“They seem to do rather well,” Hawks said in a neutral voice. He was beginning to draw himself up unconsciously in his chair and to slip a mask of expressionlessness over his face. His glance touched Connington’s boots once and then stayed away. “At least, your department’s been sending me some excellent technicians.”

Connington grinned. “Nobody’s got any better.” He leaned forward. “But that’s routine stuff.” He took Hawks’ interoffice memo out of his breast pocket. “This, now — This request, I’m going to fill personally.”

Hawks said carefully, “I certainly hope you can. I expect it may take some time to find a man fitting the outlined specifications. I hope you understand that, unfortunately, we don’t have much time. I—”

Connington waved a hand. “Oh, I’ve got him already. Had him in mind for a long time.”

Hawks’ eyebrows rose. “Really?”

Connington grinned shrewdly across the plain steel desk. “Hard to believe?” He lounged back in his chair. “Doctor, suppose somebody came to you and asked you to do a particular job for him — design a circuit to do a particular job. Now, suppose you reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a piece of paper and said, ‘Here it is.’ What about that? And then when he was all through shaking his head and saying how it was hard to believe you’d have it right there, you could explain to him about how electronics was what you did all the time. About how when you’re not thinking about some specific project, you’re still thinking about electronics in general. And how, being interested in electronics, you kept up on it, and you knew pretty much where the whole field was going. And how you thought about some of the problems they were likely to run into, and sometimes answers would just come into your head so easily it couldn’t even be called work. And how you filed these things away until it was time for them to be brought out. See? That way, there’s no magic. Just a man with a talent, doing his work.”