ran up against some of the
profs. If this is what syk produces, I decided, it's not for me. Changed
to engineering then. Unfortunately, the general knows about my record."

"How did he take it out on you, parade duty?"

"Worse. He made me an aide."

The girl leaned on an elbow and regarded him with her chin in her hand.
"You bring his slippers?"

"As G-2, I did up until quarter of an hour ago. I've been promoted. Meet
the Base Mojave Syk Cooerdinator."

Putting her nose in her drink, she giggled softly. "What is it he wants
cooerdinated, the syk or me?"

"You're on bearing," he laughed. "My name's Grant."

His hand went across the table, opened, and waited.

"Bridget," she said, and her hand fell into his in a handshake which
lingered slightly.

* * * * *

At Grant's insistence they jeep-toured the base. To his surprise Bridget
took interest in the installations, but asked most of her questions
around the atomjet hangars.

"I've never seen one close," she hinted.

Grant flashed his Security card at the guards and they went in. She
strolled about the tapering, snub-winged craft, apparently inspecting it
closely. Grant's thought was that she felt she had to dramatize
understanding something about Air Force rocketry.

After a short silence Bridget asked, "What is the compensating factor
for the reactor's being placed off the center of stability?"

Grant blinked. "What's that again?"

She swung a pointed finger at the ship. "Naturally," she interrupted,
"the nose will float downward in the canal, hoisting the hot tubes out
of the liquid at the end of the glide-ins. But you've got pilot, power
plant, and wings frontside. How can you affect glide-ins at surface air
density without nosing in?"

The major decided she must have been reading the latest confidential
files. High-viscosity liquid landing canals constituted a subject recent
enough to be Security and important enough not to be bandied about
outside engineering and Base Mojave.

"Well, you see," Grant cleared his throat, "there're the fuel tanks
along the back of the blast chamber, partly lead--"

"The tanks usually are nearly empty for glide-ins," she reminded.

Grant frowned. "Yes, usually empty, but still a weight factor. Then
there's the automatic wing stabilizer that adjusts to the air speed and
density and acts to pull up the nose--"

"O.K.," she interrupted. "Now, would you lift me through the canopy,
ple