Mars stared in shock at the artificial limb and could think of nothing very brilliant to say.
"Got it in cadet school," Vern explained and then answered the question in Mars' eyes. "I was training to be a space pilot myself. Some fellows and I decided to celebrate our graduation, got drunk and ended up in a wreck. They put me together real good, even taught me how to use the foot so no one would ever know it wasn't the real thing. It washed me out as far as the Space Corps was concerned though. I drowned my sorrows in alcohol for a couple weeks, told myself I was going to hell with myself and then decided to put what I did know to work. That's how I joined up with this outfit. Now I sit back and design the rockets my classmates have to worry about flying.... Enough of this chatter ... got to get busy. See you."
Mars turned thoughtfully back to his desk. "That kid's got only one foot," he mused soberly. He looked down at his own injured leg and savagely kicked it against the wall.
"Your leg. Your poor, crippled leg ... what a fine crutch it has been," he bitterly reproached himself. "It proves you were one of the first in space, and you won't let people forget it. You're a jealous old man. You're afraid to have someone else do what you no longer can do. You want things to stay the way they were when you got hurt, so no one else can live your dream. If time stood still, there would be no trips to new planets, no new discoveries and Mars Kenton would still be the hero of his dream."
He tried to revolt, to denounce the self-accusations. "What about Bronsen Corbow?" he asked. "Does that explain why I've fought him so hard?"
His slowly growing conscience laughed at him. "But it does. Bronsen ignores your crutch, your proof that the old way worked the best. He's concerned with the future, the future you never want to come." He buried his grey-thatched head in his hands and felt the weariness in his bones. His thoughts returned to the unsuccessful launching.
"But it was a crazy idea," he argued weakly. "It would never have worked anyway." It was a poor defense, one that faltered and failed when he finally admitted the truth: He was a jealous, bitter man, fighting anonymity.
Once more he found himself mulling over the rocket launching, probing for support to his initial decision that it wouldn't work, searching for some point to substantiate his claim. But was he really right in that decision? Had he let his hate-ridden heart rule his reasoning mind? He waded back to the beginning of Bronsen's theory. Bullets ... the test models were the bullets. Shells ... the huge rocket itself was a shell compared to the bullets. Shells have an ojive, bourrelet, rotating band, but bullets are different. How? He stopped. He reviewed the parts in his mind, then suddenly lurched to the files and pulled out the rocket plans. He compared the ship's construction bit by bit with a shell, his mind working quickly, accurately, with a new enthusiasm....
Hours later he leaned back from his drawing table and his voice rumbled out into the quiet reaches of the empty room.
"Men will fly to the stars like a bullet," he prophesized. "Because I know why the rocket crashed."