"We've taken a flying jump, and we're now halfway out over the crevasse. There's no point wishing we'd never jumped. We've got to go the rest of the way and put our mind on grabbing any bush or clump of grass that will get us over the lip of that drop."
Benning swallowed. "Okay."
"Now listen," said Heyden. "You're going to need plenty of hot coffee in here, and I don't know if you can literally keep going without any break. We don't want a bunch of zombies staggering around in here holding the wrong end of the wrench."
"You're right. Could we have some rough army blankets and some narrow folding cots? That's heaven for an exhausted man, but he shouldn't be too reluctant to get up."
"Good idea. Now can you finish it by the day after tomorrow?"
Benning nodded. "If, God willing, nothing else goes wrong."
V
The next day was a nightmare. Suppliers were beginning to need reassurance about pay. A weird rumor was making the rounds, to the effect that Grossrad had stripped the corporation treasury and was now settled down in Brazil with a nicely tanned blonde mistress, the two of them living cozily in a mansion with an Olympic-sized swimming pool outdoors, and gold-plated faucets indoors.
Heyden put the rumor down temporarily by showing the two hand-addressed envelopes from Grossrad, with their recent postmarks, but the rumor failed to stay down. It popped up again with new refinements. Someone who looked just like Grossrad had been seen in Brazil by Milton Sharpbinder, vice-president of Interdisciplinary Intellectronetics, and Milton had immediately called back to sell his holdings in Continental Multitechnikon before the bottom fell out. Somebody else had actually been out near Grossrad's Brazilian mansion, and had seen him lolling with a bottle in a deck chair while the blonde did laps in the Olympic-sized pool.
The details mounted up fantastically. Grossrad had been seen wheeling around the streets of Rio driving a Mercedes-Benz roadster. Later information had it that it was a 1959 300SL Mercedes-Benz with removable hardtop, and Grossrad was gripping a long thin cigar between his teeth, and had one arm casually around the blonde. Somehow, the burgeoning details added further solidity to the rumor, which grew yet more solid as Grossrad moved on and was seen with the blonde at Copacabana.
That this was not just a local rumor developed as Continental Multitechnikon began to slide on the stock market while other space stocks were creeping upward. This, in turn, seemed to support the rumor. In the midst of this, with suppliers demanding payment, the phone rang, and a familiar voice jumped out:
"Say, Heyden, what the hell is going on out there? I just got a phone call from Sam, and he's—"
"Stu?" shouted Heyden, his voice filled with synthetic delight. "Hello? Is that you?"
"Is it me? Who the—"
"Hold on! Listen, we've got a bunch of guys here who think—wait a minute. Where are you calling from?"
"Where am I calling from? Santa Barbara. What about it? Listen, what—"
"Where have you been the last week?"
"I've been holed up, getting over what we had to go through to get that merger across, what do you think? Didn't you get my letter? Listen, what the—"
"We've got a bunch of guys here that claim they won't supply us, because you're down in Brazil with a blonde, rolling around in a Mercedes 300SL."
"I'm what?"
Before Heyden could say anything, one of the men in the room said nervously, "Is that him? How do we know—"
Heyden said, "I don't know if you heard that, Stu. They think maybe this isn't you. Could you talk to a few of these—"
"Wait a minute now. What is this? I don't get this."
"Brace yourself. There's a rumor afloat that you've disappeared, vanished completely, and someone like you has been seen in Rio by—get this, Stu—by Milton Sharpbinder, who immediately dumped all his holdings in Continental before the news of what had happened got out."
"Sharpbinder, eh?"
"Yes, and someone else definitely saw you living in a mansion down there with gold plumbing and a big swimming pool. It seems you were outside by the pool, taking the sun, watching this blonde plow back and forth."
Grossrad laughed.
Heyden said, "Before you laugh this off have you taken a look at the financial page lately?"
On the other end of the line, Grossrad was starting to have hysteria, but that brought him around.
"No," he said, "that's one thing I haven't been doing. I've been trying to get a rest. Is this stupid play by Sharpbinder actually—"
"We're going down. Everybody else is going up."
"That boob is just one week too late to hurt us. If this drop had come last week, without our having any idea what was wrong—"
"Just the same, I still don't think it would hurt if you showed yourself out there."
"I will. Now, let me speak to a few of these boys that think I'm in Brazil."
Heyden said, "Okay," and held out the phone.
A few minutes later, Grossrad was saying to Heyden, "I had no idea this was the trouble. Sam went through all kinds of verbal contortions trying to tell me something without giving away anything. The impression I got was that you were making off with the treasury, not me." He laughed. "I was relieved to even hear your voice."
Heyden laughed. "I was relieved to hear you. I was starting to believe this business about the blonde."
Grossrad laughed so hard Heyden had to hold the phone out away from his ear. Then Grossrad, half-choked, said, "Say, Jim, you won't skip out now? You will be there when I get back?"
"Either here, or halfway to the moon."
"I know what you mean." Grossrad burst out laughing again. "I was in orbit myself for a little bit there. Well, so long, Jim. I'm going out and make myself public."
Heyden felt like a hollow shell as he put the phone back in its cradle. But, with an effort of will, he looked deliberately around the room, and studied the shamefaced glances that looked back at him.
"Now," he said, with forced calm, "can we go back to doing business on a normal basis?"
No one offered any objection.
The needed supplies came in, but the tension failed to ease. The final day was the worst. The comptroller came to Heyden's office while Heyden was on pins and needles to go see Benning, and it was a precious half-hour before Heyden could get free. Then, just as he was leaving his office, a telegram arrived from Grossrad telling when he would be back. Heyden glanced at his watch and saw with a shock that he had only two hours and fifteen minutes left. If he wasn't at the airport, Grossrad would be puzzled, and then curious. If he was at the airport, Grossrad would be bound to question him about the Kiddie Kits, and the lack of work he had done on them would show up quickly. Either way, the lid would be off inside an hour more at the longest. That gave him three hours and fifteen minutes.
Heyden sucked in a deep breath, forced himself to look brisk and confident, and went to see Benning.
He found Benning slumped on a bench with his head in his hands.
Heyden stared around. A number of men were asleep on cots, or rolled up in a blanket on the floor. Several were at the big coffee boiler filling their cups.
Heyden looked at the spaceship. Despite what he'd said about forgetting appearance, the overgrown-boiler look had been softened, at least from this angle. There was a shining silvery surface, that shaded off to one side. Heyden blinked, and glanced at Benning.
"Say, you've moved this?"
Benning looked up drearily.
Heyden glanced uneasily back at the spaceship, with its radiating arms holding what must be the drive-units.
"Ben" he said. "It's all right, isn't it?"
Benning looked down at the ground. "It doesn't work."
Heyden shut his eyes.
Benning's voice reached him. "I'm so tired I can't think. It worked once. We rotated the ship on minimum power. It was smooth—perfect. And it apparently burned something out. We're all half-dead. We've checked and checked."
Heyden forced himself t
o be sympathetic. "You've been working overtime for three weeks." He sucked in a long breath. "Is everything on board that I had on that list?"
"Everything. But it doesn't work. There's no response at all."
"How long to fix it?"
"We'll have to tear it down completely."
"How long?"
"Another three weeks."
Heyden sank down onto the bench beside Benning.
"Oh, God," said Benning miserably. "Jim, I'm so sorry I got you into this."
"Yeah," said Heyden.
"It's a flop," said Benning. "We should have taken more time to test it. We ran off half-cocked."
Heyden didn't say anything.
Benning said, "All that money. I'm so sorry, Jim. What will Grossrad do?"
Heyden shut his eyes.
Benning's voice came through. "We must have been crazy. That's the only explanation. No one ever does anything like this. Well, now we pay the piper."
Heyden dizzily looked up to see the big shiny boiler through a haze. Someone was leaning out the door, and put his hands to his mouth like a megaphone.
"Hey, Chief. The trouble is, somebody left this master switch open, back of the control panel."
Benning sat paralyzed for an instant, then sprang from the bench. He was across the floor and inside the ship before Heyden realized what had happened.
Slowly, the meaning seeped through to Heyden. He watched.
The big silver form lifted, hovered, and then smoothly rotated, the radiating arms swinging around like the spokes of a giant wheel, the central hub shading from silver to gray to black, then back to silver again. Smoothly it settled down, with a faint grating crunch.
Heyden stood up. Across the room, the sound of that faint crunch turned men around at the coffee boiler. An instant later, they recognized the ship's changed position, set their cups down with a bang, let out a wild yell, and ran to wake up the men on the cots and stretched out on the floor.
Heyden was still fervently thanking God when the men burst into cheers. Then Benning was wringing him by the hand. All around the huge room, it seemed that people were banging each other on the back.
Heyden sucked in a deep breath. "Listen, when can we take off?"
"Take off?" Benning looked blank. "We're finished. The thing's ready. It's completed, and it works."
Heyden stared at him. "Do we talk different languages? What do you think we're going to do now?"
Benning stared at him. "Show it to Grossrad. It's finished. It works. He'll see"
Heyden opened his mouth and shut it with a click. "You remember what I said we wanted? A full-size actual spaceship, so far as we could make such a thing. Now that we've got it, you think we're going to just show it to Grossrad? What good would that do? Outer space is in our hands, now, if that ship will do what we think it will do. And yet, what can Grossrad do with it but use it as a working model? What good does that do?"
Benning swallowed. "You mean, we—"
"Who else? Have we gone through all this to quit now? We have to carry this through all the way to the finish."
Benning paled. "I though we were going to make a demonstration."
"We are. When can we take off?"
"I thought all that food and the cargo and that other gear was just to make it look good. More realistic. More—"
"The idea is to keep us from starving out there, and to fix it so we can get some use out of this. Will that radio work?"
"Everything should work."
"Then," said Heyden, "let's get a crew and get out of here before something else goes wrong. It shouldn't be hard to get volunteers, should it? Can you pick the men who'll be most help to us?"
Benning grinned suddenly. "We're going to try to do this like Lindbergh?"
"Why not?"
"What about germs on the moon? What about—"
Heyden said brutally, "If you don't want to go, say so now."
Benning paused. "I want to go."
"Then pick the crew while I write a note to Grossrad."
Benning nodded, and started over toward the coffee boiler. Heyden whirled, and went back to his office. He yanked out a sheet of paper, and wrote fast:
Stu—
When you receive this, we should be, as I jokingly said earlier, on our way to the moon. Only, this is real.
Now, this is the first commercial venture into space, and no doubt the Government will blow all its fuses. Nevertheless, it is up to us to make it pay. First, I'm afraid that at the moment we're in something of a hole, financially; but we have powerful radios, along with enough lights and selected chemicals to make ourselves seen, and it seems to me there are a few commercial outfits around that ought to be happy to pay through the nose to have a commercial beamed toward earth from the moon.
Charge more for the visual stuff, Stu. When the Government screams, point out that they will get their cut of the profits in due time.
There is doubtless a whole lot of rock and dust on the moon that it wouldn't break our backs to load into the ship, and that would sell for a price per pound to rival solid platinum, but I'm sure there will be objections to that.
As the next best thing, I've gotten a large quantity of thin sheet metal and loaded it on board. While we're out there, we will orbit the moon. When we come back, we can stamp out millions of little flat space-ship models, which can be colored suitably and molded in plastic for souvenirs. Bear in mind, each one of these will have been around the moon and back.
Next, we have a large cargo of fabric, Stu, which will also go around the moon, and can be cut up into moon scarves and moon dresses when we get back.
Figure out what you can make on this, without having to charge anybody more than he will cheerfully pay for the vicarious pleasure of taking part in this trip. If this doesn't cover expenses, and leave enough over for handsome bonuses all around, I'll be surprised.
Incidentally, you might put some of this money into a special fund—I may need it for bail bond.
Jim
Heyden put the letter in an envelope, wrote Grossrad's name on the outside, and gave it to his secretary to deliver.
He went back down the corridor, found Benning waiting with his chosen crew, and climbed on board. The ship slid smoothly and easily out the big opened doors, paused momentarily, and the ground began to fall away.
Heyden was beginning to have doubts. He stepped back as Benning shut the door, and said, "How are the odds on our getting out there and having some little thing strand us a hundred thousand miles from home?"
"Surprisingly poor," said Benning, "assuming we can count on odds at all when we're dealing with something this new."
"Why? I mean, why are the odds against us poor?"
"The amount of weight we can lift with this drive. Suppose just half the weight that goes into the lower stages of a chemical rocket could be added to the payload. Think of the added space, stronger materials, spares, and general increased margin of safety. After you work on stuff to be lifted by rocket, this is a dream."
Heyden relaxed and glanced around. They were standing in a small chamber with a second door partly open behind them. He became conscious of a continued sensation like that of rising in a very fast elevator.
Benning said, "All the same, this is incredible, in a way."
"That—we hope—we're going to the moon?"
"No, we're used to that idea, fantastic as it would have seemed a few years ago." He frowned. "No, it's—it's—"
Heyden suddenly caught the thought. "That we're just doing it?"
Benning sighed. "Yes. Without filling out forms in quintuplicate. Without stewing over it. Without a hundred changes of direction and reevaluations."
Heyden nodded. "But that's supposed to be more 'scientific'."
"It's more bureaucratic, anyway. But even if a method is more scientific, that's beside the point. The point is to get the job done," said Benning.
He stood thinking back to that endless interval when the ship sat dead on the
ground and Benning told him the whole thing was a failure, and when the weight of failure crushed him down. Then he'd learned in his bones the penalty of following one's own judgment against the shrewd decisions of superiors—when one's own judgment turns out to be wrong.
But now, beneath his feet he could feel the solid unvarying thrust, lifting them up at constant acceleration and steadily increasing speed.
Down far below now were the nations of the earth, run by monster bureaucracies made up of many people who hesitated—partly because they sensed the awful penalty for failure—to take the risk of questioning even the most self-defeating procedures.
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