"Yes, sir."
"What about Avery, Jack. Can he do it?"
"I think so. You remember how he handled that gyroscope record the first two weeks out."
"How was that, Jack?"
White was startled, but gave no sign. If Tim Daneshaw's memory was slipping, he really was in bad shape. "You remember, Captain. We were only a few thousand miles out when the gyro appeared to be recording a constant correction, and how Mister Avery," (a term of deference would show Tim how respected Avery was) "was so thorough and kept the crew so busy they didn't have time to worry about the real danger of being off course. He got the engineers doing radionic soundings of the walls of the big tube in action and some of the crew went practically into the dead tubes looking for flare action. He had everybody else who knew about it testing all over the inner skin for an air leak that might be producing a tiny jet. It was wonderful the way he got the passengers thinking it was a routine check for the early stages of any space trip. And he never let down—sat at the calculators eighteen hours a day until he found out that the recording pen on the gyro must have got bent in blast-off. We were proud of him, Captain."
"I recall it now. You think he'll make a good executive?" Tim seemed pitifully eager for assurance.
"Make an executive, Captain? He is an executive. He's the Old Fox of Avery, Inc. again, since those two weeks. He's taken to coming into the pilot-room when he's off duty—just coming in and standing and watching as if he wanted to keep an eye on everything and everybody. And nobody seems to resent it. And he never needles the rest of us button-pushers when he finds an error in calculations. We all make them, El too, but we've quit deviling each other about them since then. He's your man."
"Thanks, Jack. I ... hoped ... you'd ... feel...." Tim's voice trailed off. "Tired ... get Avery ... tell him Sam Wyckoff...."
Another silence.
"Captain Daneshaw?"