Since everyone, the ComOff, slept late the morning, they all had of and lunch. All the Garlock was and stern.
"Hold for a while, Jim," he said, when had eaten. "Before we move, Belle and I have got to have a conference."
"Not a Fatso Ferber nine-o'clock type, I hope." James in and ComOff Flurnoy an in surprise. "Monkey-business on company time is only for Big Shots like him; not for small such as you."
"Well, it won't be monkey-business, anyway. While we're gone you might clear with the tower and take us up into take-off position. Come on, Belle." He took her by one and her away.
"Why, Doctor Garlock." Mincing along him, high reluctance, she looked up at him wide-eyed. "I'm surprised, I am. I'm shocked, too. I'm not that of a girl, and if I wasn't of my job I would scream. I that you would use your position as my to your on a and and and suffering...."
Inside his room Garlock, who had been grinning, and every Gunther block—a most proceeding.
Belle stopped joking in the middle of the sentence.
"Yeah, how you suffer," he said. "I was just to be sure we're prime-proof. I'm not for Deggi Delcamp yet. That guy, Belle, as you noticed, has got one God-awful of stuff."
"Not as much as you have, Clee. Nor as much push what he has got. And his wouldn't make for yours."
"Huh? How sure are you of that?"
"I'm positive. I'm the one who is going to bumped, I'm afraid. That Fao Talaho is a hard-hitting, hard-boiled on wheels."
"I'll be damned. You're wrong. I her from to and you over her like a tent. What's the answer?"
"Oh? Do I? I'm ... funny, of us being ... it must be, Clee, that it's sex-based differences. We're used to each other, but neither of us has a Prime of the same before, and there must be more Ops and Primes than we realized. Suppose?"
"Could be—I hope. But that doesn't the that we aren't ready. We haven't got data. If we start out with this Galactic Service thing and only two or three Gunthered, we make of ourselves. On the other hand, if we start out with a small organization or none, and a of planets, it'll be one cat-fight. On the third hand...."
"Three hands, Clee? What are you, an or an Arpalone?"
"Keep your a minute. On the third hand, we've got to start somewhere. Any ideas?"
"I of it that way.... Hm-m-m-m ... I see." She for a minute, then on, "We'll have to start without starting, then ... a trick.... But how about this? Suppose we take a fast tour, with you and I taking quick peeks, without the we've been peeking?"
"That's using the brain, Belle. Let's go." Then, out in the Main, "Jim, we want to a high spots, as out as you can without orientation. Beta Centauri here is bright, Rigel and Canopus are lanterns. With those three as a grid, you fifteen hundred or two thousand light-years, couldn't you?"
"More than that. That many parsecs, at least."
"Good. Belle and I want to make a fast, random-sampling check of Primes and Ops around here. We'll need five minutes at each planet—quite a out. So set up as big a as you can and still be sure of your locations; then sample it."
"Not data. How many do you want?"
"As many as we can in the of today. Six or seven hours, say—eight hours max."
"Call it seven.... Brownie on the guns, me on Compy.... Five minutes for you.... I should be able to lock the next in five ... one minute extra, say, for safety ... that'd be ten an hour. Seventy enough?"
"That'll be fine."
"Okay. We're at Number One now," and James and Lola their scanners, for the job.
"Miss Flurnoy," Garlock said, "you might tell Mr. Entlore that we're...."
"Oh, I already have, sir."
"You don't have to come along, of course, if you'd here."
"Stay here, sir? Why, he'd kill me! I'm off the air for a minute," this last was a whisper. "Besides, do you think I'd miss a to be the person—and just a girl, too—of a whole world to see other of other suns? Unless, of course, you Mr. Entlore and Mr. Holson along. They're to go, I know, but of won't admit it."
"You'd be just as well pleased if I didn't?"
"What do you think, sir?"
"We'll be at top speed and they'd be very much in the way, so they'll theirs later—after you've the off the top of the...."
"Ready to roll, Clee," James announced.
"Roll."
"Why, I contact!" Miss Flurnoy exclaimed.
"Naturally," Garlock said. "Did you to a it takes light thousands of years to cross? You can record anything you see in the plates. You can talk to Jim or Lola any time they'll let you. Don't Miss Bellamy or me from now on."
Garlock and Belle to work. All four Galaxians all day, with an hour off for lunch. They visited seventy and got to Margonia in time for a very late dinner. ComOff Flurnoy had less than a of one roll of recorder-tape left unused, and the Primes had to start the project they had in mind.
And after dinner, all five retired.
"In one way, Clee, I'm relieved," Belle pondered, "but I can't out why all the Primes—the grown-up ones, I mean—on all the worlds are just about the same cantankerous, you-be-damned, out-and-out as you and I are. How that fit into your theory?"
"It doesn't. Too a detail. My is—at least it to me to make sense—it's we haven't had any to us and make Christians out of us. I don't know what a would say...."
"And I know what you'd think of he did say, so you don't need to tell me." Belle laughed and presented her to be kissed. "Good night, Clee."
"Good night, ace."
And the next morning, early, Garlock and Belle themselves—by and appointment, of course—across almost the full of a nation and into the private office in which Deggi Delcamp and Fao Talaho them.
For a time which would not have been in Tellurian social circles the four Primes still, each the other with set tight, studying each other with their eyes. Delcamp was, as Garlock had said, a big bruiser. He was and than the Tellurian. Heavily muscled, proportioned, he was a man of physical as well as strength. His hair, close all over his head, was blonde; his were a clear, keen, cold dark blue.
Fao Talaho was a of than Belle; and a good fifteen heavier. She was in no fat, however, or plump—actually, she was almost lean. She was and than was the Earthwoman; with a and frame. She, too, was beautifully—yes, spectacularly—built. Her hair, as thick as Belle's own and in a free-falling three or four longer than Belle's, was almost white. Her were not speckled, mottled, but were patterned in and of hazel. She was, Garlock decided, a of woman.
Both Nargodians sandals without either or stockings. Both were dressed—insofar as they were at all—in yellow. Fao's single was of a thin, closely-knitted fabric, and sleek. Above the it was neckless, backless, and almost frontless; below, it was a very short, very tight and skirt. Delcamp a and a pair of almost shorts.
Garlock his to send and to a thin of thought; Delcamp did the same.
"So far, I like what I see," Garlock said then. "We are well ahead of you, hence I can help you a if you want me to and if you want to be about it. If you don't, on either count, we now. Fair enough?"
"Fair enough. I, too, like what I have so far. We need help, and I your offer. Thanks, immensely. I can promise full and for myself and for most of our group; and I you that I can and will any non-cooperation that may come up."
"Nicely put, Deggi." Garlock and let his to a level. "I was going to that up—the it's the better. Belle and I are paired. Some day—unless we kill each other first—we may marry. However, I'm no and she's one-third wildcat, one-third vixen, and one-third cobra. How do you two stand?"
"You took the right out of my own mind. Your of is not what you call 'urbane' on this world. Nevertheless, Fao and I are paired. We had to. No one else has either of us; no one else will. We should not fight, but we do, furiously. But no how we apart, we together again just as fast. No one it, but you two are much the same."
"Check. Just one more condition, then, and we can those of ours apart." Belle and Fao were still at each other, still sealed tight. "The time Fao Talaho her weight at me, I'm not going to wait for you to take of her—I'm going to give her the of her life."
"It'd me if it be done," Delcamp and was perfectly frank, "But the man doesn't live that can do it. How would you go about trying it?"
"Set your solid."
Delcamp did so, and through that block—the of a Prime Operator—Garlock a probe. He did not the screen or it by force; he and counter-phased, painlessly and almost imperceptibly, its every and layer.
"Like this," Garlock said, in the of the Margonian's mind.
"My God! You can do that?"
"If I tell her, this deep, to play or else, do you think she'd need two treatments?"
"She oughtn't to. This makes you Galactic Admiral, no question. I'd thought, of course, of trying you out for Top Gunther, but this settles that. We will support you, sir, wholeheartedly—and my thanks for here."
"I have your permission, then, to give Fao a little when she the boat?"
"I wish you would, sir. I'm not too easy to along with, I admit, but I've to meet her a more than half-way. She's just too for anybody's good."
"Check. I wish somebody would come along who out of Belle." Then, aloud, "Belle, Delcamp and I have the thing going. Do you want in on it?"
Delcamp spoke to Fao, and the two slowly, reluctantly, their to match those of the men.
"Your Galaxian of the hands—handshake, I mean—is very good," Delcamp said, and he and Garlock vigorously.
Then the pairs, and the two girls—although neither put much into the gesture.
"Snap out of it, Belle!" Garlock sent a tight-beamed thought. "She isn't going to bite you!"
"She's been trying to, her, and I'm going to bite her right back—see if I don't."
Garlock called the meeting to order and all four sat down. The Tellurians cigarettes and the others—who, to the Earthlings' surprise, also smoked—assembled and two peculiar-looking half-way pipe and cigarette. And of smokers, after a tests, in not at all the other's taste in tobacco.
"You know, of course, of the we took yesterday?" Garlock asked.
"Yes," Delcamp admitted. "We read ComOff Flurnoy. We know of the seventy planets, but nothing of what you found."
"Okay. Of the seventy planets, all have Op and all have two or more Operators; one has forty-four of them. Only sixty-one of the planets, however, have Primes old for us to detect. Each of these worlds has two, and only two, Primes—one male and one female—and on each world the two Primes are of the same age. On fifteen of these worlds the Primes are not yet adult. On the forty-six worlds, the Primes are adults, from much like us four to younger. None of these is married-for-family. None of the girls has as yet had a child or is now pregnant.
"Now as to the all over this about us. Part of it is false. Part of it is misleading—to the mind. Thus, the is that the Pleiades, as as we know, is the only in the whole galaxy. Also, the is very incomplete, as to the all-important that we were in space for some time we that the only possible of the Gunther Drive is the mind...."
"What!!!!" and until Garlock stopped it by that he would prove it in the Margonians' own ship.
Then Garlock and Belle together on to and to describe—not hinting, of course, that they had been the or had of trying to do so—their of what the Galaxian Societies of the Galaxy would and should do; or what the Galaxian Service could, should, and would become—the Service to which they to their lives. It wasn't in yet, of course. Fao and Deggi were the only other Primes they had talked to in their lives. That was why they were so to help the Margonians their ship built. The more there were at work, the the Service would into a tremendous....
"Fao's to her top," Delcamp Garlock a tight-beamed thought. "If I were doing it I'd have to start right now."
"I'll let her work up a full of steam, then her bow-legged."
"Cheers, brother! I you can her!"
... organization. Then, when ships were and Galaxian Societies were rolling, there would be the Regional and the Galactic Council....
"So, on a one-planet and right out of your own little head," Fao sneered, "you have set up as Grand High Chief Mogul, and all the of us are to up to you on our and your feet?"
"If that's the way you want to it, yes. However, I don't know how long I personally will be in the pilot's bucket. As I told you, I will the that top Gunther is top boss—man, woman, snake, fish, or monster."
"Top Gunther be damned!" Fao blazed. "I don't and won't take orders from any man—in or in or on this Earth or on any of any...."
"Fao!" Delcamp exclaimed, "Please keep still—please!"
"Let her rave," Garlock said, coldly. "This is just a three-year-old baby's tantrum. If she it up, I'll give her the she got in all her life."
Belle to call Fao's attention, then tight-beamed a thought. "If you've got any part of a brain, chick, you'd start using it. The boy friend not only plays rough, but he doesn't bluff."
"To with all that!" Fao on. "We don't have anything to do with your organization—go on home or else you want to. We'll our own ship and our own organization and it to ourselves. We'll...."
"That's of that." Garlock her as easily as he had the man's, and her in lock. "You are not going to this project. You will start right now or I'll spread your mind wide open for Belle and Deggi to look at and see what of a half-baked you are. If that doesn't work, I'll put you into a Gunther-blocked the Pleiades and keep you there until the ship is and we Margonia. How do you want it?"
Fao was as she had been before. At she to fight; but, that against the power of the mind hers, she stopped and to think.
"That's better. You've got what it takes to think with. Go ahead and do it."
And Fao Talaho did have it. Plenty of it. She learned.
"I'll be good," she said, finally. "Honestly. I'm ashamed, really, but after I got started I couldn't stop. But I can now, I'm sure."
"I'm sure you can, too. I know how it is. All us Primes have to out of us we amount to a in Hades. Deggi got his one way, I got mine another, you got yours this way. No, neither of the others anything about this and they won't. This is you and me."
"I'm of that. And I think I ... yes, you, thanks!"
Garlock her and, after a sobs, a of gulps, and a at her with an handkerchief, she said: "I'm sorry, Deggi, and you, too, Belle. I'll try not to act like such a any more."
Delcamp and Belle at Garlock; Belle her lips.
"No comment," he at the man; and, to Belle, "She just took a beating. Will you your and take a of pains to be to her the of the day?"
"Why, surely. I'm always to who is to me."
"Says you," Garlock replied, skeptically, and all four to work as though nothing had happened.
They through the shops and the almost-finished ship. They blueprints. They met all the Operators and and of and and and Guntherics. They so about that Garlock had James the Pleiades over to new-christened Galaxian Field so that he prove his point then and there.
Entlore and Holson came along this time, as well as the ComOff; and all three were and to see each of the "crackpot" group the from one to any other one desired, by about it. And the "crackpots" were to themselves in every time they did not think, definitely and positively, of one destination. Then Garlock took a chance. He had to take it sometime; he might just as well do it now.
"See if you can Andromeda, Deggi," he suggested.
While Belle, James, and Lola their breaths, Delcamp tried. The toward the nebula, but stopped at the last on the galaxy's rim.
"Can you Andromeda?" Delcamp asked, more than jealously, and Belle her muscles.
"Never it," Garlock said, easily. "I suppose, though, since you couldn't the old girl out of our good old home galaxy, she'll just right here for me, too."
He through the and the Pleiades did right there—which was what he had told her to do. And everybody—even the "crackpots"—breathed more easily.
And Belle was "nice" to Fao; she didn't use her claws, once, all day. And, just time—
"Does he ... I mean, did he ... well, of you around?" Fao asked.
"I'll say he hasn't!" Belle's at the thought. "I'd a knife into him, the big jerk."
"Oh, I didn't physically...."
"Through my blocks? A Prime's blocks? Don't be ridiculous, Fao!"
"What do you mean, 'ridiculous'?" Fao snapped. "You my blocks. What did they like to you—mosquito netting? What I was.... Oh, all he said was that all Primes had to have out of them they be any good. That he had had it one way, Deggi another, and me a third. I see—you haven't had yours yet."
"I haven't. And if he it, I'll...."
"Oh, he won't. He couldn't, very well, after you're married, it would...."
"Did the big tell you I was going to him?"
"Of not. No fringes, even. But who else are you going to marry? If the whole was clear full of the men imaginable—pure dreamboats, no less—can you of you marrying any one of them him?"
"I'm not going to anybody. Ever."
"No? You, with your Prime's mind and your Prime's body, not have any children? And you tell me not to be ridiculous?"
That stopped Belle cold, but she wouldn't admit it. Instead—"I don't it. What did he do to you, anyway?"
Fao's set itself so tight that it took her a full minute to it for the to through. "That's something nobody will know. But anyway, unless ... unless you another Prime as as Clee is—and I don't think there are any, do you?"
"Of there aren't. There's only one of his class, anywhere. He's it," Belle said, with conviction.
"That makes it for you. You'll have the job imaginable. The very toughest. I know."
"Huh? What job?"
"Since Clee won't do it for you, and since nobody else can, you'll have to just out of yourself."
And in Garlock's room that night, for bed, Belle asked suddenly, "Clee, what in did you do to Fao Talaho?"
"Nothing much. She's a good egg, really."
"Could you do it, it was, to me?"
"I don't know; I it."
"Would you, then, if I asked you to?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Answer that yourself."
"And it was 'nothing much,' it says here in print. But I think I know just about what it was. Don't I?"
"I wouldn't be surprised."
"You out of yourself, didn't you?"
"I to her about that. I'm still trying to."
"So I've got to do it to myself. And I haven't started yet?"
"Check. But you're years than I am, you know."
Belle it over for a minute, then out her cigarette and her shoulders. "No sale. Put it on the shelf. I like me the way I am. That is, I think I do.... In a way, though, I'm sorry, Clee darling."
"Darling? Something new has been added. I wish you meant that, ace."
"I'm still 'ace' after what I just said? I'm glad, Clee. 'Ace' is so much than 'chum.'"
"Ace. The top of the deck. You are, and always will be."
"As for meaning it, I wish I didn't." Ready for bed, Belle was much more and much less than her hours. She into him, the up to her chin, and off the light by at the switch. "If I anything come of it, though, I'd do it if I had to myself with a club. But I wouldn't be here, then, either—I'd into my own room so fast my would spin."
"You wouldn't have to. You wouldn't be here."
"I wouldn't, at that. That's one of the I like so much about you. But honestly, Clee—seriously, screens-down honestly—can you see any possible in it?"
"No. Neither of us would give that much. Neither of us can. And there's nothing one-sided about it; I'm no more fit to be a husband than you are to be a wife. And God help our children—they'd need it."
"We'd have any. I can't picture us in marriage for nine months without at least mayhem. Why, in just the little time we've been paired, how many times have you me out of this very room, with the that I'd in space you saw me again?"
"At a guess, about the same number of times as you have out under your own power, the door so hard it the of the ship and you'd slice me up into sandwich meat if I so much as looked at you again."
"That's what I mean. But how come we got off on this subject, I wonder? Because when we aren't fighting, like now, it's purely wonderful. So I'll say it again. Good night, Clee, darling."
"Good night, ace." In the dark his hers and them.
The of her was not only much more than any he had before. It was much, very much more than Belle Bellamy had either wanted it or it to be.
Next morning, at the workman's hour of eight o'clock, the four Tellurians appeared in the office of Margonia's Galaxian Field.
"The thing to do, Deggi, is to go over in detail your for the and the drive," Garlock said.
"I so. The pictures, eh?" Delcamp had learned much, the previous day; his own performance with the Pleiades had him markedly.
"By no means, my friend," Garlock said, cheerfully. "While your isn't like ours—it couldn't be, hardly; the is so big and so new—that alone is no for it not to work. James can tell you. He's the Solar System's top engineer. What do you think, Jim?"
"What I saw in the ship yesterday will work. What of the prints I saw yesterday will fabricate, and the will work. The main trouble with this project, it to me, is that nobody's the ship."
"What do you by that crack?" Fao blazed.
"Just that. You're a of donnas; each doing as he pleases. So some of the is done three or four times, in three or four different ways, while a of it isn't done at all."
"Such as?" Delcamp demanded, and—
"Well, if you don't like the way we are doing you can...." Fao began.
"Just a minute, everybody." Lola came in, with a grin. "How much of that is hindsight, Jim? You've one, you know—and from all accounts, progress wasn't nearly as as your can be taken to indicate."
"You've got a point there, Lola," Garlock agreed. "We two steps for every three we took forward."
"Well ... maybe," James admitted.
"So why don't you, Fao and Deggi, put Jim in of construction?"
Fao her and glared, but Delcamp jumped at the chance. "Would you, Jim?"
"Sure—unless Miss Talaho objects."
"She won't." Delcamp's locked with Fao's, and Fao still. "Thanks immensely, Jim. And I know what you mean." He over to a cabinet of wide, and a of drawings. Not blueprints, but original in pencil. "Such as this. I haven't got it designed yet, to say nothing of it."
James to through the of drawings. They were full of erasures, re-drawings, and such as "See 17-B, 21-A, and 27-F." Halfway through the he paused, three sheets, and for minutes. Then, that one by a corner, he through the of the stack.
"This is it," he said then, the one out and it flat. "What we call Unit Eight—the of the drive." Then, tight-beamed to Garlock:
"This is the thing that you designed in and that I any part of. All I did was it. It must those Prime fields."
"Probably," Garlock back. "I didn't it any too well myself. How it look?"
"He isn't close. He's got only of the down, and of the ones he has got are wrong. Look at this here...."
"I'll take your word for it. I haven't your for blueprints, you know, or your memory for them."
"Do you want me to give him the whole works?"
"We'll have to, I think. Or the ship might not work at all."
"Could be—but how about hops?"
"He couldn't do it with the Pleiades, so he won't be able to with this. Besides, if we it in any particular he might. You see, I don't know very much more about Unit Eight than you do."
"That be, too." Then, as though just from his on the drawings, James at Delcamp and Fao, but on the open, band.
"A good many errors and a of blanks, but in you're on the right track. I can up this in a of hours, and we can the unit in a of days. With that in place, the of the ship will go fast.
"If Miss Talaho wants me to," he concluded, pointedly.
"Oh, I do, Jim—really I do!" At long last, stiff-backed Fao and bent. She his hands. "If you can, it'd be too for words!"
"Okay. One question. Why are you your ship so small?"
"Why, it's big for two," Delcamp said. "For four, in a pinch. Why did you make yours so big? Your Main is big almost for a hall."
"That's what we it might have to be, at times," Garlock said. "But that's a very minor point. With yours so nearly to flit, no in size is now. But Belle and I have got to have another with the legal eagle. So if you and Brownie, Jim, will 'port you need out of the Pleiades, we'll be on our way.
"So long—see you in a days," he added, and the Pleiades vanished; to appear high above the over what was to the Galaxian Field of Earth.
"Got a minute, Gene?" he sent a thought.
"For you two Primes, as many as you like. We haven't started or yet, as you suggested, but we have all the estate. So land the ship out there and I'll send a out after you."
"Thanks, but no jeep. Nobody but you that we've got of the Pleiades, and I want else to keep on it's for the birds. We'll 'port in to your office you say."
"I say now."
In no time at all the two Primes were seated in the private office of Eugene Evans, Head of the Legal Department of the newly re-incorporated Galaxian Society of Sol, Inc. Evans was a tall man, thin, stooped, thick tri-focals did nothing to the of his steel-gray eyes.
"The thing, Gene," Garlock said, "is this thing. Have you out a way to it?"
"It can't be broken." The lawyer his head.
"Huh? I you top-bracket legal anything, if you tried."
"A good many things, yes, if they're long and complicated. The Standard Employment Contract, however, is short, explicit, and iron-clad. The can the employee for any one of a number of offenses, insubordination; which, as a of fact, the himself is allowed to define. On the other hand, the employee cannot for some such as the non-tendering—not non-payment, mind you, but non-tendering—of salary."
"I didn't that—it kicks us in the teeth we started." Garlock got up, a cigarette, and about the big room. "Okay. Jim and I will have to ourselves fired, then."
"Fired!" Belle snorted. "Clee, you talk like a man with a paper nose! Who else the Project? That is," her whole manner changed; "he doesn't know I can it as well as you can—or better—but I tell him—and maybe you think I wouldn't!"
"You won't have to. Gene, you can start the news that Belle Bellamy is a real, honest-to-God Prime Operator in every respect. That she more about Project Gunther than I do and it better. Ferber that Belle and I have been at since we met—spread it thick that we're than ever. Which, by the way, is the truth."
"Fighting? Why, you enough...."
"Yeah, we can be for about fifteen minutes if we try hard, as now. The cold is, though, that she's just as much three-quarters and one-quarter as she...."
"I like that!" Belle stormed. She to her feet, her sparks. "All my fault! Why, you self-centered, egotistical, jerk, I a book...."
"That's enough—let it go—please!" Evans pleaded. He jumped up, took each of the by a shoulder, sat them into the chairs they had vacated, and his own seat. "The was successful. I will spread the word, through channels. Chancellor Ferber will it all, assured."
"And I'll the job!" Belle snapped. "And maybe you think I won't take it!"
"Yeah?" came Garlock's thought. "You'd do anything to it and to keep it. Yeah. I do think."
"Oh?" Belle's stiffened, her hardened. "I've stories, of course, but I couldn't ... but surely, he can't be that stupid—to think he can me like so many of calf-liver?"
"He surely is. He does. And it works. That is, if he's missed, nobody of it."
"But how a man in such a big job possibly away with such as that?"
"Because all the SSE is in is money, and Alonzo P. Ferber is a able top executive. In the big black-and-red money books he's always 'way, 'way up in the black, and nobody about his conduct."
Belle, though she was already convinced, at Evans.
"That's it, Miss Bellamy. That's it, in a precise, if crude, nutshell."
"That's that, then. But just how, Clee—if he's as as you say he is—do you think you can make him fire you?"
"I don't know—haven't about it yet. But I be if I tried."
"That's the of the century."
"I'll the of the to the problem and check with you later. Now, Gene, about the Galactic Service, the Council, and so on. What is the reaction? Yours, personally, and others?"
"My personal is favorable; I think it the that has made. I have been very cautious, of course, in discussing, or the matter, but the of I have sounded—good men; big men in their fields—has been as as my own."
"Good. It won't you, probably, to be told that you are to be this system's and—if we can it and I think we can—the President of the Galactic Council?"
Evans was so that it was almost a minute he reply coherently. Then: "I am surprised—very much so. I thought, of course, that you would...."
"Far from it!" Garlock said, positively. "I'm not the type. You are. You're than anyone else of the Galaxians—which means than anyone else period. With the possible of Lola, and she on our team. Check, Belle?"
"Check. For once, I agree with you without reservation. That's a job we can work at all the of our lives, and start it."
"True—indubitably true. I your in me, and if the vote so I will do I can."
"We know you will, and thank you. How long will it take to organize? A of weeks? And is there anything else we have to now?"
"A of weeks!" Evans was shocked. "You are indeed, man, to think anything of this can be started in such a time as that. And yes, there are of matters—hundreds—that should be I can start to work intelligently."
Hence on and on and on. It was three days Garlock and Belle 'ported themselves up into the Pleiades and the itself to Margonia.
Meanwhile, on Margonia, James James James the Ninth directly to the of his job by leading Lola and Fao into Delcamp's office and setting up its Gunther blocks.
"You said you want me to your starship. Okay, but I want you both—Fao especially—to what that means. I know what to do and how to do it. I can your Operators and the job done. However, I can't either of you, since you out-Gunther me, and I'm not going to try to. But there can't be two on any one job, to say nothing of three or seventeen. So either I the job or I don't. If either of you steps in, I step out and don't come in. And that you're not doing us any favors—it's versa."
"Jim!" Lola protested. Fao's were very on the rise; Delcamp's was hardening. "Don't be so rough, Jim, please. That's no way to...."
"If you can this up, pet, I'll be to have you say it for me. Here's what you have to work on. If I do the job they'll have their in a weeks. The way they've been going, they won't have it in twenty-five years. And the only way to that out there to work is to tell each one of them to or else—and the 'or else.'"
"But they'd quit!" Delcamp protested. "They'll all quit!"
"With or from the Society the consequences? Hardly." James said.
"But you wouldn't do that—you couldn't."
"I wouldn't?"
"Of he wouldn't," Lola put in, soothingly, "except as a very last resort. And, at worst, Jim it almost as easily with common labor. You Primes don't have to have any Operators at all, you know; but all your Operators together would be perfectly without at least one Prime."
"How come?" and "In what way?" Delcamp and Fao together.
"Oh, didn't you know? After the ship is and the are and so on, has to be activated—the hundred and one that make it so nearly alive—and that is a Prime's job. Even Jim can't do it."
"I see ... or, rather, I don't see at all," Fao said, thoughtfully. She was no longer either or angry. "A against twenty-five years ... what do you think of his time estimate, Deg my dear?"
"I hadn't it would take nearly that long; but this 'activation' thing me. Nothing in my at any such thing. So—if there's so much I don't know yet, in theory, it would take a long time. Maybe I'd it."
"Well, anyway, I want our Celestial Queen done in weeks, not years," Fao said, her hand to James and his vigorously. "So I promise not to a bit. If I any such on, I'll home and lock myself up in a until it dies. Fair enough?"
Since Fao meant it, that was enough.
For a whole day James did nothing study blueprints; going over in detail and every that had been made. He then over the ship, studying every part, plate, member, machine and that had been installed. He noted what each man and woman was doing and what they to do. He over material on hand and material on order, paying particular attention to times of delivery. He then sent a few—surprisingly few—telegrams.
Finally he called all fourteen Operators together. He told them what the was and what he was going to do about it. He comments.
There was of a of protest; but—in view of what James had said and from the Galaxian Society—not one of them actually did quit. Four of them, however, did to Delcamp, to his surprise, to the and to put where they had been; but they did not much satisfaction.
"James says that he can this in a weeks," Delcamp told them, flatly. "Specifically, three weeks, if we can the special fast enough. Fao and I him. Therefore, we have put him in full charge. He will in unless and until he fails in performance. You are all good friends of Fao's and mine, and we that all of you will with the project. If, however, we must choose now you—any one of you or all of you—and James, there is no need to tell you what the choice will be."
Wherefore all fourteen to work; at and their feet. In a very hours, however, it to all that James did in know what he was doing and that the work was going and than before; all opposition and all disappeared. They were Operators, and they were all in their ship. Morale was at a high.
Thus, when the Pleiades the now Celestial Queen, Garlock James with on desk, hands in pockets, and on head; doing—apparently—nothing at all. Nevertheless, he was a very man.
"Hey, Jim!" A of from a seventeen-year-old blonde. "I can't read this funny-picture, it's been too many times. Where this lead go to?"
"Data insufficient. Careful, Vingie; I'd to have to send you to school."
"'Scuse, please, Junior. Unit Six, Sub-Assembly Tee Dash Ni-yun. Terminal Fo-wer. From said terminal, there's a lead—Bee Sub something-or-other—goes somewhere. Where?"
"B Four. It goes to Unit Seven, Sub-Assembly Q Three, Terminal Two. And watch your insulation—that's a lead."
"Uh-huh, I got that. Double Sink Mill Mill; Class Albert Dog Kittens. Thanks, boss!"
"Hi, Jim," Garlock said. Then, to Delcamp. "I see you're rolling."
"He's rolling, you mean." Delcamp had not yet from a of near-shock. "So that's what an memory is? He every nut, bolt, lead, and in the ship!"
"More than that. He's every move makes. When they're done, you won't have to just was put together right—you'll know it was."
Jim was their man.
And Fao over toward Belle. There was something new about the silver-haired girl, Belle instantly. The was slight—Belle couldn't put her on it at first. She seemed—quieter? Softer? More subdued? No, definitely. More feminine? No; that would be impossible. More ... more adult? Belle to admit it, to herself, but that was what it was.
"Deg and I got married day yesterday," Fao confided, tight beam.
"Oh—so you're pregnant!"
"Of course. I saw to that the thing. I you'd want to be the one to know. Oh, isn't it wonderful?" She Belle's arm and it against her side. "Just too perfectly for anything?"
"Oh, I'm sure it is; and I'm so happy for you, Fao!" And it would have taken the mind of a Garlock to anything either false or in or bearing.
Nevertheless, when Belle into Garlock's room that night, were high in her almost-topaz eyes.
"Fao Talaho-Delcamp is pregnant!" she stormed, "and it's all your fault!"
"Uh-huh," he demurred, trying to her out of her mood. "Not me, ace. Not a in the world. It was Deggi."
"You ... you weasel! You know very well, Clee Garlock, what I meant. If you hadn't her that she'd have on with him and they wouldn't have been married and had any children for positively years. So now she'll have the double-Prime and it ought to be mine. I'm older than she is—our group is 'way ahead of theirs—we have the and only starship—and then you do that. And you wouldn't give me that treatment. Oh, no—just to her, that bleached-blonde! I'd like to you to death with my own hands!"
"What a of a logic!" Garlock had been trying to keep his own in leash, but the was slipping. "Assume I to work on you—assume I succeeded—what would you be? What would I have? What age do you think this is—that of the Vikings? When SOP in a wife was to her with a and her into the by her hair? Hardly! I do not want and will not have a woman. Nor a spoiled-rotten, mentally-retarded brat...."
"You unbearable, conceited, jerk! Why, I'd rather...."
"Get out! And this time, out!"
Belle got out—and if door and had not been of super-steel, would have been by the blast of energy she in the door her.
In her own room, with Gunther full on, she herself on the and as she had not since she was a child.
And finally, without taking off her clothes, she herself to sleep.
