He learned that Perry had not yet been to Washington and invited him to come along. Perry explained somewhat diffidently that he was not entirely a free agent. However a call to Master Hedrick cleared that difficulty and Perry found himself headed for the Bay Rocket Port.
This was Perry's first trip by rocket. He spent the three hours as busy as a small boy with two ice cream cones. A transparent bulkhead separated the passengers' seats from the navigation compartment. Perry placed himself in the first row of seats and tried to figure out the technique of the controls. In place of a stick the principal controls seemed to be a double bank of keys arranged above and below a flange that projected from under the instrument board. Perry asked Cathcart the reason for this peculiar arrangement, but the historian admitted that he had taken it for granted. Cathcart rang for the stewardess and held a short conference with her. She looked dubious but entered the navigation room, and got the ear of one of the pilots, who glanced back through the bulkhead and met Perry's eyes. Then he said something to the stewardess, who nodded and re-entered the passenger compartment. She stopped by Cathcart and reported:
"The Skipper says your friend can ride in the inspector's seat if he's strapped in and keeps quiet during maneuvering."
Perry arose, his face radiant, thanked the young woman and turned to Cathcart. "Sure you don't mind?"
"Not at all. I'd like to catch a nap."
The stewardess let him into the navigation room, and strapped him into a chair just behind and about ten inches higher than the pilot's and navigator's seats. The skipper gave him a curt nod and turned away. Perry followed his glance, saw the field lights turn red, then a light ahead showed green in double flashes. The skipper reached out and pinched a pair of control buttons between thumb and forefinger. A buzzer sounded and a transparency flashed, 'PASENJERS STRAP IN'. Perry felt his own safety belt. The pilot pinched another pair of buttons, then several more in rapid succession. Perry felt heavy and a cloud of white smoke blotted out the view ports. It cleared away almost immediately, and the ground appeared far below. San Francisco vanished beneath them. The pilot's hands moved nervously among the controls. Perry watched the numbers click past on the altigraph, two thousand—three—five—nine—thirteen—up and up. At twenty thousand meters the pilot leveled off and accelerated, faster and faster, until seventeen hundred kilometers per hour was reached. The light in the car had taken on an unreal quality, like the glares and sharp shadows of a welder's arc. Outside the sky was a deep purple and stars shown clearly and without twinkling. Just ahead he saw the sickle of Leo beginning to rise. He twisted around in his seat and attempted to see the sun, but it was obscured by the stern of the ship. He was forced to content himself with imagining what the solar prominences and spots might be like. He recalled the warning printed on his ticket: 'DANJER! OBTAN DARK GLASES FROM STUARDES BEFORE VUING SON' and he had neglected to obtain dark glasses from the stewardess. Below the ground flowed past in plastic miniature, each detail sharp. It looked remarkably like the illuminated strip map that unrolled on the instrument board. A glowing red dot floated on the surface of the map. Perry recognized this as a dead reckoner of some sort and wondered how the trick was done. Air speed? Hardly. Earth induction? Possible but difficult, especially in latitude made good. Radio? More likely, but still a clever trick.
When the pilot was satisfied with his combination, Perry ventured to speak. "Excuse me." The pilot glanced back and his grimness relaxed a trifle.
"Oh, it's you. I'd forgotten you were here. Want something?"
"Just one thing. Why are all your controls double?"
"As a matter of fact they are quadruple, in parallel-series around each pilot's chair. I suppose you mean why the pinch-buttons."
"Yes, why not ordinary push buttons?"
"Each side is an ordinary push button, but you have to pinch a pair with thumb and forefinger to cause any action. Look." He ran his finger along the key board, pressing a dozen or more keys. Nothing happened. "It's a safety device against freezing on the keyboard at high acceleration. I could pass out and fall face down on the keyboard and never set off a jet. My partner could then land by squeezing the keys on his board. For example, if we had ordinary push buttons and I pressed the combination for maximum breaking, I'd be pushed hard upon the board by my own momentum, and I might not be able to release the controls. With this system I have to will to pinch or nothing happens."
"Thanks. Say, how long does it take to learn to be a rocket pilot?"
The pilot looked at him curiously but answered his question. "If you are temperamentally fitted, three months should do. There is always more to learn."
The stewardess stuck in her head. "Ready for your tea, Skipper? And you, Jack?" The navigator gave a taciturn nod. The skipper assented, and said to Perry, "I think you'd better have your tea in the passenger compartment."
Perry unstrapped himself and returned to Cathcart, who nodded greeting. "See what you wanted to?"
"Yes, and was dismissed most diplomatically."
Sandwiches, tea, and little cakes brought on sleep. Perry was awakened by the deceleration warning as they circled over Washington. Perry stared out. Here was a place which time had not changed beyond recognition. The Potomac and the tidal basin were below. There stood the Washington Monument and Lincoln still stared into the reflecting pool. The White House still sprawled among the budding trees, serene and cool. And on Capitol Hill the ponderous Greco-Roman majesty of the Capitol still stood, far-flung, solid, and enduring. He choked and sudden tears came to his eyes.
The visit to Washington was amusing but without special incident. The constitutional changes were not apparent on the surface. The city was changed in many details, but the landmarks remained. The streets were unroofed, and, in the absence of surface traffic, constituted popular promenades and lounging places. Perry wandered about them and visited the museums and art galleries. He spent one afternoon in the gallery of the House listening without much interest to the debate Cathcart had come to hear. The president had directed the building of a fleet of fast, unarmed, long-radii patrol vessels, both air and surface, to maintain a constant patrol from the Aleutians through Hawaii and down to Ecuador, and ear-marked a portion of the dividend for that purpose. The President's plan was practically unopposed, but one group wished to enlarge it with a new issue of money to provide more heavy armored short radii rockets for coast defense. The debate dragged on and a compromise seemed likely. As Perry was no longer in the navy this didn't interest him much, especially as the type of armament proposed was obviously unsuited for foreign war. He concluded that the American people were both determined not to fight and determined to let the whole world know that they were prepared to resist invasion.
That night at dinner at the New Mayflower, Cathcart asked him what impressed him most about the Capitol. Perry replied that it was the Congressmen, and explained that they appeared to be a much more able body of men than was commonly reputed to be the case in 1939. Cathcart nodded.
"That was probably the case," he said. "If you got good elective officials in your day, it was a happy accident, better than you deserved."
"To what do you attribute the change?" asked Perry.
"To a number of things. To my mind there is no single answer. The problem involved is the very heart of the political problem and has been plaguing philosophers for thousands of years. Plato and Confucius each took a crack at it and each missed it by a mile. Aesop stated it sardonically in the fable of the convention of the mice, when he inquired gently, 'Who is to bell the cat?'. The present improvement over your period can, I think, be attributed to correcting a number of things which were obviously wrong without worrying too much about theory. In the first place all of our elective officials are well paid nowadays and most of them have full retirement. In the second place, every official makes a full statement of his personal finances on taking office, annually, and again on leaving office. In the third place, public service has gradually been built up as a career of honor, like the military and naval services in your day. A scholarship to the School of Social Science is as sought after as an appointment to West Point was in 1939. Most of our undersecretaries and executives of every sort are graduates. They are recruited for they have the same reputation for efficiency and incorruptability that your West Pointers and Annapolis men have always had.