“It was a nice try, Les,” consoled Coster.
“I thought it might be an answer for all of us,” the pilot answered.
Harriman said, “You were starting to mention another solution, Bob?” Coster looked embarrassed. “You know the plans for the ship itself—a three-man job, space and supplies for three.”
“Yes. What are you driving at?”
“It doesn’t have to be three men. Split the first step into two parts, cut the ship down to the bare minimum for one man and jettison the remainder. That’s the only way I see to make this basic design work.” He got out another sketch. “See? One man and supplies for less than a week. No airlock— the pilot stays in his pressure suit. No galley. No bunks. The bare minimum to keep one man alive for a maximum of two hundred hours. It will work.”
“It will work,” repeated LeCroix, looking at Coster.
Harriman looked at the sketch with an odd, sick feeling at his stomach. Yes, no doubt it would work—and for the purposes of the promotion it did not matter whether one man or three went to the Moon and returned. Just to do it was enough; he was dead certain that one successful flight would cause money to roll in so that there would be capital to develop to the point of practical, passenger-carrying ships.
The Wright brothers had started with less.
“If that is what I have to put up with, I suppose I have to,” he said slowly. Coster looked relieved. “Fine! But there is one more hitch. You know the conditions under which I agreed to tackle this job—I was to go along. Now Les here waves a contract under my nose and says he has to be the pilot.”
“It’s not just that,” LeCroix countered. “You’re no pilot, Bob. You’ll kill yourself and ruin the whole enterprise, just through bull-headed stubbornness.”
“I’ll learn to fly it. After all, I designed it. Look here, Mr. Harriman, I hate to let you in for a suit—Les says he will sue-but my contract antedates his. I intend to enforce it.”
“Don’t listen to him, Mr. Harriman. Let him do the suing. I’ll fly that ship and bring her back. He’ll wreck it.”
“Either I go or I don’t build the ship,” Coster said flatly.
Harriman motioned both of them to keep quiet. “Easy, easy, both of you. You can both sue me if it gives you any pleasure. Bob, don’t talk nonsense; at this stage I can hire other engineers to finish the job. You tell me it has to be just one man.”
“That’s right.”
“You’re looking at him.”
They both stared.
“Shut your jaws,” Harriman snapped. “What’s funny about that? You both knew I meant to go. You don’t think I went to all this trouble just to give you two a ride to the Moon, do you? I intend to go. What’s wrong with me as a pilot? I’m in good health, my eyesight is all right, I’m still smart enough to learn what I have to learn. If I have to drive my own buggy, I’ll do it. I won’t step aside for anybody, not anybody, d’you hear me?”
Coster got his breath first. “Boss, you don’t know what you are saying.” Two hours later they were still wrangling. Most of the time Harriman had stubbornly sat still, refusing to answer their arguments. At last he went out of the room for a few minutes, on the usual pretext. When he came back in he said, “Bob, what do you weigh?”
“Me? A little over two hundred.”
“Close to two twenty, I’d judge. Les, what do you weigh?”
“One twenty-six.”
“Bob, design the ship for a net load of one hundred and twenty-six pounds.”
“Huh? Now wait a minute, Mr. Harriman—”
“Shut up! If I can’t learn to be a pilot in six weeks, neither can you.”
“But I’ve got the mathematics and the basic knowledge to—”
“Shut up I said! Les has spent as long learning his profession as you have learning yours. Can he become an engineer in six weeks? Then what gave you the conceit to think that you can learn his job in that time? I’m not going to have you wrecking my ship to satisfy your swollen ego. Anyhow, you gave out the real key to it when you were discussing the design. The real limiting factor is the actual weight of the passenger or passengers, isn’t it? Everything—everything works in proportion to that one mass. Right?”