CHAPTER TWO
Cochrane stood when the stewardess' voice authorized the action. Withsardonic docility he unfastened his safety-belt and stepped out into thespiral, descending aisle. It seemed strange to have weight again, evenas little as this. Cochrane weighed, on the moon, just one-sixth of whathe would weigh on Earth. Here he would tip a spring-scale at just abouttwenty-seven pounds. By flexing his toes, he could jump. Absurdly, hedid. And he rose very slowly, and hovered--feeling singularlyfoolish--and descended with a vast deliberation. He landed on the rampagain feeling absurd indeed. He saw Babs grinning at him.
"I think," said Cochrane, "I'll have to take up toe-dancing."
She laughed. Then there were clankings, and something fastened itselfoutside, and after a moment the entrance-door of the moonship opened.
They went down the ramp to board the moon-jeep, holding onto thehand-rail and helping each other. The tourist giggled foolishly. Theywent out the thick doorway and found themselves in an enclosure verymuch like the interior of a rather small submarine. But it did haveshielded windows--ports--and Babs instantly pulled herself into a seatbeside one and feasted her eyes. She saw the jagged peaks nearby and thecrenelated ring-mountain wall, miles off to one side, and the smoothfrozen lava of the "sea." Across that dusty surface the horizon wasremarkably near, and Cochrane remembered vaguely that the moon was onlyone-fourth the size of Earth, so its horizon would naturally be nearer.He glanced at the stars that shone even through the glass that denaturedthe sunshine. And then he looked for Holden.
The psychiatrist looked puffy and sleepy and haggard and disheveled.When a person does have space-sickness, even a little weight relievesthe symptoms, but the consequences last for days.
"Don't worry!" he said sourly when he saw Cochrane's eyes upon him. "Iwon't waste any time! I'll find my man and get to work at once. Just letme get back to Earth...."
There were more clankings--the jeep-bus sealing off from the rocket.Then the vehicle stirred. The landscape outside began to move.
They saw Lunar City as they approached it. It was five giant dust-heaps,from five hundred-odd feet in height down to three. There were airlocksat their bases and dust-covered tunnels connecting them, and radar-bowlsabout their sides. But they were dust-heaps. Which was completelyreasonable. There is no air on the moon. By day the sun shines down withabsolute ferocity. It heats everything as with a furnace-flame. At nightall heat radiates away to empty space, and the ground-temperature dropswell below that of liquid air. So Lunar City was a group of domes whichwere essentially half-balloons--hemispheres of plastic brought fromEarth and inflated and covered with dust. With airlocks to permitentrance and exit, they were inhabitable. They needed no framework tosupport them because there were no stormwinds or earthquakes to putstresses on them. They needed neither heating nor cooling equipment.They were buried under forty feet of moon-dust, with vacuum between thedust-grains. Lunar City was not beautiful, but human beings could livein it.
The jeep-bus carried them a bare half mile, and they alighted inside alock, and another door and another opened and closed, and they emergedinto a scene which no amount of television film-tape could reallyportray.
The main dome was a thousand feet across and half as high. There weregreen plants growing in tubs and pots. And the air was fresh! It smelledstrange. There could be no vegetation on the rocket and it seemed newand blissful to breathe really freshened air after days of the cannedvariety. But this freshness made Cochrane realize that he'd feel betterfor a bath.
He took a shower in his hotel room. The room was very much like one onEarth, except that it had no windows. But the shower was strange. Thesprays were tiny. Cochrane felt as if he were being sprayed by atomizersrather than shower-nozzles until he noticed that water ran off him veryslowly and realized that a normal shower would have been overwhelming.He scooped up a handful of water and let it drop. It took a full secondto fall two and a half feet.
It was unsettling, but fresh clothing from his waiting baggage made himfeel better. He went to the lounge of the hotel, and it was not alounge, and the hotel was not a hotel. Everything in the dome wasindoors in the sense that it was under a globular ceiling fifty storieshigh. But everything was also out-doors in the sense of bright light andgrowing trees and bushes and shrubs.
He found Babs freshly garmented and waiting for him. She said inbusinesslike tones:
"Mr. Cochrane, I asked at the desk. Doctor Holden has gone to consultMr. Dabney. He asked that we stay within call. I've sent word to Mr.West and Mr. Jamison and Mr. Bell."
Cochrane approved of her secretarial efficiency.
"Then we'll sit somewhere and wait. Since this isn't an office, we'llfind some refreshment."
They asked for a table and got one near the swimming pool. And Babs woreher office manner, all crispness and business, until they were seated.But this swimming pool was not like a pool on Earth. The water wasdeeply sunk beneath the pool's rim, and great waves surged back andforth. The swimmers--.
Babs gasped. A man stood on a board quite thirty feet above the water.He prepared to dive.
"That's Johnny Simms!" she said, awed.
"Who's he?"
"The playboy," said Babs, staring. "He's a psychopathic personality andhis family has millions. They keep him up here out of trouble. He'smarried."
"Too bad--if he has millions," said Cochrane.
"I wouldn't marry a man with a psychopathic personality!" protestedBabs.
"Keep away from people in the advertising business, then," Cochrane toldher.
Johnny Simms did not jounce up and down on the diving board to start. Hesimply leaped upward, and went ceilingward for easily fifteen feet, andhung stationary for a full breath, and then began to descend in literalslow motion. He fell only two and a half feet the first second, and fivefeet more the one after, and twelve and a half after that.... It tookhim over four seconds to drop forty-five feet into the water, and thesplash that arose when he struck the surface rose four yards andsubsided with a lunatic deliberation.
Watching, Babs could not keep her businesslike demeanor. She wasbursting with the joyous knowledge that she was on the moon, seeing theimpossible and looking at fame.
They sipped at drinks--but the liquid rose much too swiftly in thestraws--and Cochrane reflected that the drink in Babs' glass would costDabney's father-in-law as much as Babs earned in a week back home, andhis own was costing no less.
Presently a written note came from Holden:
"_Jed: send West and Jamison right away to Dabney's lunar laboratory toget details of discovery from man named Jones. Get moon-jeep and driverfrom hotel. I will want you in an hour.--Bill._"
"I'll be back," said Cochrane. "Wait."
He left the table and found West and Jamison in Bell's room, all threein conference over a bottle. West and Jamison were Cochrane's scientificteam for the yet unformulated task he was to perform. West was thepopularizing specialist. He could make a television audience believethat it understood all the seven dimensions required for some branchesof wave-mechanics theory. His explanation did not stick, of course. Onedidn't remember them. But they were singularly convincing in culturalepisodes on television productions. Jamison was the prophecy expert. Hecould extrapolate anything into anything else, and make you believe thata one-week drop in the birthdate on Kamchatka was the beginning of atrend that would leave the Earth depopulated in exactly four hundred andseventy-three years. They were good men for a television producer tohave on call. Now, instructed, they went out to be briefed by somebodywho undoubtedly knew more than both of them put together, but whom theywould regard with tolerant suspicion.
Bell, left behind, said cagily:
"This script I've got to do, now--Will that laboratory be the set? Whereis it? In the dome?"
"It's not in the dome," Cochrane told him. "West and Jamison took amoon-jeep to get to it. I don't know what the set will be. I don't knowanything, yet. I'm waiting to be told about the job, myself."
"If I've got to
cook up a story-line," observed Bell, "I have to knowthe set. Who'll act? You know how amateurs can ham up any script! Howabout a part for Babs? Nice kid!"
Cochrane found himself annoyed, without knowing why.
"We just have to wait until we know what our job is," he said curtly,and turned to go.
Bell said:
"One more thing. If you're planning to use a news cameraman uphere--don't! I used to be a cameraman before I got crazy and started towrite. Let me do the camera-work. I've got a better idea of using acamera to tell a story now, than--"
"Hold it," said Cochrane. "We're not up here to film-tape a show. Ourjob is psychiatry--craziness."
To a self-respecting producer, a psychiatric production would seemcraziness. A script-writer might have trouble writing out apsychiatrist's prescription, or he might not. But producing it would beout of all rationality! No camera, the patient would be the star, andmost lines would be ad libbed. Cochrane viewed such a production withextreme distaste. But of course, if a man wanted only to be famous, itmight be handled as a straight public-relations job. In any case,though, it would amount to flattery in three dimensions and Cochranewould rather have no part in it. But he had to arrange the whole thing.
He went back to the table and rejoined Babs. She confided that she'dbeen talking to Johnny Simms' wife. She was nice! But homesick. Cochranesat down and thought morbid thoughts. Then he realized that he wasirritated because Babs didn't notice. He finished his drink and orderedanother.
Half an hour later, Holden found them. He had in tow a sad-lookingyoungish man with a remarkably narrow forehead and an expression of deepanxiety. Cochrane winced. A neurotic type if there ever was one!
"Jed," said Holden heartily, "here's Mr. Dabney. Mr. Dabney, JedCochrane is here as a specialist in public-relations set-ups. He'll takecharge of this affair. Your father-in-law sent him up here to see thatyou are done justice to!"
Dabney seemed to think earnestly before he spoke.
"It is not for myself," he explained in an anxious tone. "It is my work!That is important! After all, this is a fundamental scientificdiscovery! But nobody pays any attention! It is extremely important!Extremely! Science itself is held back by the lack of attention paid tomy discovery!"
"Which," Holden assured him, "is about to be changed. It's a matter ofpublic relations. Jed's a specialist. He'll take over."
The sad-faced young man held up his hand for attention. He thought.Visibly. Then he said worriedly:
"I would take you over to my laboratory, but I promised my wife I wouldcall her in half an hour from now. Johnny Simms' wife just reminded me.My wife is back on Earth. So you will have to go to the laboratorywithout me and have Mr. Jones show you the proof of my work. A veryintelligent man, Jones--in a subordinate way, of course. Yes. I will getyou a jeep and you can go there at once, and when you come back you cantell me what you plan. But you understand that it is not for myself thatI want credit! It is my discovery! It is terribly important! It isvital! It must not be overlooked!"
Holden escorted him away, while Cochrane carefully controlled hisfeatures. After a few moments Holden came back, his face sagging.
"This your drink, Jed?" he asked dispiritedly. "I need it!" He picked upthe glass and emptied it. "The history of that case would beinteresting, if one could really get to the bottom of it! Come along!"His tone was dreariness itself. "I've got a jeep waiting for us."
Babs stood up, her eyes shining.
"May I come, Mr. Cochrane?"
Cochrane waved her along. Holden tried to stalk gloomily, but nobody canstalk in one-sixth gravity. He reeled, and then depressedly accommodatedhimself to conditions on the moon.
There was an airlock with a smaller edition of the moon-jeep that hadbrought them from the ship to the city. It was a brightly-polished metalbody, raised some ten feet off the ground on outrageously large wheels.It was very similar to the straddle-trucks used in lumberyards on Earth.It would straddle boulders in its path. It could go anywhere in spite ofdust and detritus, and its metal body was air-tight and held air forbreathing, even out on the moon's surface.
They climbed in. There was the sound of pumping, which grew fainter. Theouter lock-door opened. The moon-jeep rolled outside.
Babs stared with passionate rapture out of a shielded port. There wereimpossibly jagged stones, preposterously steep cliffs. There had been noweather to remove the sharp edge of anything in a hundred million years.The awkward-seeming vehicle trundled over the lava sea toward therampart of mighty mountains towering over Lunar City. It reached a steepascent. It climbed. And the way was remarkably rough and the vehiclespringless, but it was nevertheless a cushioned ride. A bump cannot beharsh in light gravity. The vehicle rode as if on wings.
"All right," said Cochrane. "Tell me the worst. What's the trouble withhim? Is he the result of six generations of keeping the money in thefamily? Or is he a freak?"
Holden groaned a little.
"He's practically a stock model of a rich young man without brainsenough for a job in the family firm, and too much money for anythingelse. Fortunately for his family, he didn't react like JohnnySimms--though they're good friends. A hundred years ago, Dabney'd havegone in for the arts. But it's hard to fool yourself that way now. Fiftyyears ago he'd have gone in for left-wing sociology. But we really aredoing the best that can be done with too many people and not enoughworld. So he went in for science. It's non-competitive. Incapacitydoesn't show up. But he has stumbled on something. It sounds reallyimportant. It must have been an accident! The only trouble is that itdoesn't mean a thing! Yet because he's accomplished more than he everexpected to, he's frustrated because it's not appreciated! What a joke!"
Cochrane said cynically:
"You paint a dark picture, Bill. Are you trying to make this thing intoa challenge?"
"You can't make a man famous for discovering something that doesn'tmatter," said Holden hopelessly. "And this is that!"
"Nothing's impossible to public relations if you spend enough money,"Cochrane assured him. "What's this useless triumph of his?"
The jeep bounced over a small cliff and fell gently for half a secondand rolled on. Babs beamed.
"He's found," said Holden discouragedly, "a way to send messages fasterthan light. It's a detour around Einstein's stuff--not denying it, butevading it. Right now it takes not quite two seconds for a message to gofrom the moon to Earth. That's at the speed of light. Dabney hasproof--we'll see it--that he can cut that down some ninety-five percent. Only it can't be used for Earth-moon communication, because bothends have to be in a vacuum. It could be used to the space platform,but--what's the difference? It's a real discovery for which there's nopossible use. There's no place to send messages to!"
Cochrane's eyes grew bright and hard. There were some three thousandmillion suns in the immediate locality of Earth--and more only arelatively short distance way--and it had not mattered to anybody. Thesituation did not seem likely to change. But--The moon-jeep climbed andclimbed. It was a mile above the bay of the lava sea and the dust-heapsthat were a city. It looked like ten miles, because of the curve of thehorizon. The mountains all about looked like a madman's dream.
"But he wants appreciation!" said Holden angrily. "People on Earthalmost trampling on each other for lack of room, and people like metrying to keep them sane when they've every reason for despair--and hewants appreciation!"
Cochrane grinned. He whistled softly.
"Never underestimate a genius, Bill," he said kindly. "I refer modestlyto myself. In two weeks your patient--I'll guarantee it--will beacclaimed the hope, the blessing, the greatest man in all the history ofhumanity! It'll be phoney, of course, but we'll have MarilynWinters--Little Aphrodite herself--making passes at him in hopes of apublicity break! It's a natural!"
"How'll you do it?" demanded Holden.
The moon-jeep turned in its crazy, bumping progress. A flat area hadbeen blasted in rock which had been unchanged since the beginning oftime. Here there was a human structur
e. Typically, it was a dust-heapleaning against a cliff. There was an airlock and another jeep waitedoutside, and there were eccentric metal devices on the flat space,shielded from direct sunshine and with cables running to them from theairlock door.
"How?" repeated Cochrane. "I'll get the details here. Let's go! How dowe manage?"
It was a matter, he discovered, of vacuum-suits, and they were tricky toget into and felt horrible when one was in. Struggling, Cochrane thoughtto say:
"You can wait here in the jeep, Babs--"
But she was already climbing into a suit very much oversized for her,with the look of high excitement that Cochrane had forgotten anybodycould wear.
They got out of a tiny airlock that held just one person at a time. Theystarted for the laboratory. And suddenly Cochrane saw Babs staringupward through the dark, almost-opaque glass that a space-suit-helmetneeds in the moon's daytime if its occupant isn't to be fried bysunlight. Cochrane automatically glanced up too.
He saw Earth. It hung almost in mid-sky. It was huge. It was gigantic.It was colossal. It was four times the diameter of the moon as seen fromEarth, and it covered sixteen times as much of the sky. Its continentswere plain to see, and its seas, and the ice-caps at its poles gleamedwhitely, and over all of it there was a faintly bluish haze which waslike a glamour; a fey and eerie veiling which made Earth a sight to drawat one's heart-strings.
Behind it and all about it there was the background of space, so thicklyjeweled with stars that there seemed no room for another tiny gem.
Cochrane looked. He said nothing. Holden stumbled on to the airlock. Heremembered to hold the door open for Babs.
And then there was the interior of the laboratory. It was not whollyfamiliar even to Cochrane, who had used sets on the Dikkipatti Hour ofmost of the locations in which human dramas can unfold. This was aphysics laboratory, pure and simple. The air smelled of ozone andspilled acid and oil and food and tobacco-smoke and other items. Westand Jamison were already here, their space-suits removed. They satbefore beer at a table with innumerable diagrams scattered about. Therewas a deep-browed man rather impatiently turning to face his newvisitors.
Holden clumsily unfastened the face-plate of his helmet and gloomilyexplained his mission. He introduced Cochrane and Babs, verifying in theprocess that the dark man was the Jones he had come to see. A physicslaboratory high in the fastnesses of the Lunar Apennines is an odd placefor a psychiatrist to introduce himself on professional business. ButHolden only explained unhappily that Dabney had sent them to learn abouthis discovery and arrange for a public-relations job to make it known.
Cochrane saw Jones' expression flicker sarcastically just once duringHolden's explanation. Otherwise he was poker-faced.
"I was explaining the discovery to these two," he observed.
"Shoot it," said Cochrane to West. It was reasonable to ask West for anexplanation, because he would translate everything into televisableterms.
West said briskly--exactly as if before a television camera--that Mr.Dabney had started from the well-known fact that the properties of spaceare modified by energy fields. Magnetic and gravitational andelectrostatic fields rotate polarized light or bend light or do this orthat as the case may be. But all previous modifications of the constantsof space had been in essentially spherical fields. All previous fieldshad extended in all directions, increasing in intensity as the square ofthe distance ...
"Cut," said Cochrane.
West automatically abandoned his professional delivery. He placidlyre-addressed himself to his beer.
"How about it, Jones?" asked Cochrane. "Dabney's got a variation? Whatis it?"
"It's a field of force that doesn't spread out. You set up two platesand establish this field between them," said Jones curtly. "It'scircularly polarized and it doesn't expand. It's like a searchlight beamor a microwave beam, and it stays the same size like a pipe. In thatfield--or pipe--radiation travels faster than it does outside. Theproperties of space are changed between the plates. Therefore the speedof all radiation. That's all."
Cochrane meditatively seated himself. He approved of this Jones, whoseeyebrows practically met in the middle of his forehead. He was not morepolite than politeness required. He did not express employer-likerapture at the mention of his employer's name.
"But what can be done with it?" asked Cochrane practically.
"Nothing," said Jones succinctly. "It changes the properties of space,but that's all. Can you think of any use for a faster-than-lightradiation-pipe? I can't."
Cochrane cocked an eye at Jamison, who could extrapolate at the drop ofan equation. But Jamison shook his head.
"Communication between planets," he said morosely, "when we get to them.Chats between sweethearts on Earth and Pluto. Broadcasts to the starswhen we find that another one's set up a similar plate and is ready tochat with us. There's nothing else."
Cochrane waved his hand. It is good policy to put a specialist in hisplace, occasionally.
"Demonstration?" he asked Jones.
"There are plates across the crater out yonder," said Jones withoutemotion. "Twenty miles clear reach. I can send a message across and getit relayed twice and back through two angles in about five per cent ofthe time radiation ought to take."
Cochrane said with benign cynicism:
"Jamison, you work by guessing where you can go. Jones works by guessingwhere he is. But this is a public relations job. I don't know where weare or where we can go, but I know where we want to take this thing."
Jones looked at him. Not hostilely, but with the detached interest of aman accustomed to nearly exact science, when he watches somebody work inone of the least precise of them all.
Holden said:
"You mean you've worked out some sort of production."
"No production," said Cochrane blandly. "It isn't necessary. A straightpublic-relations set-up. We concoct a story and then let it leak out. Wemake it so good that even the people who don't believe it can't helpspreading it." He nodded at Jamison. "Right now, Jamison, we want atheory that the sending of radiation at twenty times the speed of lightmeans that there is a way to send matter faster than light--as soon aswe work it out. It means that the inertia-mass which increases withspeed--Einstein's stuff--is not a property of matter, but of space, justas the air-resistance that increases when an airplane goes faster is aproperty of air and not of the plane. Maybe we need to work out a theorythat all inertia is a property of space. We'll see if we need that. Butanyhow, just as a plane can go faster in thin air, so matter--anymatter--will move faster in this field as soon as we get the trick ofit. You see?"
Holden shook his head.
"What's that got in it to make Dabney famous?" he asked.
"Jamison will extrapolate from there," Cochrane assured him. "Go ahead,Jamison. You're on."
Jamison said promptly, with the hypnotic smoothness of the practicedprofessional:
"When this development has been completed, not only will messages besent at multiples of the speed of light, but matter! Ships! The barrierto the high destiny of mankind; the limitation of our race to a singleplanet of a minor sun--these handicaps crash and will shatter as thegreat minds of humanity bend their efforts to make the Dabneyfaster-than-light principle the operative principle of our ships. Thereare thousands of millions of suns in our galaxy, and not less than onein three has planets, and among these myriads of unknown worlds therewill be thousands with seas and land and clouds and continents, fit formen to enter upon, there to rear their cities. There will be starshipsroaming distant sun-clusters, and landing on planets in the Milky Way.We ourselves will see freight-lines to Rigel and Arcturus, and journeyon passenger-liners singing through the void to Andromeda and Aldebaran!Dabney has made the first breach in the barrier to the illimitablegreatness of humanity!"
Then he stopped and said professionally:
"I can polish that up a bit, of course. All right?"
"Fair," conceded Cochrane. He turned to Holden. "How about apublic-relations job
on that order? Won't that sort of publicity meetthe requirements? Will your patient be satisfied with that grade ofappreciation?"
Holden drew a deep breath. He said unsteadily:
"As a neurotic personality, he won't require that it be true. All he'llwant is the seeming. But--Jed, could it be really true? Could it?"
Cochrane laughed unpleasantly. He did not admire himself. His laughtershowed it.
"What do you want?" he demanded. "You got me a job I didn't want. Youshoved it down my throat! Now there's the way to get it done! What morecan you ask?"
Holden winced. Then he said heavily:
"I'd like for it to be true."
Jones moved suddenly. He said in an oddly surprised voice:
"D'you know, it can be! I didn't realize! It can be true! I can make aship go faster than light!"
Cochrane said with exquisite irony:
"Thanks, but we don't need it. We aren't getting paid for that! All weneed is a modicum of appreciation for a neurotic son-in-law of a partnerof Kursten, Kasten, Hopkins and Fallowe! A public-relations job is allthat's required. You give West the theory, and Jamison will do theprophecy, and Bell will write it out."
Jones said calmly:
"I will like hell! Look! I discovered this faster-than-light field inthe first place! I sold it to Dabney because he wanted to be famous! Igot my pay and he can keep it! But if he can't understand it himself,even to lecture about it ... Do you think I'm going to throw in someextra stuff I noticed, that I can fit into that theory but nobody elsecan--Do you think I'm going to give him starships as a bonus?"
Holden said, nodding, with his lips twisted:
"I should have figured that! He bought his great discovery from you, eh?And that's what he gets frustrated about!"
Cochrane snapped:
"I thought you psychiatrists knew the facts of life, Bill! Dabney's notunusual in my business! He's almost a typical sponsor!"
"When you ask me to throw away starships," said Jones coldly, "for apublicity feature, I don't play. I won't take the credit for the fieldaway from Dabney. I sold him that with my eyes open. But starships aremore important than a fool's hankering to be famous! He'd never try it!He'd be afraid it wouldn't work! I don't play!"
Holden said stridently:
"I don't give a damn about any deal you made with Dabney! But if you canget us to the stars--all us humans who need it--you've got to!"
Jones said, again calmly:
"I'm willing. Make me an offer--not cash, but a chance to do somethingreal--not just a trick for a neurotic's ego!"
Cochrane grinned at him very peculiarly.
"I like your approach. You've got illusions. They're nice things tohave. I wouldn't mind having some myself. Bill," he said to Dr. WilliamHolden, "how much nerve has Dabney?"
"Speaking unprofessionally," said Holden, "he's a worm with wants. Hehasn't anything but cravings. Why?"
Cochrane grinned again, his head cocked on one side.
"He wouldn't take part in an enterprise to reach the stars, would he?"When Holden shook his head, Cochrane said zestfully, "I'd guess that thepeak of his ambition would be to have the credit for it if it worked,but he wouldn't risk being associated with it until it had worked!Right?"
"Right," said Holden. "I said he was a worm. What're you driving at?"
"I'm outlining what you're twisting my arm to make me do," saidCochrane, "in case you haven't noticed. Bill, if Jones can really makea ship go faster than light--"
"I can," repeated Jones. "I simply didn't think of the thing inconnection with travel. I only thought of it for signalling."
"Then," said Cochrane, "I'm literally forced, for Dabney's sake, to dosomething that he'd scream shrilly at if he heard about it. We're goingto have a party, Bill! A party after your and my and Jones' hearts!"
"What do you mean?" demanded Holden.
"We make a production after all," said Cochrane, grinning. "We are goingto take Dabney's discovery--the one he bought publicity rights to--veryseriously indeed. I'm going to get him acclaim. First we break a storyof what Dabney's field means for the future of mankind--and then weprove it! We take a journey to the stars! Want to make your reservationsnow?"
"You mean," said West incredulously, "a genuine trip? Why?"
Cochrane snapped at him suddenly.
"Because I can't kid myself any more," he rasped. "I've found out howlittle I count in the world and the estimation of Kursten, Kasten,Hopkins and Fallowe! I've found out I'm only a little man when I thoughtI was a big one, and I won't take it! Now I've got an excuse to try tobe a big man! That's reason enough, isn't it?"
Then he glared around the small laboratory under the dust-heap. He wasirritated because he did not feel splendid emotions after making aresolution and a plan which ought to go down in history--if it worked.He wasn't uplifted. He wasn't aware of any particular feeling of beingthe instrument of destiny or anything else. He simply felt peevish andannoyed and obstinate about trying the impossible trick.
It annoyed him additionally, perhaps, to see the expression ofstarry-eyed admiration on Babs' face as she looked at him across theuntidy laboratory table, cluttered up with beer-cans.