and line-welded to solidity.

"I need some of that on my ship," said another man.

The bearded man said heavily:

"We'll make some and send it to the ships that need it."

"No," said Hoddan. "We'll send the tools to make it. We can make the
tools here. There must be other kinds of repairs that can't be made.
With the machines I've brought, we'll make the tools to make the
repairs. Picture-tape machines have reels that show exactly how to do
it."

[Illustration]

It was a new idea. The mechanics had other and immediate problems beside
the overall disaster of the fleet. Pumps that did not work. Motors that
heated up. They could envision the meeting of those problems, and they
could envision the obtaining of jungle-plows. But they could not imagine
anything in between. They were capable of learning how to make tools for
repairs.

* * * * *

Hoddan taught them. In one day there were five ships being brought into
better operating condition--for ultimate futility--because of what he'd
brought. Two days. Three. Mechanics began to come to the liner. Those
who'd learned first pompously passed on what they knew. On the fourth
day somebody began to use a vision-tape machine to get information on a
fine point in welding. On the fifth day there were lines of men waiting
to use them.

On the sixth day a mechanic on what had been a luxury passenger liner on
the other side of the galaxy--but it was scores of years ago--asked to
talk to Hoddan by spacephone. He'd been working feverishly at the minor
repairs he'd been unable to make for so long. To get material he pulled
a crate off one of the junk machines supplied the fleet. He looked it
over. He believed that if this piece were made new, and that replaced
with sound metal, the machine might be usable!

Hoddan had him come to the liner which was now the flagship of the
fleet. Discussion began. Shaping such large pieces of metal which could
be taken from here or there--shaping such large pieces of metal....
Hoddan began to draw diagrams. They were not clear. He drew more.
Abruptly, he stared at what he'd outlined. Electronics.... He saw
something remarkable. If one applied a perfectly well-known bit of
pure-science information that nobody bothered with-- He finished the
diagram and a vast, soothing satisfaction came over him.

"We've got to get out of here!" he said. "Not enough room!"

He looked about him. Insensibly, as he talked to the f