About the Author
Robin Maxwell cut his teeth on 1950s punch card machines when the tabulator was king. But as with all data processing people at the time he had to be constantly on his feet mastering innovations which sprang up with alarming frequency: the card fed calculator, followed by the primitive machine programmed in machine language, then the stored program computer. The only courses on computers offered by the universities of the time were for scientific machines, programmed in Fortran, their puny input output capability unsuitable for commercial applications. So those who rose through the data processing worlds school of hard knocks were much in demand in every city in the US and Canada. After retiring in 1985 Robin, always a keen observer, turned his hand to writing. Among his other books is Merry-Go-Round, about a modern day Don Juan in a mad mad world.
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Chapter 1
AND MAY THE WORLD GO WELL WITH THEE
Never mind that the data centers rippled, green-tinged safety glass gave everything in the street below the look of double exposed film, Red Klassen kept watch till he was at last rewarded by the unmistakable form of Flambard OHiggins stepping into a cab. And it was only when the cab pulled away that he gave a sigh, not only of relief, but of regret too, for he was more than a little sorry to bid adieu to that shy, clean-cut all-American-boy with the somber suits, starched white shirts, and funeral parlor ties. Curious that he should feel even the slightest twinge of regret, for the fellow was certainly not his cup of tea, not in the way he dressed, not in the way he spoke, and above all, not in the way he conformed. Square! Square! Square! But he knew his computers all right, knew what made them tick. Rare for an ivy leaguer, very rare indeed. And man, did he know his way round systems software! Operating systems? He knew them inside out. He was sharp. No two ways about it. Somewhere a buzzer sounded, and as if by reflex action Klassen spun round and hightailed it back to his office. With OHiggins safely out the way, he mustnt lose a minute transferring to the new Dexter computer the neat little patch he had filtered into the accounts payable program, the one which had served him so faithfully for so long. Man alive! There wasnt a single instance during the regular month-end payment runs that it failed to command a nice, fat, juicy check to be mailed off to Canard, Down & Fleece Inc. What a chuckle, that choice of company name, coming to him as it did in a moment of sublime inspiration after just three drags of genuine unadulterated Colombia Red! And as for Canard Downs street address, why, that was something else again. It was as real as the sun and the moon and the stars. For didnt it happen to be, by the craziest fluke, the exact duplicate of the one at back of Back Bay where his garlanded chick Lucy Lumley kept her cosy pad?
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