"Who wrote that? Poe? No, no mock-up to fake space conditions for them but calculate the cost of the real interstellar ship. We couldn't trust either of them with it yet. You didn't really think we could afford two ships. Why do you think we haven't told one man about his opposite in a second ship? No safety margin allowable in our appropriation, Doc. Or so they tell me. There's enough fuel and food to take Johnson and Meyverik a long way but not the distance."
He shook his lean head almost wistfully.
"Damn it, Madison, do you mean I've been beating my lobes out for weeks for nothing? I tested them. I checked them out. Either was capable of making the flight successfully—for their own different reasons."
Madison took his hand off my shoulder and made a fist of it.
"I'm not questioning your decision! Will you ram that through your obscene skull, Thorn!"
"Who is?" I whispered.
"Not me. Not I, not I."
"The general," I announced.
"Just not me." Was he actually trembling? But it wasn't concern about what I thought of him. Somebody closer, maybe. Things were building up for him.
He jammed his nose almost up against the glass dial surfaces, swaying gently in his cups, staring slightly cross-eyed at the arrowed numbers.