The Military Official

As it turns out, not all tasks go smoothly for newcomers—here they’re not really expected, because the country with mostly peasant, almost illiterate population has no industrial base.

After the twists and turns of fate, the inventor decides to become a military official, taking an offer from the Intelligence Department of the General Staff. He keeps inventing—which immediately makes him a target for competitors and high-ranking officials who want to remove the upstart from the throne: God forbid he should claim their slice of the pie. These “well-wishers” set up another trick, and as a result he ends up in a hospital bed. But even here, the indefatigable inventor doesn’t lose heart: he defends his master’s thesis and continues inventing. After leaving the hospital, he remains without a post and receives an assignment to organize a mission to Abyssinia.