"Sit down, Mr. Harriman. I'm always confused when a man explains how he is going to do me good. Suppose you tell me instead how this is going to do you good? Then we can discuss how to protect the world market against a sudden influx of diamonds from the Moon."
Harriman sat down.
Harriman liked the Low Countries. He was delighted to locate a dog-drawn milk cart whose young master wore real wooden shoes; he happily took pictures and tipped the child heavily, unaware that the set-up was arranged for tourists. He visited several other diamond merchants but without speaking of the Moon. Among other purchases he found a brooch for Charlotte- a peace offering.
Then he took a taxi to London, planted a story with the representatives of the diamond syndicate there, arranged with his London solicitors to be insured by Lloyd's of London through a dummy, against a successful Moon flight, and called his home office. He listened to numerous reports, especially those concerning Montgomery, and found that Montgomery was in New Delhi. He called him there, spoke with him at length, then hurried to the port just in time to catch his ship. He was in Colorado the next morning.
At Peterson Field, east of Colorado Springs, he had trouble getting through the gate, even though it was now his domain, under lease. Of course he could have called Coster and gotten it straightened out at once, but he wanted to look around before seeing Coster. Fortunately the head guard knew him by sight; he got in and wandered around for an hour or more, a tn-colored badge pinned to his coat to give him freedom.
The machine shop was moderately busy, so was the foundry... but most of the shops were almost deserted. Harriman left the shops, went into the main engineering building. The drafting room and the loft were fairly active, as was the computation section. But there were unoccupied desks in the structures group and a churchlike quiet in the metals group and in the adjoining metallurgical laboratory. He was about to cross over into the chemicals and materials annex when Coster suddenly showed up.
"Mr. Harriman! I just heard you were here."
"Spies everywhere," remarked Harriman. "I didn't want to disturb you."
"Not at all. Let's go up to my office."
Settled there a few moments later Harriman asked, "Well-how's it going?"
Coster frowned. "All right, I guess."
Harriman noted that the engineer's desk baskets were piled high with papers which spilled over onto the desk. Before Harriman could answer, Coster's desk phone lit up and a feminine voice said sweetly, "Mr. Coster- Mr. Morgenstern is calling."
"Tell him I'm busy."
After a short wait the girl answered in a troubled voice, "He says he's just got to speak to you, sir."
Coster looked annoyed. "Excuse me a moment, Mr. Harriman-O.K., put him on."
The girl was replaced by a man who said, "Oh there you are-what was the hold up? Look, Chief, we're in a jam about these trucks. Every one of them that we leased needs an overhaul and now it turns out that the White Fleet company won't do anything about it-they're sticking to the fine print in the contract. Now the way I see it, we'd do better to cancel the contract and do business with Peak City Transport. They have a scheme that looks good to me. They guarantee to-"
"Take care of it," snapped Coster. "You made the contract and you have authority to cancel. You know that."
"Yes, but Chief, I figured this would be something you would want to pass on personally. It involves policy and-"
"Take care of it! I don't give a damn what you do as long as we have transportation when we need it." He switched off.
"Who is that man?" inquired Harriman.
"Who? Oh, that's Morgenstern, Claude Morgenstem."
"Not his name-what does he do?"
"He's one of my assistants-buildings, grounds, and transportation."
"Fire him!"
Coster looked stubborn. Before he could answer a secretary came in and stood insistently at his elbow with a sheaf of papers. He frowned, initialed them, and sent her out.
"Oh, I don't mean that as an order," Harriman added, "but I do mean it as serious advice. I won't give orders in your backyard,-but will you listen to a few minutes of advice?"
"Naturally," Coster agreed stiffly.
"Mmm... this your first job as top boss?"
Coster hesitated, then admitted it.
"I hired you on Ferguson's belief that you were the engineer most likely to build a successful Moon ship. I've had no reason to change my mind. But top administration ain't engineering, and maybe I can show you a few tricks there, if you'll let me." He waited. "I'm not criticizing," he added. "Top bossing is like sex; until you've had it, you don't know about it." Harriman had the mental reservation that if the boy would not take advice, he would suddenly be out of a job, whether Ferguson liked it or not.
Coster drummed on his desk. "I don't know what's wrong and that's a fact. It seems as if I can't turn anything over to anybody and have it done properly. I feel as if I were swimming in quicksand."
"Done much engineering lately?"
"I try to." Coster waved at another desk in the corner. "I work there, late at night."
"That's no good. I hired you as an engineer. Bob, this setup is all wrong. The joint ought to be jumping-and it's not. Your office ought to be quiet as a grave. Instead your office is jumping and the plant looks like a graveyard."
Coster buried his face in his hands, then looked up. "I know it. I know what needs to be done-but every time I try to tackle a technical problem some bloody fool wants me to make a decision about trucks-or telephones-or some damn thing. I'm sorry, Mr. Harriman. I thought I could do it." Harriman said very gently, "Don't let it throw you, Bob. You haven't had much sleep lately, have you? Tell you what-we'll put over a fast one on Ferguson. I'll take that desk you're at for a few days and build you a set-up to protect you against such things. I want that brain of yours thinking about reaction vectors and fuel efficiencies and design stresses, not about contracts for trucks." Harriman stepped to the door, looked around the outer office and spotted a man who might or might not be the office's chief clerk. "Hey, you! C'mere."
The man looked startled, got up, came to the door and said, "Yes?"
"I want that desk in the corner and all the stuff that's on it moved to an empty office on this floor, right away."
The clerk raised his eyebrows. "And who are you, if I may ask?"
"Damn it-"
"Do as he tells you, Weber," Coster put in.
"I want it done inside of twenty minutes," added Harriman. "Jump!" He turned back to Coster's other desk, punched the phone, and presently was speaking to the main offices of Skyways. "Jim, is your boy Jock Berkeley around? Put him on leave and send him to me, at Peterson Field, right away, special trip. I want the ship he comes in to raise ground ten minutes after we sign off. Send his gear after him." Harriman listened for a moment, then answered, "No, your organization won't fall apart if you lose Jock- or, if it does, maybe we've been paying the wrong man the top salary .
"Okay, okay, you're entitled to one swift kick at my tail the next time you catch up with me but send Jock. So long."
He supervised getting Coster and his other desk moved into another office, saw to it that the phone in the new office was disconnected, and, as an afterthought, had a couch moved in there, too. "We'll install a projector, and a drafting machine and bookcases and other junk like that tonight," he told Coster. "Just make a list of anything you need-to work on engineering. And call me if you want anything." He went back to the nominal chiefengineer's office and got happily to work trying to figure where the organization stood and what was wrong with it.
Some four hours later he took Berkeley in to meet Coster. The chief engineer was asleep at his desk, head cradled on his arms. Harriman started to back out, but Coster roused. "Oh! Sorry," he said, blushing, "I must have dozed off."