Stepping Stone

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ARTHUR CHESLEY WAS A CHEMIST, but you mustn't think of him as a scientist. He was nothing of the kind.

He didn't inquire into the secrets of nature—maybe once he had, but then the foundation grants ran out; and since his specialty couldn't be twisted to sound as though it had anything to do with either nuclear energy or cancer cure it was a matter of get a job or starve. So he got a job. He spent eight hours a night, six nights a week, watching a stainless steel kettle with his fingers crossed. "She's getting hot, Mr. Chesley!" one of the lab assistants would yell, and he'd have to run over and tell them what to do. "Pressure's up, Mr. Chesley!" another would cry, and he'd have to do something about that—or anyway, tell the assistants what to do, because the union rules were pretty strong about who did the actual work. It was all a matter of polymerization, which is cooking little short molecules into big long molecules, and what came out of it all was rubber, or maybe plastic wrappers, or the stuff that goes into children's toys, depending on what was needed right then—and also on whether or not the kettle exploded. Well, it was an easy job, except when the pressure suddenly climbed. And it was night work, so Chesley had his days free. He kind of liked it, partly because he got to boss the crew of assistants around. And they didn't mind. They thought the whole thing was pretty funny, partly because they got two-forty an hour against Chesley's dollar-seventy-five.

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