"O.K., troops," Ardmore smilingly agreed, with the lightheartedness that comes from the prospect of plenty of hard work, "that's the way I like to hear you talk. The powwow is adjourned for now. Get going! Thomas, come with me."
"Just a second, Chief," Brooks added as he got up to follow him, "couldn't we --" They went out the door, still talking.
Despite Scheer's optimism the task of building a temple on the mountain top above the Citadel developed unexpected headaches. None of the little band had had any real experience with large construction jobs. Ardmore, Graham, and Thomas knew nothing at all of such things, although Thomas had done plenty of work with his hands, some of it carpentry. Calhoun was a mathematician and by temperament undisposed to trouble himself with such menial pursuits in any case. Brooks was willing enough but he was a biologist, not an engineer. Wilkie was a brilliant physicist and, along lines related to his specialty, a competent engineer; he could design a piece of new apparatus necessary to his work quite handily.
However, Wilkie had built no bridges, designed no dams, bossed no gangs of sweating men. Nevertheless the job devolved on him by Hobson's choice. Scheer was not competent to build a large building; he thought that he was, but he thought in terms of small things, tools, patterns, and other items that fitted into a machine shop. He could build a scale model of a large building, but he simply did not understand heavy construction.
It was up to Wilkie.
He showed up in Ardmore's office a few days later with a roll of drawings under his arm. "Uh, Chief?"
"Eh? Oh, come in, Bob. Sit down. What's eating on you? When do we start building the temple? See here -- I've been thinking about other ways to conceal the fact that the Citadel will be under the temple. Do you suppose you could arrange the altar so that --"
"Excuse me, Chief."
"Eh?
"We can incorporate most any dodge you want into the design, but I've got to know something more about the design first."
"That's your problem -- yours and Graham's."
"Yes, sir. But how big do you want it to be?"
"How big? Oh, I don't know, exactly. It has to be big." Ardmore made a sweeping motion with both hands that took in floor, walls, and ceiling. "It has to be impressive."
"How about thirty feet in the largest dimension?"
"Thirty feet? Why, that's ridiculous! You aren't building a soft-drinks stand; you're building the mother temple of a great religion -- of course you aren't, but you've got to think of it that way. It's got to knock their eyes out. What's the trouble? Materials?"
Wilkie shook his head. "No, with Ledbetter-type transmutation materials are not a problem. We can use the mountain itself for materials."
"That's what I thought you intended to do. Carve out big chunks of granite and use your tractor and pressor beams to lay them up like giant bricks."
"Oh, no!
"No? Why not?"
"Well, we could, but when we got through it wouldn't look like much -- and I don't know how we would roof it over. What I intended to do was to use the Ledbetter effect not just for cutting or quarrying, but to make -- transmute -- the materials I want. You see, granite is principally oxides of silicon. That complicates things a little because both elements are fairly near the lower end of the periodic table. Unless we go to a lot of trouble and get rid of a lot of excess energy -- a tremendous amount; darn near as much as the Memphis power pile develops -- as I say, unless we arrange to bleed off all that power, and right now I don't see just how we could do it, then --"
"Get to the point, man!"
"I was getting to the point, sir," Wilkie answered in hurt tones. "Transmutations from the top or the bottom of the periodic scale toward the middle give off power; contrariwise, they absorb energy. Way back in the middle of the last century they found out how to do the first sort; that's what atom bombs are based on. But to handle transmutations for building materials, you don't want to give off energy like an atom bomb or a power pile. It would be embarrassing."
"I should think so!"
"So I'll use the second sort, the energy-absorbing sort. As a matter of fact I'll balance them. Take magnesium for instance. It lies between silicon and oxygen. The binding energies involved --"
"Wilkie!"
"Yes, Sir?"
"Just assume that I never got through third grade. Now can you make the materials you need, or can't you?"
"Oh, yes, sir, I can make them."
"Then how can I be of help to you?"
"Well, sir, it's the matter of putting the roof on and the size. You say a thirty-foot over-all dimension is no good --"
"No good at all. Did you see the North American Exposition? Remember the General Atomics Exhibit?"
"I've seen pictures of it."
"I want something as gaudy and impressive as that, only bigger. Now why are you limited to thirty feet?"
"Well, sir, a panel six by thirty is the biggest I can squeeze out through the door, allowing for the turn in the passage."
"Take 'em up through the scout-car lift."
"I thought of that. It will take a panel thirteen feet wide, which is good, but the maximum length is then only twenty-seven feet. There's a corner to turn between the hangar and the lift."
"Hmm -- Look, can you weld with that magic gimmick? I thought you could build the temple in sections, down below here, then assemble it above ground?"
"That was the idea. Yes, I suppose we could weld walls as big as you want. But look, major, how big a building do you want?"
"As big as you can manage."
"But how big do you want?"
Ardmore told him. Wilkie whistled. "I suppose it's possible to give you walls that big, but I don't see any way to roof it over."
"Seems to me I've seen buildings with that much clear span."
"Yes, of course. You give me the services of construction engineers and architects and heavy industry to build the trusses needed to take that span and I'll build you as big a temple as you want. But Scheer and I can't do it alone, even with pressors and tractors to do all the heavy work. I'm sorry, sir, but I don't see an answer."
Ardmore stood up and put a hand on Wilkie's arm. "You mean you don't see an answer yet. Don't get upset, Bob. I'll take whatever you build. But just remember -- This is going to be our first public display. A lot depends on it. We can't expect to make much impression on our overlords with a hotdog stand. Make it as big as you can. I'd like something about as impressive as the Great Pyramid -- but don't take that long to build it."
Wilkie looked worried. "I'll try, sir. I'll go back and think about it."
"Fine!"
When Wilkie had gone Ardmore turned to Thomas. "What do you think about it, Jeff? Am I asking too much?"
"I was just wondering," Thomas said slowly, "why. you set so much store by this temple?"
"Well, in the first place it gives a perfect cover up for the Citadel. If we are going to do anything more than sit here and die of old age, the time will come when a lot of people will have to be going in and out of here. We can't keep the location secret under those circumstances so we will have to have a reason, a cover up. People are always going in and out of a church building -- worship and so forth. I want to cover up the 'and so forth.' "
"I understand that. But a building with thirty-foot maximum dimensions can cover up a secret stairway quite as well as the sort of convention-hall job you are asking young Wilkie to throw up."
Ardmore squirmed. Damn it -- couldn't anyone but himself see the value of advertising? "Look, Jeff, this whole deal depends on making the right impression at the start. If Columbus had come in asking for a dime, he would have been thrown out of the palace on his ear. As it was, he got the crown jewels. We've got to have an impressive front."