The Project Gutenberg eBook, If at First You Don't..., by John Brudy
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Title: If at First You Don't...
Author: John Brudy
Release Date: January 18, 2010 [eBook #31009]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
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IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T ...
by
JOHN BRUDY
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATOR VARGA]
_To Amos Jordan, Secretary for Cislunar Navigation, no situation was
unsolvable. There were rules for everything, weren't there.... Except
maybe this thing ..._
"What's the matter, anyway?" Amos Jordan snapped at his assistant. "Is
everyone in the Senate losing their mind?"
"No more than usual," said Clements, the undersecretary. "It's just a
matter of sentiment."
"Sentiment?" Jordan poured himself a glass of lemonade. "What's
sentiment got to do with it? It's just a standard procedural problem."
"Well, not exactly," began Clements soothingly. "After all, now, '58
Beta was the first long-lived satellite ever launched, and the first
successful shot of the old Vanguard series. People are proud if it. It's
a sort of monument to our early efforts in astronautics."
* * * * *
Jordan sipped experimentally, adding a little sugar.
"But, Clem, the sky's full of the things," he complained. "There must be
a hundred fifty of them in orbit right now. They're a menace to
navigation. If this one's due to fall out, I say good riddance."
Clements spread his hands helplessly.
"I agre
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