"Fine, Mr. Caples. At least an hour more to go."
"All right. Go ahead, Donner. Can't you leave out some of the side issues and get to the finish of this?"
"They're all related to the outcome of the matter, Mr. Caples. It wouldn't make any sense at all without them."
"Nor with them," said Halleck sourly, staring out the window.
"Kane was to drive Hays back to Salt Lake, so I only had a moment alone with him. When I told him I wanted to hold up everything until I'd checked with my superiors, he just laughed it off. He said that you, Mr. Caples, had seen all thirteen translations and your memo covered the whole works. I'm sorry to say this convinced me.
"Next day, a carload of equipment came in for testing and I didn't see Simon Kane for about a week, though I learned things weren't going so well. There was some trouble with the alloy. The rocket was shipped in, though, and turned out to be a very recent model with the latest developments in shock and pressure compensation, oxygen plant, homing-beam navigation and all that. The credit to White Sands was only $32,000, including insurance, so I authorized it without misgivings, figuring that the persuasive Kane had swung a good deal.
"Ruhl got back from Santa Fe and said they'd licked the alloy problem, though it had been hard to avoid publicity. The metal could only be worked in a molten state, so the fabricator was casting the nose sheath and three overlapping girdles with rivet holes, also rivets and fin shields of the same stuff. It sounded heavy to me, but Ruhl said that would eliminate all possibility of vibration. This metal casting accounted for most of the $300,000.
"During the next two weeks, I was too busy with other things to worry much about the project, but two incidents happened that had a bearing on it.
"On a visit to Salt Lake, I was dining at the Pioneer Arms one evening and spotted Porter Hays at a table across the room. He was with a young lady who looked familiar to me, even from the back. They were deep in conversation. Hays looked up and saw me just as the waiter brought my dinner. His expression was far from friendly. When the waiter moved out of the way, I looked over and saw that Hays and the girl were gone.