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tons.”
    “Is there only one such factory?” asked Petrov.
    “Yes, Comrade. The tonnages required do not justify more factories. The Kuibyshev factory is a major chemical plant, making many insecticides, weed killers, fertilizers, and so forth. The production of the two hundred eighty tons of this chemical would take less than forty hours.”
    “Continue,” ordered Rudin.
    “Due to a confusion in communication, the factory was undergoing annual maintenance, and time was running short if the dressing was to be distributed to the one hundred twenty-seven dressing stations for seed grain scattered across the Soviet Union, the grain treated, and then taken back to the thousands of state and collective farms in time for planting. So an energetic young official and Party cadre was sent from Moscow to hurry things along. It appears he ordered the workmen to terminate what they were doing, restore the plant to operating order, and start it functioning again.”
    “He failed to do it in time?” rasped Marshal Kerensky.
    “No, Comrade Marshal, the factory started work again, although the maintenance engineers had
    not quite finished. But something malfunctioned. A hopper valve. Lindane is a very powerful chemical, and the dosage of the lindane to the remainder of the organomercurial compound has to be strictly regulated.
    “The valve on the lindane hopper, although registering one-third open on the control panel, was in fact stuck at full open. The whole two hundred eighty tons of dressing were affected.”
    “What about quality control?” asked one of the members, who had been born on a farm. The professor swallowed again and wished he could quietly go into exile in Siberia without any more of this torture.
    “There was a conjunction of coincidence and error,” he confessed. “The chief analytical and quality-control chemist was away on holiday at Sochi during the plant closedown. He was summoned back by cable. But because of fog in the Kuibyshev area, his plane was diverted and he had to continue his journey by train. When he arrived, production was complete.”
    “The dressing was not tested?” asked Petrov incredulously. The professor looked more sick than ever.
    “The chemist insisted on making quality-control tests. The young functionary from Moscow wanted the entire production shipped at once. An argument ensued. In the event, a compromise was reached. The chemist wanted to test every tenth bag of dressing, twenty-eight in all. The functionary insisted he could have only one. That was when the third error occurred.
    “The new bags had been stacked along with the reserve of seventy tons left over from last year. In the warehouse, one of the loaders, receiving a report to send one single bag to the laboratory for testing, selected one of the old bags. Tests proved it was perfectly in order, and the entire consignment was shipped.”
    He ended his report. There was nothing more to say. He could have tried to explain that a conjunction of three mistakes—a mechanical malfunction, an error of judgment by two men under pressure, and a piece of carelessness by a warehouseman—had combined to produce the catastrophe. But that was not his job, and he did not intend to make lame excuses for other men. The silence in the room was murderous.
    Vishnayev came in with icy clarity.
    “What exactly is the effect of an excessive component of lindane in this organomercurial compound?” he asked.
    “Comrade, it causes a toxic effect on the germinating seed in the ground, rather than a protective effect. The seedlings come up—if at all—stunted, sparse, and mottled brown. There is virtually no grain yield from such affected stems.”
    “And how much of the spring planting has been affected?” asked Vishnayev coldly.
    “Just about four fifths, Comrade. The seventy tons of reserve compound was perfectly all right.
    The two hundred eighty tons of new compound were all affected by the jamming hopper valve.” “And the