"You've got twenty-four hours to make a good one. I want him by 1700, Earth-Standard, tomorrow. That's an order."
Then he just turned around, the light of the cold cathodes glittering off his shoulder insignia and the silver trim on his black leatherite space tunic, and left my office cubicle the way he'd come. Fast. Murderous. Accusing.
If he had to go to Hell and back to win, he would.
I waited until Control signalled that he'd got back aboard his official shuttle and blasted into a return orbit, and then I buzzed for my execs, Haliburton, Knight and Loftus.
Even a second rate satellite of a second rate power has three execs, although I guess a lot of people back home think it's a one man show, putting in time to save national face while the grade A job—the one with the big red star on the side—circles Earth five hundred miles further out doing all the "important" work. The one that beat us up here by ten years. The one owned by the government which said we could put up a satellite of our own if we wanted to, but suggested just how big it would be, just what equipment it would and wouldn't carry, how far up it'd circle, how big a crew it would have.
Suggested, you know, the way they do when treaties are drawn up around the New-U.N. conference tables. It never says in the treaties what will happen if certain agreements aren't adhered to. It doesn't say who has "the edge," as McGinty calls it; it doesn't carefully point out who was firstest with the mostest. It doesn't have to.
This is peace, Comrade. Just don't get egg on your face.
It was a couple of minutes before my execs walked in. I was still standing, still looking down at the ancient good luck piece on my desk when they did. Major Haliburton, Meteorology detail; Major Knight, Astronomical; Lieutenant Loftus, Records and Research.
Military?