At last, Dan asked, “Well, what do you think, Mr. Greenleaf?”
“Dr. Greenleaf,” the IAA inspector replied. “I have a doctorate in sociology.”
Dan felt his brows hike up. Why would the IAA send a sociologist to check out a new spacecraft propulsion system? And why this particular little prig of a sociologist?
Greenleaf steepled his fingers in front of him. “You’re surprised that a sociologist is evaluating your test data?”
“Well… yes, actually I am,” Dan said, feeling decidedly uncomfortable.
“I can assure you, Mr. Randolph—”
“Dan.”
“I can assure you, Mr. Randolph, that your data has been examined by the best engineers and physical scientists that the IAA has at its command,” Greenleaf said. “We are not taking your application lightly.”
“I didn’t mean to imply anything like that,” Dan said, thinking, This guy is out for blood.
Greenleaf shifted his gaze from Dan to the wall screen before him. “I can see that your device has performed within your design criteria quite reliably.”
“Good,” said Dan, relieved.
“Except in one respect,” Greenleaf went on.
“What? What do you mean?”
“Long-term reliability,” said Greenleaf. “The longest flight in your testing program was a mere two weeks, and even then it was at low power.”
“I wouldn’t call a constant acceleration of one-tenth g low power,” Dan said, testily. “And the IAA seemed very happy with the data we got from that test flight.”
Pancho and Amanda had flown the test rig on a parabolic trajectory that took them around Venus. The ship carried a full panoply of instrumentation for making observations of the planet as it flew by a scant thousand kilometers above Venus’s glowing clouds. A team of planetary astronomers had provided the equipment and monitored the flight, all of them from universities that belonged to the IAA, all of them ecstatically happy and grateful for the data that the flight brought back—for free.
“Two weeks is not a sufficient endurance test,” Greenleaf said flatly.
Pancho snapped, “It’s long enough to get us to the Belt.”
“Under full power.”
“What else?”
“I cannot authorize a crewed flight to the Asteroid Belt until you have demonstrated that your propulsion system can operate reliably at full power for the time it would take to complete the mission.”
Dan felt burning anger rising in his throat. Pancho looked as if she wanted to reach across the table and sock the guy. But then he realized that Amanda was looking not at Greenleaf, but at Humphries, who sat calmly in his chair, his face as expressionless as a professional card shark, his hands in his lap.
“Even your flight past Venus was an infraction of IAA regulations,” Greenleaf said, as if justifying himself.
“We filed the flight plan with the IAA,” Dan responded hotly.
“But you didn’t wait for authorization, did you?”
“It was a test flight, dammit!”
Greenleaf’s face flashed red. And Dan finally realized what he was up against. Oh, by all the saints in New Orleans, he said to himself, he’s a New Morality bigot. They’ve infiltrated the IAA.
“I am not going to argue with you,” Greenleaf said flatly. “You will be required to fly your device for four weeks at full power before you can receive approval for a crewed mission to the Asteroid Belt.”
He pushed his chair back and got to his feet, stumbling in the low lunar gravity despite the weighted boots he wore.
“Four weeks!” Dan blurted. “We can fly to the Belt and back in four weeks under full power.”
“Then do so,” said Greenleaf, smugly. “But do it under remote control. Without any crew.”
He headed for the door, leaving Dan sitting at the table, angry, stunned, and feeling betrayed.
“I’d better go after him,” Humphries said, getting up from his chair. “We don’t want him angry at us.”
“Why the hell not?” Dan grumbled.
Humphries left the conference room. Dan sagged back in his chair. “Flying an uncrewed mission to the Belt doesn’t make a dime’s worth of sense,” he muttered. “It’s just an exercise that costs us four weeks’ time and almost as much money as a crewed mission.”
Pancho said, “Four weeks isn’t so bad. Is it?”
“It’s four weeks closer to bankruptcy, kid. Four weeks closer to letting that Humper take over my company.”