Chapter 20: Van Cleef's Work

Van Cleef continued the work. Crane received a photograph in the post six months after the trial: an automaton of considerable sophistication, designed for industrial diagnostic applications — it could identify mechanical faults in complex systems through tactile and auditory assessment, which made it useful for maintenance operations in facilities too dangerous or complex for human inspection. The note: *The commercial application was always possible. The difference between Harwick's proposal and this one is that the Society retains the patent and licenses the application on terms it controls. The revenue funds the research. The research remains independent.* It was, Crane thought, precisely what Mrs. Farquhar had been trying to protect: not the prevention of commercial application, but the prevention of the Society being absorbed by the commercial interest. The work continuing under the Society's direction rather than an industrialist's. He visited Rotterdam the following spring. Vinclair Mechanics was busier than it had been — two additional workers, a second worktable in the main space, the organized chaos of a shop with more work than hands. Van Cleef moved through it with the focused energy of someone who had spent three years under the threat of an unwanted outcome and was now, finally, doing the work the way he wanted it done. 'She would have liked this,' Crane said. 'She designed the diagnostic function,' Van Cleef said. 'In correspondence, two years before she died. She sent me a schematic with a note saying: this one should be built when circumstances allow.' He looked at the automaton in assembly on the central bench. 'Circumstances allow.' Crane stayed for the afternoon and watched Van Cleef work. It was, he thought, the best use of an afternoon he could identify.