It was almost eight o'clock. Gimp Hines hadn't gone to supper, or to celebrate decision on one of the last evenings of any kind of freedom from work. He couldn't wait for that... Under fluorescent lights, he was threading wire through miniature grommets, hurrying to complete the full-size ionic drive. He said, "Hi, Frank," and let his eyes drop, again, into absorption in his labors. Mad little guy. Tragic, sort of. A cripple...
"I'll shove off, Paul," Nelsen was saying in a moment.
Out under the significant stars of the crisp October night, Nelsen was approached at once by a shadow. "I was waiting for you, Frank. I got a problem." The voice was hoarse sorrow—almost lugubrious comedy.
"Math again, Two-and-Two? Sure—shoot."
"Well—that kind is always around—with me," Two-and-Two Baines chuckled shakily. "This is something else—personal. We're liable—honest to gosh—to go, aren't we?"
"Some of us, maybe," Nelsen replied warily. "Sixty thousand bucks for the whole Bunch looks like a royal heap of cabbage to me."
"Split among a dozen guys, it looks smaller," Two-and-Two [p. 19] persisted. "And you can earn royal dough on the Moon—just for example. Plenty to pay back a loan."
"Still, you don't pick loans off trees," Nelsen gruffed. "Not for a shoestring crowd like us. We look too unsubstantial."
"Okay, Frank—have that part your way. I believe there still is a good chance we will go. I want to go. But I get to thinking. Out There is like being buried in millions of miles of nothing that you can breathe. Can a guy stand it? You hear stories about going loopy from claustrophobia and stuff. And I got to think about my mother and dad."
"Uh-huh—other people could be having minor second thoughts—including me," Frank Nelsen growled.