super-openers without achieving the glimmer of a satisfactory explanation. competitors found the patent impossible to circumvent, for any departure from its exact specifications nullified the effect.
piltdon, genial these days with success and acclaim, roared at feetch: "i'm putting you in for a raise. yes sir! to reward you for assisting me with my invention i'm raising your pay two hundred dollars a year. that's almost four dollars a week, man."
"thank you, mr. piltdon." and still, thought feetch wryly, he received no recognition. his name did not even appear on the patent. well, well, that was the way it went. he must find his satisfaction in his work. and it had been interesting lately, the work he had been doing nights at home investigating what had been named the piltdon effect. it had been difficult, working alone and buying his own equipment. the oscillator and ultra microwave tracking unit had been particularly expensive. he was a fool, he supposed, to try independent research when so many huge scientific organizations were working on it. but he could no more keep away from it than he could stop eating.
he still didn't know where the cans went, but somehow he felt that he was close to the answer.
when he finally found the answer, it was too late. the borenchuck incident was only hours away.
as soon as he could get hold of piltdon, feetch said trembling, "sir, i think i know where those cans are going. i recommend—"
"are you still worrying about that?" piltdon roared jovially. "leave that to the long-hairs. we're making money, that's all that counts, eh feetch?"
