TIME AND AGAIN however as each rocket went up there was no sign they ever came down again, anywhere near where they were supposed to, or anywhere at all actually.
'No! Don't say it,' Stane interrupted his sponsor as the other looked at Foam in the Frangean sky. 'Not enough fuel to hit the moon, ever.'
'Then a mystery is brewing,' Teasel said with a frown of disappointment, for the idea of sending sponsorship deals to the great moon acquired a romantic interest briefly.
'A mystery this engineering student is determined to solve,' Stane said bravely. 'Leave it with me.'
'I wish I had,' were the parting words of the advertising genius with out of this world ideas to change the face of sponsorship forever. 'I will be back, one way or another,' he added ominously.
Stane shrugged and began making his own investigations and found at all ten sites everyone remained oblivious of the mail shot that was meant to be a life changer for each of the targeted potential investors.
He went through all his design calculations, gathering together a nondescript bundle of paper scraps, used envelopes and even re-examined some park benches where his chisel had been busy.
The theory was sound, the mathematics appeared correct. Unless...
'I'm not sure about this zero here,' he said as he showed Teasel the recalculated thrust capabilities of the delivery vehicle prototype.
'What's wrong with it?' Teasel replied none the wiser. It looked like every other zero he had so far encountered in his young life thus far, including the big fat zero he was currently contemplating regarding returns from his adventurous ad campaign that was supposed to electrify the whole of Frangea that summer.
'I don't think it should be there,' the man replied, fidgeting a little.
'And that's a problem, how?' Teasel said, still none the wiser. 'It's nothing, isn't it?'
'Nothing has a way of becoming something,' the other replied, a nervous tick beginning to distort his face as he contemplated such a phenomenon as a ten-fold increase that looked so inconsequential on paper.
'That's right,' Teasel finally said, gathering to himself the only way he could understand what had happened. Something had gone wrong with the campaign. His contribution was flawless, right down to the careful and clever lure of the messaging when the mail shot landed and delivered its good news to the intended recipients. He had cranked up that lure to the max as all good advertisers were taught to do. Buy this product or it would be like the end of the world otherwise.
It was all right. Only there was a wrong in there somewhere.
A wrong which very much lay in the lap of the young gentleman with the increasingly intense nervous tick.
'Nothing certainly becomes something when a fault occurs,' Teasel said in his best management lambasting the minions voice. 'Failure to achieve a result becomes culpability.' He took a deep breath. He did not like doing this but reputations were hard to find in a place like Frangea and once found they were even harder to keep. One had to apply severe levels of dignity at all times to keep face. 'This matter is not over, my friend,' he added with a shake of the head and with that Teasel marched out of the workshop and away to somewhere he could hide while avoiding creditors and await a payout that should hopefully put matters right, eventually.
Stane Mallix did not worry himself about any such legal action that might arise for the whole matter seemed to him a little more off the record than otherwise. Students were in a severe learning phase and so exempt from disaster menace, or so the Academy guide assured him. Collapsing bridges or disintegrating funfair rides were matters for the authorities to take the blame over. If they had been foolish enough to employ an untried engineering undergraduate as their project manager then more fool them.
No.
Another matter more concerned Stane as he gathered his stuff and kissed his practical thesis on ballistics goodbye.
Damnation Mole had stated in the preface to the three hundred and fifty third edition of his classic work that what goes up must eventually come down, even the great moon Foam.
So then, where did all those splendidly designed mail shot rockets actually land. Or had they not done so yet?
Stane suppressed a nervous twitch as he pondered these matters while spring slowly drifted into summer, a summer replete with a hint of doom.
Then came an autumn which promised a cataclysm of very real proportions for the problem of that zero would not go away. It was increasing in size and significance, as if nothing could stop it.