Jake stared at the slip of paper in disbelief. “Sorry. Counting the zeros. Be easier if you just used scientific notation. Damn, you’re serious.”
“Quite. I suggest you knock off another quick copy of Dervish, and, at the same time, get started on the full-sized model. Pretty obvious you’re on the right track, and know what you’re doing.” She reached in her purse and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. “And here, a tube of silicone seal and some motorcycle cables, on me.”
I came around the table to oogle all the zeros on the check. “That’s a lot of money,” was the cleverest thing I could think of to say.
“That’s chump change in the rocket business,” she said. “Practically petty cash. You could blow up a hundred Dervishes and still qualify as a cheap project. I doubt you’ll blow up more than two or three more before you get it right. Don’t you realize that flight was 99 percent successful?”
Jake and I exchanged glances, then blinked as it suddenly dawned on us she was right.
“What’s your angle in this?” I asked.
“I broker launch services. Trouble is, I’m locked out of large segments of the market. The big boys run the show. I’m left picking over the scraps, spot-marketing little pieces of leftover launch capacity. I could make a mint if I had a reliable, cheap, low-lead-time launch service to market. This isn’t just my money, by the way. Several of my clients put up the bulk of it. Some of ’em are having to wait years to get their payloads up. At this point, paying you to develop a new system is just as quick, maybe quicker, than waiting in line, and the development costs are less than they’d have to pay for a single launch with anyone else.”
Jake broke out another bottle of apple fizz, and we toasted the rebirth of Dervish. Then, Clarissa announced she had business in Vancouver the following morning, and had to be on her way. We shook hands, and she left. As she pulled out of the driveway, Jake reached for his tool kit. I walked beside him as we headed for the barn.
“What ya think we should call this one, Tom?”
“The Phoenix?”
“Fee Nix? I don’t think so.” He patted the shirt pocket with the check. “How bout ‘Taz’?”
I nodded. “I like it. Easy to spell, too.”
Jake took a mock swipe at me. “I wonder if Warner Brothers will license the nose-art?”
All of the characters in this story are fictitious, including fake and Tom. Some have real-world counterparts. The author gratefully acknowledges the tremendous contributions of James Victor-Hugo Hill, whose correspondence over the past year has provided much of the technical detail, color, and even a bit of dialogue.