Margaret Duffe got to her feet and moved slowly toward the great stellar maps that towered above them at the far end of the chamber. She stood for a long time, gazing up at the myriad suns, the legions of systems, awed by what she saw.
“Do you suppose he realized all this?” she asked suddenly. “What we can see, here on these maps?”
“Thomas Cole is a strange person,” Sherikov said, half to himself. “Apparently he has a kind of intuition about machines, the way things are supposed to work. An intuition more in his hands than in his head. A kind of genius, such as a painter or a pianist has. Not a scientist. He has no verbal knowledge about things, no semantic references. He deals with the things themselves. Directly.
“I doubt very much if Thomas Cole understood what would come about. He looked into the globe, the control turret. He saw unfinished wiring and relays. He saw a job half done. An incomplete machine.”
“Something to be fixed,” Margaret Duffe put in.
“Something to be fixed. Like an artist, he saw his work ahead of him. He was interested in only one thing: turning out the best job he could, with the skill he possessed. For us, that skill has opened up a whole universe, endless galaxies and systems to explore. Worlds without end. Unlimited, untouched worlds.”
Reinhart got unsteadily to his feet. “We better get to work. Start organizing construction teams. Exploration crews. We’ll have to reconvert from war production to ship designing. Begin the manufacture of mining and scientific instruments for survey work.”
“That’s right,” Margaret Duffe said. She looked reflectively up at him. “But you’re not going to have anything to do with it.”
Reinhart saw the expression on her face. His hand flew to his gun and he backed quickly toward the door. Dixon leaped up and joined him. “Get back!” Reinhart shouted.
Margaret Duffe signalled and a phalanx of Government troops closed in around the two men. Grim-faced, efficient soldiers with magnetic grapples ready.