Part 15 (1/2)

He turned away as the Chief whooped with glee. He hurried back to Major Holt as the Chief and Haney began zestfully to manhandle Mike in celebration of his genius.

The major held up his hand as Joe entered. He was using the desk phone.

Joe waited. When he hung up, Joe reported. The major seemed unsurprised.

”Yes, I had Was.h.i.+ngton on the wire,” he said detachedly. ”I talked to a personal friend who's a three-star general. There will be action started at the Pentagon. When you came in I was arranging with the largest producers of powder-metallurgy products in the country to send their best men here by plane. They will start at once. Now I have to get in touch with some other people.”

Joe gaped at him. The major moved impatiently, waiting for Joe to leave.

Joe gulped. ”Excuse me, sir, but--my father didn't say it was certain.

He just thinks it can be made to work. He's not sure.”

”I didn't even wait for that, something has to turn up to take care of this situation!” said the Major with asperity. ”It has to! This particular scheme may not work, but if it doesn't, something will come out of the work on it! You should look at a twenty-five cent piece occasionally, Joe!”

He moved impatiently, and Joe went out. Sally was smiling in the outer office. There were whoopings in the corridor beyond. The Chief and Haney were celebrating Mike's brainstorm with salutary indignity, because if they didn't make a joke of it he might cry with joy.

”Things look better?”

”They do,” said Joe. ”If it only works....”

Then he hunted in his pocket. He found a quarter and examined it curiously. On one side he found nothing the major could have referred to. On the other side, though, just by George Was.h.i.+ngton's chin----

He put the quarter away and took Sally's arm.

”It'll be all right,” he said slowly.

But there were times when it seemed in doubt. Joe's father arrived by plane at sunset of that same day, and he and three men from the Kenmore Precision Tool Company instantly closeted themselves with Mike in Major Holt's quarters. The powder metallurgy men turned up an hour later, and a three-star general from Was.h.i.+ngton. They joined the highly technical discussion.

Joe waited around outside, feeling left out of things. He sat on the porch with Sally while the moon rose over the desert and stars shone down. Inside, matters of high importance were being battled over with the informality and heat with which practical men get things settled.

But Joe wasn't in on it. He said annoyedly, ”You'd think my father'd have something to say to me, in all this mess! After all, I have been--well, I have been places! But all he said was, 'How are you, Son?

Where's this Mike you talked about?'”

Sally said calmly, ”I know just how you feel. You've made me feel that way.” She looked up at the moon. ”I thought about you all the time you were gone, and I--prayed for you, Joe. And now you're back and not even busy! But you don't---- It would be nice for you to think about me for a while!”

”I am thinking about you!” said Joe indignantly.

”Now what,” said Sally interestedly, ”in the world could you be thinking about me?”

He wanted to scowl at her. But he grinned instead.

7

Time pa.s.sed. Hours, then days. Things began to happen. Trucks appeared, loaded down with sacks of white powder. The powder was very messily mixed with water and smeared lavishly over the now waterproofed wooden mockup of a s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p. It came off again in sections of white plaster, which were numbered and set to dry in warm chambers that were constructed with almost magical speed. More trucks arrived, bearing such diverse objects as loads of steel turnings, a regenerative helium-cooling plant from a gaswell--it could cool metal down to the point where it crumbled to impalpable powder at a blow--and a.s.sorted fuel tanks, dynamos, and electronic machinery.

Ten days after Mike's first proposal of concreted steel as a material for s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p construction, the parts of the first casting of the mockup were a.s.sembled. They were a mold for the hull of a s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p.

There were more plaster sections for a second mold ready to be dried out now, but meanwhile vehicles like concrete mixers mixed turnings and filings and powder in vast quant.i.ties and poured the dry ma.s.s here and there in the first completed mold. Then men began to wrap the gigantic object with iron wire. Presently that iron wire glowed slightly, and the whole huge mold grew hotter and hotter and hotter. And after a time it was allowed to cool.

But that did not mean a ceasing of activity. The plaster casts had been made while the concreting process was worked out. The concreting process--including the heating--was in action while fittings were being flown to the Shed. But other hulls were being formed by metal-concrete formation even before the first mold was taken down.

When the plaster sections came off, there was a long, gleaming, frosty-sheened metal hull waiting for the fittings. It was a replacement of one of the two shot-down s.p.a.ce craft, ready for fitting out some six weeks ahead of schedule. Next day there was a second metal hull, still too hot to touch. The day after that there was another.