They were well along with the reassembling when they heard a whistle and a shout from the direction of the gate. “Hello there! Anybody home?”
“Coming!” Ross answered. They skirted the barricade to where they could see the gate. A tall, husky figure waited there — a man so young, strong, and dynamic in appearance that the bandage around his head seemed out of place, and still more so in contrast with his friendly grin.
“Uncle Don!” Art yelled as he ran up to meet him.
“Hi,” said the newcomer. “You’re Art. Well, you’ve grown a lot but you haven’t changed much.” He shook hands.
“What are you doing out of bed? You’re sick.”
“Not me,” his uncle asserted. “I’ve got a release from the hospital to prove it. But introduce me — are these the rest of the assassins?”
“Oh-excuse me. Uncle Don, this is Maurice Abrams and this is Ross Jenkins. . . Doctor Cargraves.”
“How do you do, sir?”
“Glad to know you, Doctor.”
“Glad to know you, too.” Cargraves started through the gate, then hesitated. “Sure this place isn’t booby-trapped?”
Ross looked worried. “Say, Doctor-we’re all sorry as can be. I still can’t see how it happened. This gate is covered by the barricade.”
“Ricochet shot probably. Forget it. I’m not hurt. A little skin and a little blood-that’s all. If I had turned back at your first warning sign, it wouldn’t have happened.”
“How did you happen to be coming here?”
“A fair question. I hadn’t been invited, had I?”
“Oh, I didn’t mean that.”
“But I owe you an explanation. When I breezed into town yesterday, I already knew of the Galileo Club; Art’s mother had mentioned it in letters. When my sister told me where Art was and what he was up to, I decided to slide over in hope of getting here in time to watch your test run. Your hired girl told me how to find my way out here.”
“You mean you hurried out here just to see this stuff we play around with?”
“Sure. Why not? I’m interested in rockets.”
“Yes, but-we really haven’t got anything to show you. These are just little models.”
“A new model,” Doctor Cargraves answered seriously, “of anything can be important, no matter who makes it nor how small it is. I wanted to see how you work. May I?”
“Oh, certainly, sir-we’d be honored.” Ross showed their guest around, with Morrie helping out and Art chipping in. Art was pink-faced and happy — this was his uncle, one of the world’s great, a pioneer of the Atomic Age. They inspected the test stand and the control panel. Cargraves looked properly impressed and tut-tutted over the loss of Starstruck V.
As a matter of fact he was impressed. It is common enough in the United States for boys to build and take apart almost anything mechanical, from alarm clocks to hiked-up jalopies. It is not so common for them to understand the sort of controlled and recorded experimentation on which science is based.
Their equipment was crude and their facilities limited, but the approach was correct and the scientist recognized it.
The stainless steel mirrors used to bounce the spotlight beams over the barricade puzzled Doctor Cargraves. “Why take so much trouble to protect light bulbs ?” he asked. “Bulbs are cheaper than stainless steel.”
“We were able to get the mirror steel free,” Ross explained. “The spotlight bulbs take cash money.”
The scientist chuckled. “That reason appeals to me. Well, you fellows have certainly thrown together quite a set-up. I wish I had seen your rocket before it blew up.”
“Of course the stuff we build,” Ross said diffidently, “can’t compare with a commercial unmanned rocket, say like a mail-carrier. But we would like to dope out something good enough to go after the junior prizes.”
“Ever competed?”
“Not yet. Our physics class in high school entered one last year in the novice classification. It wasn’t much — just a powder job, but that’s what got us started, though we’ve all been crazy about rockets ever since I can remember.”
“You’ve got some fancy control equipment. Where do you do your machine-shop work? Or do you have it done?”