Maynard smiled as he had not smiled in weeks, “about that trip of yours. I envy you. If
we were twenty five years younger I’d talk my wife into going along with you. I’d better
call her; and I’d like to have her meet both of you.”
“Why, we’d be delighted to meet her!” Barbara exclaimed.
Mrs. Maynard proved to be a willowy, strong-featured, gracious woman with whom the
years had dealt very lightly. She was as glad to meet the Destons, about whom she had
heard so much, as they were to meet her. And so on.
“I’m very sorry, Mrs. Maynard,” Barbara said, finally, “that we had to keep your husband
so . . .”
“Think nothing of it,” Maynard interrupted, briskly. “Just one of those things. If you’d like
to come downtown to the office, Floss, I’ll take you out to dinner sometime during the
evening.”
“I would like to, Upton, thanks. I’ll be down in an hour or so.”
The Destons escorted Maynard up to the roof and to his waiting aircar; and after it had
taken off:
“What do you suppose he meant by that `just one of those things’ crack?” Deston asked.
“Why, he was on a com, silly, so he was afraid to say anything! Even that he was going
to work all night!” Barbara explained, excitedly. “That’s how big he knows it is!” and the
two went enthusiastically into each other’s arms.
Chapter 7
PROJECT ENGINEER BYRD
Miss Champion was as efficient as she was ornamental, and all of GalMet’s top people
were on call every minute of every day on the calendar. Therefore she and Executive
Vice-President Eldon Smith and Project Engineers Quisenberry and Felton got to
GalMet’s main office almost as soon as Maynard himself did. When the two engineers
came in Maynard looked at them with the well-known expression of the canary-containing
cat.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” he said, with a wide and cryptic grin. “I trust that your hearts
are in good shape? And your nerves? That you are both sufficiently well integrated to
withstand the shock of your trouble-making young lives?”
“Try us,” Quisenberry said. He was a black-haired, black-eyed, deeply-tanned man, a
little past thirty, who had worked himself up the hard way; clear up from the lowest low
of a copper mine. He looked-if not exactly sullen, at least as though he was very sure
that what he had been doing on his own was vastly more important than any piffling,
niggling conference with THE BIG BOSS. “I’ll live through it, I’m sure.”
“Okay. Each of you take a table; you’ll need lots of room. Quisenberry, here’s everything
you’ll need on a deposit of copper. Felton, ditto, uranium. I want preliminary roughouts of
those projects as fast as you can get them. Very rough: plus-or-minus twenty five
percent will be close enough. Now, Don and Miss Champion, what well have to do tonight
is rough out a -full operational on copper in the light of information that has just come to
hand.”
After what may have been an hour Mrs. Maynard came in and Quisenberry came up for
air. His table was littered with hand-books, machine-tapes of various kinds, graphs,
charts, and wadded-up scratch-paper; much of which had overflowed onto the floor.
“But this is incredible, sir.” It was the first time either engineer had called Maynard “sir”
in over a year. “Of course I can’t say that it’s absolutely impossible for any such deposit
as this to occur, but . . .” Quisenberry paused.
Maynard grinned again, but pleasantly, this time. “Do you think I’d have all that stuff
faked up and then come down here and work all night myself just to put you two through
the wringer?”
“Put that way, of course not … but . . .” Quisenberry paused again and Felton, who had
stopped work and was listening with both ears, came in with:
“Quizz said it, Mr. Maynard, and mine’s ten to the fourth as hard to swallow as his. I
can’t make myself believe that there’s that much uranium in one place anywhere in the
universe.”
“I know exactly how you feel,” Maynard assured them. “I was flabbergasted myself. You
may take it as a fact, however, that all that data is accurate to within the appropriate
limits of error. I myself am so convinced of its reliability that I am going to give you two
men all the authorization you’ll need and full authority to build and to operate
fully-automated plants. Satisfactory? That’s what you’ve been getting ready for all this
time, isn’t it?” “Yes, sir!” Quisenberry said, and:
You said it, sir!” Felton agreed.
At seven fifty five Maynard asked the group at large, “Everybody ready to eat? I’ll call
Beardsley’s.”
Neither engineer would leave his job; so, after Miss Champion had ordered up two
one-gallon hot-pots of coffee and a good spread of smorgasbord, the two couples went
to Beardsley’s for dinner-a dinner that lasted for an- hour and a half and cost Maynard
exactly forty dollars (including tip). Then a GalMet aircar took Mrs.
Maynard home and another one took the other three back to the office.
Along toward morning Quisenberry stood up, stretched, looked with distaste at his
umpteenth cup of coffee, and said, “I’ve made some assumptions, boss, that I’d better
check with you before I give you the bad news. Okay?” “Okay.”
“Rush all possible. That means twenty fours hours a day, Saturdays, Sundays, and
holidays. All the personnel that can work efficiently, all the time. Crash priorities on
material, which means no time for competitive bidding, so we’ll have to pay top prices
and bonuses. Check to here?”
“Check and okay.”
“Plant capacity. Assuming that you want to cut the price down to somewhere between
eleven and twelve cents. . . .”
“You’re right on the beam, Quizz. Nearer eleven, I think.”
“Extrapolating on that basis, my guessometer says that we’ll have to be producing at the
rate of fifteen million tons by the end of the first year. That’s a mighty big plant, boss.
That’s one supreme hell of a big plant.” “I know. I like those figures very much.”
“You won’t like these next ones, I’m afraid. On this rush-and-bonus basis it’ll take pretty
close to twenty five megabucks in the first couple of months, and the total-well, it’s a very
rough guess at this point. All I’m sure of is the order of magnitude, but the total to first
pour will probably run somewhere in the neighborhood of seventy five megabucks.”
“Thanks. That’s close enough for now. just so we don’t get caught short of cash in the
till.”
“But listen-sir-Phelps will have a litter of lizards!” “He’ll be amenable to reason when he
finds out that we are entering a completely new era in metals. Felton, how about you?”
Felton-a brawny youth with butch-cut straw-colored hair and blue eyes-could not answer
immediately because his mouth was full of shrimp a la Creole. He swallowed hastily, then
said:
“Since this will have to be a crash-pri job, too, everything Quizz said will apply. Add high
radiation to all that, and a hostile dead planet clear out to hellangone beyond anywhere,
and the tab gets no smaller fast. My best guesstimate as of now is that the total will
crowd a hundred megabucks.”
“Fair enough. Thanks a. . .”
“One thing first,” Felton interrupted. “Are you sure enough of this-this super-bonanza-for
me to roust Bassler out right now? Tell him to cut out all this ten-cent petty-larceny
rock-scratching we’re doing now, break out all the armor we’ve got and order more, and
start-but quick-jassacking some of that high-grade out of there and hauling it-to
Galmetia?”
“An excellent idea. Splendid! If I’d thought of it I would have suggested it hours ago. Go
ahead.”
Felton did so and Maynard went on, “Since you fellows made these estimates in hours
instead of weeks I’ll give you plenty of leeway. Miss Champion, please issue two
preliminary authorizations: Quisenberry, seventy five megabucks; Felton, a hundred.”
Preliminaries! Not maxes! Staring at each other as though they could not believe their
ears, the two engineers shook hands solemnly with each other, and then with all three of
the others. Then they poured themselves two more cups of strong black coffee and went
back to work.
Work went on until half past five. Then, since each would have to be on the job by nine
o’clock, Maynard broke it up so that each could get three hours’ sleep. All top-echelon
private offices were equipped for that. Night work was an essential part of such
man-killing jobs as theirs; a part that envious underlings knew nothing about. It had
happened before and it would happen again. And again and again.
This entire episode was just another one of those things.
A couple of months later, Miss Champion showed Deston into Maynard’s office. The
tycoon, although showing the effects of too little sleep, was in very fine fettle indeed.