So, San Francisco—and besides, Senator Gallagher was there. Still in the hospital, but now recovering. She’d live all right, my gal whom I’d never met. She’d live and be completely well in a few months, just a matter of time. Just a matter of time to Jupiter, the next outward step. Just a matter of time, and time running out.
Oh, I accomplished something that January. I got an idea that slightly cut down the weight of a gyro-stabilizer. I got a thousand-dollar bonus for it and it would save the terrestrial rocket lines quite a few thousand a year. That wasn’t important, though; the important thing was that the improvement could be and would be used on the interplanetaries too. A tiny saving in mass-ratio, an inch closer to the stars. That’s what mattered. Rory and Bess and I spent a hundred of my thousand bonus on a spree.
The good news, the big news, came a few weeks later, in February. A letter from Senator Gallagher, at last. I was moving around a bit, hadn’t yet found quarters I really liked, so I was getting my mail at the Bursteders’, and Bess called me at work one day to tell me the letter had come. Of course I told her to tear it open and read it quick. Pause for tearing envelope, unfolding letter.
«Dear Mr. Andrews,» Bess read: «At long last I am allowed to dictate answers to some of the letters I have received, and yours is of course among the first.
«Yes Ricky Shearer told me it was you who supplied the bombshell that won me the election and I am deeply aware of my indebtedness to you. His telling me was, as it happened, one of the last acts of his life; we were sitting together in the stratojet and he told me just as we were coming in for the landing at Angel.
«It is not yet certain, although the doctors are hopeful, whether or not I shall take my place in the current session of Congress, which will probably adjourn in May this year, but I shall certainly be completely recovered by midsummer and more than ready for the nineteen ninety-nine session starting next January.
«Meanwhile, and long before then, I hope to meet you and to be able to discuss the Jupiter project with you. Yes, I know your interest is in the project and not in me personally, and I shall do my best to push that project and, if at all possible, to give you an active part in it if the appropriation is approved. I know that is what you want and I know that it is the only adequate way I can thank you for what you did for me in the election campaign.
«I shall write you again, probably in about a month. By that time I shall be able to have visitors and hope you will be able to call on me.»
«Wonderful,» I told Bess.
And wonderful I meant. I was still in. Dear Richard Shearers, Ricky, had come through. He’d lived long enough to tell the Gallagher the truth about that ledger. Dear Ricky, I loved him. I loved everybody. I was still in.
And the rockets still went out and I worked on them. Up they went, even though down they came, down at other cities two thousand miles or more away. That’s the minimum distance it’s worth while sending a local rocket. You can’t take off and land one in much less than that. And if you could, the time saving over a stratojet plane wouldn’t be great enough to matter much.
Even on short hauls like New York and Mexico City the saving in time is only a few hours. Let’s face it that there’s no great saving in time on runs shorter than, say, the Paris ran. That takes eighteen hours by stratojet, with the two refueling stops it has to make, and less than four hours by rocket. Fourteen hours is worth saving, but even so only the rich can afford to save it because the rocket fare is more than ten times as much. Thank God for the rich. Thank God for the rich because they keep the local rockets going. And it’s important that they be kept going because the interplanetaries, the ones that really matter, benefit by every small technical improvement that the operators of the locals make, and there have been thousands of such improvements. Not big ones, mostly, but each one of them counts because it will add however slightly to the pay load an interplanetary job can carry. Or cut the time of its journey by a few minutes or increase its safety factor by a fraction of a percent. Not to mention that the locals give jobs to rocket mechs who because of age or some other silly technicality can’t work on the government jobs. All the puddle-jumper operators care about is whether you’re technically qualified and physically able to do the work.
Yes, thank God for the rich.
Senator Gallagher didn’t write a second time. She phoned instead, one evening in late March. She still had Rory’s address for me and called there; luckily I was spending the evening with them so the call didn’t have to be relayed.
Bess answered the phone. «For you, Max,» she told me. «A strange woman. Maybe it’s—»
And it was.
«Mr. Andrews? This is Ellen Gallagher. I’m home now and feeling much better. I’m allowed visitors, with half an hour time limit. Would it be convenient for you to call soon?»
«Any time,» I told her. «Right now, for that matter—or wait, you say you’re home again. Does that mean you’re calling from Los Angeles?»
«No, I’m still in San Francisco. By ‘home’ I mean an apartment I’ve taken here for a month or two so I can stay in close touch with the doctor who’s been treating me. It’s on Telegraph Hill.»
«If tonight’s okay, I can be there in half an hour.»
She laughed. It was a nice laugh; I was going to like her. Like her? Hell, I loved her already. She said, «You really are in a hurry, Mr. Andrews. And you sound and talk just as Ricky described you. But I really shouldn’t have company tonight. Are you free tomorrow? Could you come at about two in the afternoon?»
I told her I was free and would see her then—and of course I was free as soon as I explained to Rory and arranged with him to knock off work at noon. That would give me plenty of time after lunch to clean up, dress up and get there.
A private nurse let me into the apartment and took me to the room where Ellen Gallagher was sitting up in bed, waiting for me.
She looked pale but prettier than the pictures of her I’d seen; maybe that was because the only pictures I’d run across were black-and-white and her chestnut hair, almost red, was much more striking than it had photographed. She didn’t look forty-five, either; she could have passed for anywhere in the thirties. Her eyes were dark, wide apart. Her mouth, too, was wide and generous. On second thought, second look, she wasn’t pretty; I’d used the wrong word there. But she was attractive, and she was all woman.
«Not bad,» I said.
She laughed. «Thank you, Mr. Andrews.»
«Max to you, Ellen,» I said.
«All right, Max. Sit down and quit pacing like that. The rocket isn’t ready to take off yet.»
I hadn’t known I’d been pacing. I sat down. «When?» I asked.
«You know how long a government project takes.»
Yes, I knew that. I knew it would take at least a year to get started after the appropriation went through. Longer than that unless somebody behind it pushed and kept pushing. And, as a government job, at least two years to build a new type rocket. Private industry could do it in about half the time.
I asked, «What, honestly, do you think youi chances are of getting it through Congress?»
«Pretty good, Max. I can make it look good, get it good publicity, get statements from all the top scientists about the value to science of a close examination of Jupiter. Of course that’s window dressing. Actually, since it’s a comparatively small appropriation, I’ll put it through by horse trading.»
«Horse trading? How do you mean?»
She looked at me and shook her head wonderingly. «You really don’t know how Congress operates?»