Hunt shook his head. “Only got back this morning. I came straight on here.”
“Do that then,” Caidwell said. “There are probably a lot of old friends around here that you want to see. Take the rest of this week to settle in again. Then make a start on what we just talked about on Monday. Okay?”
“Okay. The first thing I’ll do is go see the group and give them an idea of what our next job’s going to be. I think they’ll like it. Who knows . . . they might even have half of it organized for me by Monday if they start thinking about it.” He cocked an inquiring eye at Caldwell. “Or is that what you figure you pay me to do?”
“I pay you to think smart,” Caldwell grunted. “That’s called delegation. If you wanna delegate too, that’s what I call thinking smart. Do it.”
Hunt spent the rest of that day with his own staff, familiarizing himself with some of the fine points of how they had been getting on-he had kept in touch with them almost daily for the general things-and outlining for them his recent directive from Caldwell. After that there was no getting away; they quizzed him for hours
about every scrap of information that he had managed to absorb on Ganymean scientific theory and technology, kept him talking all through lunch, and succeeded in extracting a commitment from him to arrange for a Ganymean scientist or two to come and give them an intensive teach-in. At least, he reflected as he finally, left for home at nine o’clock that night, he was not going to have any problems with motivation there.
Next morning he made a point of avoiding that part of Naycomms HO building that contained his own offices and started his day by paying a call on another old friend of his-Don Maddson, head of the linguistics section. It was Don’s team, working in cooperation with several universities and research institutes all over the world, that had played one of the most important roles in the Lunanian saga by untangling the riddle of the Lunanian language, using documents found on Charlie’s person and, later, a library of microdot texts from the remains of a Lunarian base that had come to light near Tycho, Without the translations, it would never have been possible even to prove conclusively that the Lunanans and the Ganymeans had come from the same planet.
Hunt stopped outside the door of Maddson’s office, knocked lightly and entered without waiting for a reply. Maddson was sitting behind his desk studying a sheet from a stack of the innumerable pieces of paper without which his office would never have seemed complete. He glanced up, stared incredulously for a second, and then his face split into a broad ear-to-ear smile.
“Vic! What the. . .” He half rose from his chair and began pumping Hunt’s proffered hand vigorously. “It’s great to see ya
great. I knew you were back on Earth but nobody told me you were Stateside yet. . .” He beckoned Hunt toward an easy chair on the other side of the desk. “Sit down, sit down
When did you get in?”
“Yesterday morning,” Hunt replied, settling himself comfortably. “I had to see Gregg and then I got tied up completely with the Group L bunch. Gregg wants us to start thinking about writing a compendium of Ganymean science. They’re all dead keen to go on it. . . kept me talking till heavens knows what time last night in the Ocean Bar.”
“Ganymeans, eh?” Maddson grinned. “I thought maybe you’d have brought us one back.”
“There’s a load of ’em over at Westwood with Chris Danchekker right now.”
“Yeah. I know about that. They’re due to pay us a call here later. Everybody around here’s getting keyed up with the suspense. They can’t wait.” Maddson sat back in his chair and regarded Hunt over interlaced fingers for a few seconds. At last he shook his head. “Well, I dunno where to start, Vic. It’s been all this time . . . there are so many questions . . . I guess there’s
– enough to keep us talking all day, huh? Or maybe you’re getting tired of people asking all the same things all the time, over and over?”