took a breath and put my eyes
on his. He said, "I'm a hell of an old duck."

"Not so old, Pop."

"Sure I am. But not too old to remember back to the days when I wasn't
too old." There was a grave look in his eyes.

I didn't have to answer that. The door banged open and Melrose, the
LC, came in. He jerked a look at both of us, butted a cigarette he'd
just lit--lighted another, butted that. He ran a hand through thick
graying hair and frowned.

"Anybody got a cigarette?" he said sourly. "Couldn't sleep last night.
This damned responsibility. Worried all night about something we
hadn't thought of."

Pop looked up. Melrose went on. "Light--travels in a straight line,
no?" He blinked small nervous eyes at us. Then, "Can't go around
corners unless it's helped, you see. I mean just this. The XXE-One is
expected to hit a significant fraction of the speed of light once it
gets beyond the atmosphere. Now here's the point--how in hell do we
control it then?"

He waited. I didn't say anything. Pop didn't say anything. Melrose ran
a hand through his hair once more, muttered _goddamit_ to himself,
turned around and went barging out the door.

Pop said wryly, "Another quick memo to the Pentagon. He never heard of
the Earth's gravity."

"He's heard," I said. "It's just that it slipped his mind these last
few years."

Pop grinned. He handed me a sheaf of typewritten notes. "These'll just
about make it. You'll notice the initial flight is charted pretty damn
closely."

"Thanks, Pop. I better take these, somewhere else to look 'em over.
Melrose might be back."

"Pretty damn closely," he repeated. "Almost as closely as if she was
going up under radio control...." He stopped. He looked at me from
under his eyebrows.

I studied him. "Already told the brass I'd take her up, Pop." I kept
my voice down.

"Sure, guy. Sure. Uh--you mention it to Marge?"

"Last night."

"I see." His eyes got suddenly far away. I left him like that. Hell
with him--hell with the whole family!

* * * * *

It was in the evening paper, tucked in the second section. They
treated it lightly. It seemed the night watchman had opened the rear
door of the museum for a breath of air or maybe a smoke. Or maybe to
kitchie-koo some babe under the chin in the alley.

That's the only way it could have happened. And he'd discovered the
empty exhibit case at 2:10 in the morning. The case still had a little
white card on it t