“Gave me the answer what to use for reinforcing foundations. You solved the problem.”
“Yeah?” I said.
“Yeah. Didn’t he, Mike?”
Michaelina looked as puzzled as I must have. She said, “He was kidding. He said to use the stuff in the empty crates, didn’t he?”
Reagan grinned again. “He just thought he was kidding. That’s what we’re going to use from now on.
Nothing. Look, chief, it’s like the conditioner—so simple we never thought of it. Until you told me to use what was in the empty crates, and I got to thinking it over.”
I stood thinking a moment myself, and then I did what Reagan had done the day before—hit myself a whack on the forehead with the heel of my palm.
Michaelina still looked puzzled.
“Hollow foundations,” I told her. “What’s the one thing widgie birds won’t fly through? Air. We can make buildings as big as we need them, now. For foundations, we sink double walls with a wide air space between. We can—”
I stopped, because it wasn’t “we” any more. They could do it after I was back on Earth looking for a job. And Thursday went and Friday came.