A thin, high whine began to fill the air as the ship soared overhead, still high, maneuvering for an approach to the other end of the field.
“They’ll give it a two-page spread,” Gunderson went on. “The Ninety-one in the middle — around it little pictures showing it generates as much power as thirty railroad engines, enough heat to warm a town of fifteen hundred people, has enough wiring to take care of the town’s power and telephone system, more radio tubes than —”
“And the citizens will lean back and sigh: Progress!”
The whine grew to a thundering roar that drowned their voices. The mammoth landing gear smashed against the earth as Parker eased the bomber down. It rolled at a crazy speed, fighting the drag of wing flaps and brakes. Its thunder shook the walls of the instrument house and the hangars and the distant plant.
Then it was still. Parker was smiling broadly and shaking hands with himself behind the windshield. The red tractor began rolling out on the field.
There seemed to be pain on Gunderson’s face. “You ugly devil!” he murmured to the gleaming ship. He swung around to Montgomery. “Let’s get out of here!”
Major Montgomery was Liaison Officer between the Research and Development Command of the Air Force and the Firestone Aviation Corporation. He thought he had come to know Soren Gunderson as well as he knew the XB-91, but the chief engineer’s reaction to the successful test flights of the ship certainly made him feel more than a little uncomfortable.
They drove a half mile from the plant and settled behind a secluded table in George's Spaghetti House, where a good many past conferences between them had ironed out discrepancies between hard engineering fact and the specifications of the Air Force. Montgomery watched his friend out of the corner of his eye and decided to keep his mouth pretty much shut — except for such prodding as might be necessary to find out what was eating Gunderson.
George took their orders and went away. Montgomery laced his fingers back and forth and smiled. “Everyone knows that modern combat requirements have put the size and cost of aircraft almost completely out of hand,” he said carefully. “But it looks to me like pretty substantial progress that we have been able to meet those requirements at all. Even five years ago the Ninety-one wasn’t considered an actual possibility. Your new wing section is the only thing —”
“A monster with a gutful of electronic equipment,” said Gunderson, “duplicated and re-duplicated to make sure a ten-cent resistor doesn’t bring the downfall of a hundred million dollar airplane.”