“I am not hampering you. I am telling you that this is not a government project. If you won’t attempt to cope with it on those terms, let me know now, so that I can find somebody who will.”
Ferguson started playing mumblety-peg on his desk top. When he got to “noses”—and missed—he said quietly, “I mind a boy who used to work for the government at White Sands. He was a very smart lad indeed-design chief of section.”
“You mean he might head up your team?”
“That was the notion.”
“What’s his name? Where is he? Who’s he working for?”
“Well, as it happened, when the government closed down White Sands, it seemed a shame to me that a good boy should be out of a job, so I placed him with Skyways. He’s maintenance chief engineer out on the Coast.”
“Maintenance? What a hell of a job for a creative man! But you mean he’s working for us now? Get him on the screen. No—call the coast and have them send him here in a special rocket; we’ll all have lunch together.”
“As it happens,” Ferguson said quietly, “I got up last night and called him—that’s what annoyed the Missus. He’s waiting outside. Coster—Bob Coster.”
A slow grin spread over Harriman’s face. “Andy! You black-hearted old scoundrel, why did you pretend to balk?”
“I wasn’t pretending. I like it here, Mr. Harriman. Just as long as you don’t interfere, I’ll do my job. Now my notion is this: we’ll make young Coster chief engineer of the project and give him his head. I won’t joggle his elbow; I’ll just read the reports. Then you leave him alone, d’you hear me? Nothing makes a good technical man angrier than to have some incompetent nitwit with a check book telling him how to do his job.”
“Suits. And I don’t want a penny-pinching old fool slowing him down, either. Mind you don’t interfere with him, either, or I’ll jerk the rug out from under you. Do we understand each other?”
“I think we do.”
“Then get him in here.”
Apparently Ferguson’s concept of a “lad” was about age thirty-five, for such Harriman judged Coster to be. He was tall, lean, and quietly eager. Harriman braced him immediately after shaking hands with, “Bob, can you build a rocket that will go to the Moon?”
Coster took it without blinking. “Do you have a source of X-fuel?” he countered, giving the rocket man’s usual shorthand for the isotope fuel formerly produced by the power satellite.
Coster remained perfectly quiet for several seconds, then answered, “I can put an unmanned messenger rocket on the face of the Moon.”
“Not good enough. I want it to go there, land, and come back. Whether it lands here under power or by atmosphere braking is unimportant.”
It appeared that Coster never answered promptly; Harriman had the fancy that he could hear wheels turning over in the man’s head. “That would be a very expensive job.”
“Who asked you how much it would cost? Can you do it?”
“I could try.”
“Try, hell. Do you think you can do it? Would you bet your shirt on it? Would you be willing to risk your neck in the attempt? If you don’t believe in yourself, man, you’ll always lose.”
“How much will you risk, sir? I told you this would be expensive-and I doubt if you have any idea how expensive.”
“And I told you not to worry about money. Spend what you need; it’s my job to pay the bills. Can you do it?”
“I can do it. I’ll let you know later how much it will cost and how long it will take.”
“Good. Start getting your team together. Where are we going to do this, Andy?” he added, turning to Ferguson. “Australia?”
“No.” It was Coster who answered. “It can’t be Australia; I want a mountain catapult. That will save us one step-combination.”
“How big a mountain?” asked Harriman~ “Will Pikes Peak do?”
“It ought to be in the Andes,” objected Ferguson. “The mountains are taller and closer to the equator. After all, we own facilities there—or the Andes Development Company does.”
“Do as you like, Bob,” Harriman told Coster. “I would prefer Pikes Peak, but it’s up to you.” He was thinking that there were tremendous business advantages to locating Earth’s space port ~ i inside the United States—and he could visualize the advertising advantage of having Moon ships blast off from the top of Pikes Peak, in plain view of everyone for hundreds of miles to the East.