Fang shook his head. "I'm seeing it through. I finish what I start."
"Let me know what you decide."
When Thor had gone, Cole peered at the group from Minneapolis. Oliver held out a hand. "I'll vouch for them, Ron. You trust my judgment, don't you?"
Cole sucked in his lips and nodded.
"Harry delivered the message?"
"Oh, yes. It's time to move on and see what free men can do."
Silence lengthened. Faintly from the kitchen came song:
"Nader's Raiders want my freedom, OSHA wants my
scalp and hair,
If I'm wanted in Wisconsin, be damned sure I
won't be there!
If the E-P-A still wants me, I'll avoid them if I
can.
They're burning down the cities, so I'll be a
wanted fan."
It twitched nerves. Oliver said, "Whatever happened to escapist literature? Ron, tell us about Phoenix!"
"Phoenix. A fire in the sky," Ron Cole said. "It flew once, you know. I was there. Gary was sure it could circle the Earth. They wouldn't let it fly all the way, though. They kept her chained. Not everyone wanted her chained, though." His voice had become nearly normal, and Oliver leaned back, more relaxed now.
"It was politics. NASA and the military," Cole said. "The cost per pound of payload to low earth orbit was five to ten kilobucks. Those were the official numbers. The real cost-well! NASA got five billion a year and they were lucky to get a launch every two months. If Gary could fly to orbit for a few million dollars instead of billions, NASA would look ridiculous."
"I remember," Alex said.
"But the Air Force was going to build it, part of the strategic defense system, but then the Russians gave up their empire, and the Air Force wasn't worried anymore that someone would seize the high ground on them. So they killed the program, but they hate to throw anything away. Pack rats, they are. So they decommissioned her and set her up on a public part of Edwards, so technically they still have some jurisdiction."
Alex leaned forward. "How did they decommission her?"
Cole chuckled. "They unplugged her. Heh, heh."
Bruce frowned. "What does that mean?"
Cole looked uncertain. "You're sure I can--"
"You can tell us," Oliver assured him.
"They took her ROMs." Cole perked his head up and beamed at them.
Steve cocked his head. "They took her ROMs?"
"It means," said Alex, "that they pulled all the computer chips with the flight programming and internal controls. Engines, life support. Everything that made the bird alive."
Sherrine sat up straight. "Programming? Why, we should be able to replace that! Bob and Gary can work out the physics. And Tom Marshall and I can do the coding."
Alex smiled thinly. "About 200,000 lines of code, to judge by the birds I've flown? That's 100,000 lines apiece. At 100 lines a day, that would be three years' work."
"That's right," said Mike. "ROM wasn't built in a day."
Sherrine slumped. "Oh."
"Strike one," said Alex, holding up a finger. "Is there anything else, Dr. Cole?"
"There's the IMU, of course. They took that out. Couldn't leave that in."
"What's an IMU?" asked Fang.
"It's an inertial platform," Bob explained. "It would be about so big… His hands cut a figure in the air. "Maybe a little bigger than a shoebox."
"I don't suppose you have one on you?" Alex asked Cole.
Cole looked at his hands, as if he expected to find an IMU there. "No. That I don't have."
"Strike two." Alex held up a second finger.
"And of course," Cole continued, "there's no fuel."
"Strike three, and we're out." He turned to Gordon. "All I asked for was a chance. But there's no chance here."
Cole blinked rapidly. "Oh, but none of those are insuperable obstacles. No, indeed. Not insuperable, at all."
Oliver Brown nodded slowly. "You don't have the IMU. What is it you have, Ron?"
Cole looked sly. "Well--"
"ROMs. He gave you a copy. For safekeeping," Oliver insisted.
"Yes, yes, you know us both, of course you know that. Yes. I have them, back at the museum. Wrapped in foil. I have them, safe, safe. We thought we thought once I would go with Gary, but not now, not now. Now I would be a burden."
"Unstrike," Mike Glider said. He held up three fingers, and folded one down. "Now what about the--IMU?"
"Oh, we know where that is. They put it in a safe place." Cole nodded happily.
They waited while Cole continued to nod. A pained look crossed Oliver's face. "Where is it, Ron?"
Cole became suddenly wary. "A very safe place." His eyes slid left and right and he leaned forward and whispered. "It's in the military security area at Edwards AFB."
"Military security area. A safe?" Oliver asked.
"Something like that," Bob said. "We've got security containers at the University. Surplus--"
"That sounds simple enough," said Fang. "Just straightforward B amp;E and a little burglary. Harry!" he called.
Harry stuck his head in from the kitchen. "Yo."
"You know those things at Bob's university?"
"Look like file cabinets with a big combination lock," Needleton said.
"Sure," Harry said.
"Can you open one?"
"Take about half an hour if you don't mind noise.
Couple of hours if any body's listening."
Mike Glider folded down another finger. Two." "And the fuel?" Alex demanded. "Where are we going to find a half million pounds of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen?"
They quieted down. Sherrine seemed crestfallen. Bob and Oliver, somber and thoughtful. Steve, folded into a lotus on the floor, vibrated with nervous energy. "Shit," said Fang. "That's a stopper all right."
Cole looked puzzled. "But that's the easy part," he said. "You make the fuel."
Alex strained to hear Cole through the resulting babble. The man kept talking in the same low tone of voice despite the noise around him. Finally Bruce put two fingers in his mouth and whistled.
".. hydrogenation of fats; and of course, there's the TV industry."
Silence.
"Would you mind, repeating that, Ron?" said Oliver. "We didn't get it all."
Cole squeezed up his face. "I was simply explaining why, in spite of government craziness and propaganda, there are still plants making hydrogen. The Greens may not like industry, especially the chemical industry; but hydrogen is politically correct. When you burn it, the ash is water vapor. There are things that they want to have--that they need to have. Like television. You can't make television sets without hydrogen."
"Heating, too," Oliver said. "We have hydrogen pipes in this building. It's not very pure, but it's hydrogen."
All true, Alex thought. And the more Cole talked, the saner he became, probably because in talking science he was orbiting in his home module…
"Yes, indeed," Cole said. "All you need is methane and electricity. And steam. Methane-CH4-is everywhere. Natural gas. Swamp gas. You get some when you crack petroleum or pyrolysize coal. And cow farts."
Mike's jaw dropped. "You're going to make rocket fuel from cow farts?"
"No, of course not. I only meant… methane is common. There is hydrogen in the pipelines. There will be a pipe to Phoenix."
"Wait a minute, " Alex said. "A hydrogen pipe? Liquid hydrogen?"
"No, no," Cole said. "Just hydrogen. But you compress it, and it will liquify. It is not that difficult."
"And the oxygen? LOX?"
Cole shrugged. "Liquify air, and boil off everything else. It is really very simple." He spread his hang smiled at them. "And there you have it."
In spreading his hands, Cole revealed two bright glassy marbles. Go on pointed at them. "Shto eto?" he asked.
"Hmm? Oh, my family jewels. I made them. A long time ago--carbon-12 diamonds." Cole stared at them morosely. "It was my idea, but the big companies took the idea away from me. They make good lasers, you know; but I kept these because they were beautiful."