“Thanks, Cal — but that’s how it is; there’s nothing to be done about it.”
He turned to Lentz. “I think this is the last ironical touch needed to make
the whole thing pure farce,” he observed bitterly. “This thing is big,
bigger than we can guess at this stage — and I have to give it a miss.
“Well,” Harper burst out, “I can think of something to do about it!” He
strode over to King’s desk and snatched up the manuscript. “Either you
superintend the
exploitation or the company will damn well get along without our
discovery!” Erickson concurred belligerently.
“Wait a minute.” Lentz had the floor. “Dr. Harper, have you already
achieved a practical rocket fuel?”
“I said so. We’ve got it on hand now.”
“An escape-speed fuel?” They understood his verbal shorthand-a fuel that
would lift a rocket free of the Earth’s gravitational pull.
“Sure. Why, you could take any of the Clipper rockets, refit them a trifle,
and have breakfast on the Moon.”
“Very well. Bear with me — ” He obtained a sheet of paper from King and
commenced to write. They watched in mystified impatience. He continued
briskly for some minutes, hesitating only momentarily. Presently he stopped
and spun the paper over to King. “Solve it!” he demanded.
King studied the paper. Lentz had assigned symbols to a great number of
factors, some social, some psychological, some physical, some economical.
He had thrown them together into a structural relationship, using the
symbols of calculus of statement. King understood the paramathematical
operations indicated by the symbols, but he was not as used to them as he
was to the symbols and operations of mathematical physics. He plowed
through the equations, moving his lips slightly in unconscious
subvocalization.
He accepted a pencil from Lentz and completed the solution. It required
several more lines, a few more equations, before the elements canceled out,
or rearranged themselves, into a definite answer.
He stared at this answer while puzzlement gave way to dawning comprehension
and delight.
He looked up. “Erickson! Harper!” he rapped out. “We will take your new
fuel, refit a large rocket, install the bomb in it, and throw it into an
orbit around the Earth, far out in space. There we will use it to make more
fuel, safe fuel, for use on Earth, with the danger from the bomb itself
limited to the operators actually on watch!”
There was no applause. It was not that sort of an idea; their minds were
still struggling with the complex implications.
“But, chief,” Harper finally managed, “how about your retirement? We’re
still not going to stand for it.”
“Don’t worry,” King assured him “It’s all in there, implicit in those
equations, you two, me, Lentz, the Board of Directors — and just what we
all have to do to accomplish it.”
“All except the matter of time,” Lentz cautioned.
“Eh?”
“You’ll note that elapsed time appears in your answer as an undetermined
unknown.”
“Yes . . . yes, of course. That’s the chance we have to take. Let’s get
busy!”
Chairman Dixon called the Board of Directors to order. “This being a
special meeting, we’ll dispense with minutes and reports,” he announced.
“As set forth in the call we have agreed to give the retiring
superintendent three hours of our time.”
“Mr. Chairman — ”
“Yes, Mr. Thornton?”
“I thought we had settled that matter.”
“We have, Mr. Thornton, but in view of Superintendent King’s long and
distinguished service, if he asks a hearing, we are honor bound to grant
it. You have the floor, Dr. King.”
King got up and stated briefly, “Dr. Lentz will speak for me.” He sat down.
Lentz had to wait till coughing, throat clearing and scraping of chairs
subsided. It was evident that the board resented the outsider.
Lentz ran quickly over the main points in the argument which contended that
the bomb presented an intolerable danger anywhere on the face of the Earth.
He moved on at once to the alternative proposal that the bomb should be
located in a rocketship, an artificial moonlet flying in a free orbit
around the Earth at a convenient distance — say, fifteen thousand miles —