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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Fine Fix, by R. C. Noll
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Fine Fix
+
+Author: R. C. Noll
+
+Illustrator: H. R. van Dongen
+
+Release Date: January 3, 2009 [EBook #27696]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FINE FIX ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A FINE FIX
+
+BY R. C. NOLL
+
+[Illustration]
+
+    _Generally speaking, human beings are fine buck-passers--but there's
+    one circumstance under which they refuse to pass on responsibility.
+    If the other fellow says "Your method won't solve the
+    problem!"--then they get mad!_
+
+Illustrated by van Dongen
+
+
+The leader climbed sharply in a bank to the left, and the two others
+followed close behind. Their jet streams cut off at very near the same
+time. Before their speed slowed to stalling, the rotors unfolded from
+the canopy hump and beat the air viciously, the steam wisping back in
+brief fingers.
+
+Under power again, they dipped playfully in tightening circles toward
+the plot-mottled earth. The fields expanded beneath them, and the leader
+brought up and hovered over a farm road whose dust already stirred in
+the disturbed air.
+
+They settled as one in the rolling dust clouds from which emerged a
+coveralled figure who had driven the battered pickup truck to meet them.
+
+"Y'sure got back in a rush," he addressed the major, who was just
+jumping from the plastiglas cabin.
+
+The major nodded and put his attention on seeing that the general
+descended safely. He then indicated the farmer.
+
+"He's the one," the major said.
+
+The general grunted socially.
+
+Taking the opening, the farmer said, "Out there in the wheat, general."
+His tone carried eager importance. "My kid saw the light come down this
+morning feedin' the chickens. I felt the ground jump, too. Called the
+sheriff, first off."
+
+"All right, you were a hero," said the general shortly. "Now, Grant,
+will you take me to it? I can't mess around here all day."
+
+The party of six men, two of them technicians, waded into the field from
+the road. The farmer remained to watch, frowning.
+
+When they had progressed well into the wheat, he shouted after them
+ruefully, "And watch where you're steppin', too!"
+
+The group paused on the rim of newly gouged earth, clods and dirt that
+had splashed from the center of the crater. It was nearly four feet
+deep. The man the major had left on guard had uncovered more of the
+blackened object, which lay three-quarters exposed and showed a warped
+but cylindrical shape.
+
+"Let's have a counter on it," the general ordered.
+
+A technician slid into the crater and swept the metal with his
+instrument. The needle swung far over and stuck.
+
+To the other technician the general said, "Get a chunk for verification
+of the alloy." He kicked a small avalanche of dirt down the crater side
+and turned back to the road, adding, "Although I don't know why the
+formality. Even a cadet could see that's an atomjet reactor, beat up as
+it is."
+
+The major absorbed the jibe without comeback. An hour ago he had
+informed the general of his indecision over the object's identity,
+though he had suspected it to be the reactor.
+
+"We may find more when we get it examined in the shop," the general
+mused, swishing by the wheat. "But at least we know they do come down
+some place, and it wasn't flash fusion. On this one, anyway."
+
+"What do you think about instituting a search of this vicinity for other
+parts, general?"
+
+The officer growled negatively. "Obviously, the reactor was the only
+part not vaporized in the fall--because of its construction."
+
+"That's assuming the ship entered the atmosphere at operational velocity
+and not less than free fall," the major qualified.
+
+"How can anyone assume free fall? Way outside probability."
+
+"Yes, sir, but there are degrees of velocity involved. He could have
+used reverse thrust and entered at a relatively slow speed."
+
+"All right, all right--let's say possible, then. Pull off your search if
+you want to. I'm in this thing so deep now, I'll try anything to get
+going. I've got Congress ready to investigate, and some senator
+yesterday put pressure on to cancel the United Nuclear contract. I'll
+try anything at this point, Grant!"
+
+The big man's voice had risen to anger, but Major Grant Reis had not
+missed the vocal breaking in the last syllables.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I'm First Lieutenant Ashley and I've an appointment to see General
+Morrison."
+
+The adjutant said, "Sorry, but you'll have to wait a little longer. The
+general's unexpectedly busy."
+
+"My appointment was over an hour ago."
+
+"Another half-hour and you can go in."
+
+"Another half-hour and I'll go."
+
+"It's your bar."
+
+The lieutenant plopped back into a chair just as Grant strode swiftly
+past the adjutant's desk from the private office.
+
+"Major," the adjutant asked, "how long is the general going to be tied
+up? He won't let me in the conference and the lieutenant here is
+supposed to see him."
+
+Grant paused at the opposite door and pointing two thumb-and-forefinger
+guns at his head exploded them. The adjutant groaned understandingly.
+Even the first lieutenant caught on.
+
+"Major, it's pretty important," the waiting officer said, standing
+again. Grant shifted his attention.
+
+"Look, lieutenant--" Grant bottled the sarcasm behind his suddenly lax
+mouth. He saw a first lieutenant's uniform, but it bulged aesthetically;
+and he saw a first lieutenant's cap and bar, but it sat rakishly on
+puffed-up brown curls.
+
+"If you'll just look at these papers, major, you'll understand. I
+stratoed in from the Pentagon this morning," she said crisply.
+
+Though it was Grant's turn to say something, he found too much of his
+concentration on her challenging brown eyes and the efficient down-sweep
+of her half-pouting mouth, plus a nub of a nose that pointed proudly
+upwards with the tilt of her head. In a temporary defensive maneuver,
+Grant took the papers handed him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The borders were marked CONFIDENTIAL and the attached signatures would
+have impressed even the general. The subject--he might have
+expected--ATOMJET PATROL LOSSES.
+
+"Er ... look, lieutenant-- What was it?" Grant glanced down at the
+papers.
+
+"First Lieutenant Bridget Ashley."
+
+"Look, Lieutenant Ashley, the general's been getting nothing but
+troubles all day. For your sake and his sake, I suggest you come back
+tomorrow, huh?" Grant handed back the papers and put a hand on her
+elbow, but she jerked back.
+
+"Major, I've been given a great deal of responsibility in this
+assignment," she flared, "and it's important for me to get work started
+at once. I was led to understand these patrol losses constituted a
+fairly urgent matter."
+
+Grant glanced ominously toward the general's door. "Lieutenant, I'm
+trying to explain to you that it's in your best interests to take this
+up with him tomorrow. I'm one of his aides and I know him. I realize
+you're authorized to see him today, but--"
+
+"Then I'll wait." She reseated herself and emphatically crossed her
+legs--a motion not escaping Grant's notice.
+
+The adjutant and Grant mutually shrugged at each other, and Grant headed
+outside, saying over his shoulder, "I'll be back in a minute."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As it developed, it was far more than a minute; but whatever it was,
+when Grant returned she was gone. The major looked at the adjutant, and
+the adjutant indicated the general's door with an apprehensive nod.
+Grant bit his lip and entered the private office.
+
+He had expected to hear the general's bass raging, but through the inner
+door came the strident tones of the lieutenant's modulating contralto.
+He had expected to see the general towering over the girl's shrinking
+figure, but as he entered she was bent earnestly in the middle, and the
+top of her torso inclined toward General Morrison, who had tilted as far
+back as his swivel chair would permit.
+
+"... So, if you haven't isolated any mechanical causation, how can you
+be sure it's mechanical?" she was laying it on. "And if you're not sure
+it's mechanical, how can you suggest there's no possibility of
+psychological causation? The authorities that sent me here have not only
+considered the possibility, they feel it's quite probable. All I am
+requesting, sir, is immediate implementation of my authority so your
+investigation can be broadened. It's really to your benefit that--"
+
+Grant said, "Lieutenant Ashley."
+
+"... My work be started at once so as to catch up on what findings you
+have obtained in the--"
+
+Grant shouted, "Lieutenant Ashley!"
+
+"... Investigation so far in the mechanical aspects. It's not unlikely
+that a combining factor, both psychological and mechanical--"
+
+Grant yelled, "LIEUTENANT ASHLEY!!"
+
+"Yes, sir, major."
+
+"Would you please wait in the outer office for just a moment?"
+
+"But--"
+
+"For just a moment, lieutenant."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Grant waited until the door closed before he tried communication with
+the general. The officer still teetered in his chair, his eyes bulging
+from his reddened face.
+
+"They sent me a shape," he sputtered. "That I could take. Shapes I don't
+mind, even with authority. But this one-- You know where she's from,
+Grant?"
+
+Grant sighed hopelessly.
+
+"She's from syk," the general was beginning to roar, "with a blank
+check of authority from Washington. She stood there and called the
+losses pilot-error. My pilots, Grant, the ones I trained!"
+
+"Just a possibility, she meant," soothed Grant.
+
+"Possibility, hell! With that attitude around Mojave we'll never get
+anywhere in this investigation." He untilted with a crash. "I want her
+kept away from me, do you hear? Give her anything she wants--but
+appointments with me. I've got United Nuclear here for stress tests,
+coolant analyses, radiation metering in the morning just as a start, and
+I'm not going to have that shape around fusing up the works."
+
+"I'll see what I can do, sir."
+
+"You're right you will. I'm putting Colonel Sorenson in as G-2, and
+you're going to be the new Syk Coördinator for the duration of this
+investigation!"
+
+"The what?"
+
+"You heard me."
+
+"It couldn't be that bad, general," Grant grumbled.
+
+"It is."
+
+"Baby-sitting."
+
+The general stood up from his desk. "No, you'll relay any data she may
+turn up to me, and you'll see she gets what supplies and personnel she
+may need. Look, Washington thinks we need her, so I take orders. And so
+do you, Grant. I'll have a special order out this afternoon."
+
+"Yes, sir," Grant saluted and wheeled, grinding his molars.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With dubious explanations, Grant managed to steer Lieutenant Ashley
+toward the Officers' Club. What excuses he gave her evidently had some
+effect; after the first fifty yards across the drill ground she steered
+easily, though still under vocal protest.
+
+A drink, and Grant felt he could face the future. They sat in a
+plastiweave booth, one against the far wall that overlooked through a
+curved window the blasting circle.
+
+So wrapped up with his own feelings, Grant had been unaware of his
+companion's. Her face had paled, and she stirred her drink absently. The
+reflections in her eyes were over-bright with moisture.
+
+Offered Grant: "The general has a lot on his mind."
+
+"Yeah," she choked.
+
+"The losses have upset him pretty bad."
+
+"I notice. Me, too."
+
+"Take a drink."
+
+She sipped one CC and said, "And syk upsets him."
+
+Grant smiled, "And shapes."
+
+"And I suppose the rank of first lieutenant makes him nervous."
+
+"No," Grant chuckled, "he can take or leave that. It's majors that get
+him."
+
+She smiled vaguely, so Grant followed up with: "What's your background?"
+
+"Psychometrics. Got a doctorate in it. I thought it might be valuable to
+the Air Force--at one time." She sipped two CCs.
+
+"I've a little syk background," Grant said. She looked up in sudden
+interest. "Started to major in it until I ran up against some of the
+profs. If this is what syk produces, I decided, it's not for me. Changed
+to engineering then. Unfortunately, the general knows about my record."
+
+"How did he take it out on you, parade duty?"
+
+"Worse. He made me an aide."
+
+The girl leaned on an elbow and regarded him with her chin in her hand.
+"You bring his slippers?"
+
+"As G-2, I did up until quarter of an hour ago. I've been promoted. Meet
+the Base Mojave Syk Coördinator."
+
+Putting her nose in her drink, she giggled softly. "What is it he wants
+coördinated, the syk or me?"
+
+"You're on bearing," he laughed. "My name's Grant."
+
+His hand went across the table, opened, and waited.
+
+"Bridget," she said, and her hand fell into his in a handshake which
+lingered slightly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At Grant's insistence they jeep-toured the base. To his surprise Bridget
+took interest in the installations, but asked most of her questions
+around the atomjet hangars.
+
+"I've never seen one close," she hinted.
+
+Grant flashed his Security card at the guards and they went in. She
+strolled about the tapering, snub-winged craft, apparently inspecting it
+closely. Grant's thought was that she felt she had to dramatize
+understanding something about Air Force rocketry.
+
+After a short silence Bridget asked, "What is the compensating factor
+for the reactor's being placed off the center of stability?"
+
+Grant blinked. "What's that again?"
+
+She swung a pointed finger at the ship. "Naturally," she interrupted,
+"the nose will float downward in the canal, hoisting the hot tubes out
+of the liquid at the end of the glide-ins. But you've got pilot, power
+plant, and wings frontside. How can you affect glide-ins at surface air
+density without nosing in?"
+
+The major decided she must have been reading the latest confidential
+files. High-viscosity liquid landing canals constituted a subject recent
+enough to be Security and important enough not to be bandied about
+outside engineering and Base Mojave.
+
+"Well, you see," Grant cleared his throat, "there're the fuel tanks
+along the back of the blast chamber, partly lead--"
+
+"The tanks usually are nearly empty for glide-ins," she reminded.
+
+Grant frowned. "Yes, usually empty, but still a weight factor. Then
+there's the automatic wing stabilizer that adjusts to the air speed and
+density and acts to pull up the nose--"
+
+"O.K.," she interrupted. "Now, would you lift me through the canopy,
+please? I'd like to sit inside a minute."
+
+"That's out," he said. "Only pilots and technicians."
+
+"All right, if you won't, I'll get up myself." She marched over to the
+hangar wall and pulled over boarding steps, which were braced on three
+pivotal tires.
+
+"Bridget, Security says pilots and mechanics."
+
+"And you're forgetting why I'm here, and besides that you're supposed to
+coördinate. Right now you're uncoördinating."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before Grant's eyes flashed the memory of her orders with the signatures
+at the bottom. She was already climbing the steps.
+
+"Just don't touch anything, that's all," he conciliated, following her
+up. Her seams were straight, he noted.
+
+Bridget thudded into the narrow pilot's seat and wiggled herself into a
+comfortable position.
+
+"Awful crowded," she smiled up at Grant.
+
+"I hope you tore your nylons," he groused.
+
+"Now, if you'll just explain these gadgets," she said, moving her hand
+over the panel embedded with digit-rimmed dials.
+
+"Hands off, please."
+
+"By your reaction, I would say you don't know what some of them are,"
+she counter-fired, and tossed her protruding bunch of curls.
+
+Grant took the bait. He leaned into the canopy and with an
+over-stiffened index finger pointed forcefully at each gauge. For more
+than a quarter-hour this went on, with Bridget pitching questions--most
+of which he juggled.
+
+She seemed to show more interest in the radar screen, the navigational
+equipment, and the communications system. About these, she milked
+Grant's available knowledge until he felt like reaching down and
+throwing open the reactor valve and fuel switch.
+
+"Lieutenant, if you don't mind, my back is paralyzed. Let's go back to
+the club and I'll answer anything you want."
+
+"Just one more," she coaxed. "This crosshair sight with the little black
+circle in the middle. How does that work again?"
+
+Grant straightened up and carefully massaged the small of his back.
+"It's for precise manual navigation if you need it. You sit up straight
+and sight through it."
+
+"And what do you sight at?"
+
+"A star, of course."
+
+"Put it in the little black circle?"
+
+"An A for you. Then you snap in Automatic Navigational and you're in
+business. Or you can navigate manually by using Gyroscopic Navigational
+if you want."
+
+"I'm ready to get out now." Bridget lifted her hands where Grant stood
+on the platform of the boarding device.
+
+Back or no back, Grant couldn't resist the opportunity. He pulled her by
+the hands to where she was leaning out the opened canopy, then he
+stooped and grabbed her under the arms and swung her up. For a moment
+her soft hair brushed his ear, and a light scent from her neck suggested
+he keep her pliant form close to him a little longer than necessary.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+He planted her next to the steps, and she muttered an uninspired thank
+you. But halfway down, she halted and turned.
+
+"It's much easier asking me out dancing, Grant," she smiled impishly,
+and clacked across the hangar floor toward the jeep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By the next morning arrangements for a small staff and office space had
+swiftly gone through. Working through lunch, Bridget had the office set
+up and the staff briefed and researching when Grant returned from dining
+with the general.
+
+"You're just in time," she said, looking up from an already cluttered
+desk. "I'm ready now to scan through any G-2 you have on atomjet
+operation in your Mojave files."
+
+Grant bristled. "These files are under the general's nose, and I don't
+think he'd appreciate--" He broke off when he observed Bridget tapping
+her pencil and frowning at him impatiently.
+
+With a degree of diplomacy he had to admire, Grant lifted the
+non-technical files from the general's office and furtively smuggled
+them out in his brief case.
+
+"Don't take all day," he warned, handing them to Bridget. "Part of my
+job is keeping the general neutral about you, and not against."
+
+Bridget jumped up and drew another chair up to her desk. "How about
+scanning with me? That'll get the files back faster. Here, take these on
+pilot training."
+
+The files repulsed him less than Bridget attracted him, and he sat down
+promptly. "And what do I look for, psychologically significant portions,
+is that it?"
+
+"Even psychologically insignificant portions, major, if you please."
+
+Grant began to read. As he scanned the copies of directives, reports,
+operations logs, and procedures the process became automatic, and part
+of his consciousness turned contemplative.
+
+Three months ago he would have considered the situation in which he now
+found himself a future development out of the question. Mojave had
+brimmed with optimism and pride and accomplishment and eagerness. Base
+Mojave loomed vital in national defense, constituted a main element of
+national scientific pride.
+
+From the dusty desert stretches the sprawling, efficient base had taken
+shape while United Nuclear had yet to assemble an atomjet. The schedules
+came out perfectly, and the first single-manned fusion-propulsed
+rocketplane thundered off the corporation proving grounds and glided
+into Base Mojave as planned. Designed for patrol of the mesosphere, the
+ships were to have gained for the West control of near-Earth space,
+besides affording superior observation posts for Eastern developments
+and activity of a space nature.
+
+Training of the pilots had lasted thirty weeks and went by without a
+casualty or serious damage. Testing and re-testing of the electronics
+brought out no flaws. Stress and thermal analyses held up under all
+conditions imposed.
+
+The losses began after the third week of patrol. UNR-6 failed to return
+to base--with no hint of the cause, with no communication from the
+pilot. That one was hushed up by the base PR officer, but news of the
+second reached the press. During the fifth week, UNR-2 never returned
+for its glide-in, and, of course, the first loss came out at that time,
+too.
+
+General Morrison worked with the pilots and engineers steadily on the
+problem with apparent good results--for a month. Then UNR-9 vanished.
+
+Lately the orders had been for patrol over the States, and it was
+presumed UNR-9 would have made an appearance somewhere had it been in
+trouble. That's why the Dakota farmer's report had been investigated so
+swiftly.
+
+As of now, the situation had become one patrol a day with reluctant
+pilots, Congress sending a committee to the base, a taxpayers'
+injunction against the Air Force rocketplane operation, and United
+Nuclear men experimenting hourly with robot-piloted atomjets at all
+altitudes below four hundred miles.
+
+Plus the syk research, naturally.
+
+Bridget's ash tray spilled over with right-angled cigarette butts,
+half-burned. Grant studied her as she read through the files intently
+although her eyes rolled his way briefly on occasion. She faced him with
+an unexpected snap of the head.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Just looking," Grant explained.
+
+"Then just look for a pilot's manual. It's been mentioned and I haven't
+seen one around. Would you mind?"
+
+Grant opened his mouth to inform her a pilot's manual for the atomjet
+was classified secret, but caught himself before he could verbalize the
+protest. He shrugged and planned more strategy for invading the
+general's files.
+
+The only things he could be grateful for so far were Bridget's beauty
+and the fact the staff had not realized he was her adjutant.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Mayo psychiatrist and the Yale psychologist had been in conference
+with Bridget for almost an hour. She had been giving them preliminary
+findings and the results of tests and interviews with the base pilots.
+
+When they finally broke up, Bridget approached Grant with a
+there's-something-I-want-from-you look. Grant nearly had a chance to
+offer lunch before she suggested it.
+
+What she wanted from him came out over their aerated sherbet pie. By the
+time she finished, Grant's dessert was beginning to taste like
+vitaminized space rations.
+
+"Impossible," he said, dabbing at sherbet spots on his trousers. "The
+general would react faster than to a red alert."
+
+"Your concern may be the general's reactions, but mine's not," Bridget
+snapped. "I just want an objective engineering answer, yes or no."
+
+Grant threw up his hands. "O.K., O.K. With a live pilot, yes, you can
+get a TV transmitter in an atomjet with some doing. You'd have to jerk
+out the extra oxygen space and--"
+
+"Wonderful! When can you have it for me?"
+
+"Bridget, what I'm getting at, the general will take this as a slap at
+him and his pilots. We've had TV transmission from robotized atomjets
+dozens of times--"
+
+"With no results."
+
+"With no results," Grant admitted, "but that doesn't mean that with a
+pilot you'll necessarily get any, either."
+
+"No, but why hasn't someone tried?" Bridget waited for him to answer a
+decent two seconds and then added, "The general, naturally."
+
+They left the base lunchroom in silence, Bridget pouting a lip-edge more
+than Grant. Before entering the office, Grant brought up a rebuttal.
+
+"Another thing, no pilot is going to push up under those conditions,
+with you down there hoping something will happen."
+
+Bridget had her hand on the door, but instead of opening it, paused.
+"The pilot would have to trust me." Her eyes darkened, widened, split
+Grant emotionally down the middle. He could understand, for an instant
+when he let himself, how a man could be inveigled to do anything for a
+woman.
+
+"Yeah," he said. "A pilot like that might be hard to find. I'll see what
+I can do."
+
+As he walked toward the hangars, he heard the office door close softly
+behind him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the engineering conference after supper Grant had never seen General
+Morrison looking quite that old. The man was sustaining an overload of
+responsibility, and probably self-imposed guilt on top of it.
+
+The mechanical engineers made their report, followed by the electronic
+engineers, followed by the physicist--all negative. But each group had a
+suspicion that another had overlooked something. Before it regressed to
+a high-school debate, the general bellowed the conference to order.
+
+Grant was surprised at the twinge of emotion he experienced when he
+realized the general was not going to ask for a report from syk. Why
+should Grant care, anyway? The position meant nothing to him, Syk
+Coördinator.
+
+It meant something to Bridget, though.
+
+That General Morrison had not even checked for syk findings annoyed
+Grant, perhaps. Under the circumstances he was justified: nothing had
+yet come out, nothing that Bridget had told Grant, anyway. The general
+could not be aware of this. He assumed it. Maybe that's what upset
+Grant.
+
+"Then there's this De-Meteor," the general was saying. "I've always been
+suspicious of that gadget."
+
+An electronics man spoke up. "A Clary man checked them all, even used
+instrument flight to be certain. I was with him and counter-checked the
+radar high-speed scanners, the computers, and the course-alteration
+mechanism. I was convinced myself it would steer the ship out of any
+situation involving the approach of one or two penetrating meteors."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+General Morrison turned to the spatialogist. "What about the incidence
+of penetrating meteors in the mesosphere?"
+
+"In average fall," the man replied, "fairly low."
+
+"And the probability of encountering three at once along a given atomjet
+trajectory?"
+
+"From what limited experiments we have made, the odds would be
+astronomical, I'd say."
+
+The general snorted. "Too great to account for three ships, anyway, is
+that it?" He soothed his forehead with his big hand. "All right, let's
+make another check starting tomorrow morning. More robot-flight tests.
+Let's have ships outside the mesosphere operation range. And I want
+reports on anything that looks like anything, understand?"
+
+The group emitted a low groan. This was the fourth comprehensive
+check--grueling, close, meticulous, nerve-racking work.
+
+From the rear came the voice of a courageous civilian mechanical
+engineer, "What about a check on the pilots?"
+
+The sudden silence was like an electrical field. The base commander
+continued to shuffle up his notes and papers, but his neck crimsoned.
+
+He's not going to hear it, Grant thought.
+
+"Conference dismissed!" the general ordered.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Three-four-five rings, and Bridget answered. The first word was a yawned
+"Lieutenant" and the next was an exhaled "Ashley."
+
+"Sorry to get you up, Bridget. This is Grant. Can you come down to
+Hangar Four?"
+
+"What time is it?" she asked thickly.
+
+"Three-fifteen. Will you come down here?"
+
+"Unchaperoned?"
+
+"That's not the point. A surprise. What we talked about the other day."
+
+Bridget's interest picked up. "What we talked about? But I'll have to
+dress and fix my face--"
+
+"Put on a robe and slippers. It's a warm morning. I've got it fixed with
+the O.D. Now, will you come on down?"
+
+She paused. "You've convinced me."
+
+In a few minutes Grant heard her slippers shuffling over the concrete.
+She arrived in a brilliant blue nylon robe, with white fluffy slippers
+and traces of a lighter blue nightgown underneath. The hangar brightness
+brought a frown to her eyes, which she shielded with a hand cupped to
+her brow. A creature as entrancing as that, Grant decided, should now
+recite prose poetry in contralto tones to make his ideal complete.
+
+"Well?" she croaked, a sleepy frog in her throat. "So I'm here."
+
+The last mechanic was picking up his tools and was about ready to leave.
+Otherwise, they were alone, except for the guard at the hangar entrance.
+
+"Up on the platform," said Grant, unlocking the canopy of UNR-12. He
+busied himself adjusting the guiding tension.
+
+He heard the slippers, shuffling and gritting, climb the loading device
+and stop next to him. He heard the gasp as she saw the pilot
+compartment's freshly built-in TV transmitter and lens. When he felt the
+pull on his arm, he chose to notice her.
+
+"Thanks, Grant. I thought for a while--"
+
+"It's ready for tomorrow if you want it," Grant mentioned casually.
+
+Bridget's fists clenched and her eyes brightened. "Wow," she observed.
+"Then you've got a pilot?"
+
+Grinning sourly, Grant said, "As if you don't know who."
+
+Her eyes showed concern. "What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean things have worked out creamy as you planned."
+
+"Grant, I don't understand."
+
+"Now, don't tell me you didn't know I could push up one of these
+things." He patted the side of the atomjet.
+
+"You, a pilot? Grant. I didn't know."
+
+"Let's say it's been convenient for you, anyway."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They had walked outside, Bridget trying to find Grant's gaze, which he
+put onto a distant ridge of hills rising dimly against the desert
+starscape.
+
+Bridget said seriously, "You think I've been enticing you into the pilot
+job, is that it?"
+
+Grant's glance fell to hers. "It looked that way to me. All the
+general's staff have to fly 'em, I thought you knew that. I don't
+patrol, of course."
+
+They neared her quarters, and the shadow of the building that spilled
+over them was deep.
+
+"I didn't know, Grant, believe me." Her voice carried earnestness.
+
+"You don't have to prove it," Grant said huskily.
+
+He had caught her hand, and then her arm slid softly around his neck.
+Her kiss was meant as brief, but he persuaded her differently. They
+clung together silently until the barracks guard had spun an about-face
+and headed back their way.
+
+"Please, Grant, get someone else to go up," she whispered.
+
+"You said you wanted a pilot who trusted you," reminded Grant. "Now, get
+to bed before I gig you for being out of uniform. See me tomorrow on
+TV."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The miles altimeter needle swept steadily and was about to pass the 300
+division. Star-sprinkled space-darkness lay ahead by now, but when he
+looked to the side the Earth's surface reflected the sunlight
+dazzlingly.
+
+It wasn't that he felt self-consciousness over the lens in front of him,
+or over the one showing him in profile, and the one just over his
+shoulder viewing the instrument panel. Nor was it based on his not
+pushing up in over a month. He traced it probably to the uncertainty of
+his position.
+
+His position was uncertain, because Bridget could easily be right.
+Actually, considering the lack of one lead in the other avenues of the
+investigation, chances were good something was happening to pilots and
+could happen to him.
+
+That was not what bothered him: not that something might occur, but
+_what_ might occur. Fighting unknowns for Grant carried no interest.
+
+"I'm over 300," he transmitted. "Now what?"
+
+Bridget's voice arrived with an ionospheric waver. "Level at 375. Please
+remember, you're trying to simulate patrol conditions. Don't transmit
+unless it's your report period or something goes wrong."
+
+"Like what, lieutenant?"
+
+"If you knew all the psychological quirks possible, you'd avoid them,
+major. And if you're still worried, I've taken adequate precautions.
+There's a staff of twenty-five persons here with instruments on you. By
+the way, your picture is coming over horribly."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Try my profile. I've heard it's better."
+
+"And please replace your galvanometric and respiratory clamps. We're
+getting no register here."
+
+"They're too uncomfortable."
+
+"Major, let me remind you this flight is costing the taxpayers plenty,
+hasn't General Morrison's clearance, and may have to be flown again
+unless you coöperate fully." Grant smiled at the lens. He could
+visualize her curls whipping around.
+
+"Now, please coöperate and replace the clamps, and try to simulate
+patrol conditions. I will call you from time to time for further
+instructions. Ashley at Mojave--out."
+
+Grant returned, "Reis over Mojave--nuts."
+
+After parodying annoyance at the lens, he dutifully replaced the chest
+and palm clamps and settled down to the tedium of patrol.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Behind him, tons of pressure thundered silently out in controlled
+gaseous fusion, hurled him starward on a pillar of energy. He had
+already broken his vertical ascent and was slanting toward the latitude
+Bridget requested. The Pacific rolled up under the atomjet's polished
+nose, which sparkled with myriads of brighter star reflections. Then he
+recalled he couldn't play over the ocean and veered slowly northward,
+up the coast to the telltale configuration of Puget Sound.
+
+Over the eastern lakes he cut fusion and watched on the altimeter dial
+the battle between gravity and inertia. Near the Mississippi delta he
+was wrenched in a sharp maneuver as the De-Meteor suddenly took over. He
+was fortunate to see the streaking missile glow brightly and flare out
+of existence in the thin regions of atmosphere miles beneath him.
+
+More than three hours of patrol, and no word from Mojave. Obediently,
+Grant had not called in. He set course for Mojave and was nearly ready
+to transmit when a bark of static filled the pressurized control bubble.
+Disappointed, Grant heard a male voice over the speaker.
+
+"High altitude weather observation overdue. UNR-12, please report
+synoptics in quadrants."
+
+They really want simulation, Grant grumbled mentally. "Southwest
+quadrant, southeast quadrant clear except for banner-clouding higher
+ranges. Northwest, scattered alto-cumulus, looks like the onset of a
+warm front, with the northeast quadrant moderate-high cirrus. And let me
+talk to Br ... to Lieutenant Ashley, please."
+
+A pause. "Ashley, Mojave."
+
+"How's my picture now?"
+
+"Your vertical is off, and you flutter. Major, the first three hours
+have been without direction from the base. For the next two, we're going
+to ask you to perform certain patrol tasks, perhaps repeat them. The
+process may not prove especially enjoyable. Your close coöperation will
+be appreciated."
+
+"If this is all stuff we went through in training--" Grant sputtered.
+
+"Some of it may be," Bridget's voice. "The fact it's distasteful may
+make it the more significant. Are you ready to coöperate?"
+
+Grant nodded at the lens and screwed up his face in an exaggerated
+frown.
+
+Bridget's thoroughness called for admiration. She had him at the end of
+a string, activating him from a plot taken directly from the pilot's
+manual. He would coöperate, but he was not enthusiastic.
+
+As the exercises progressed, Grant detected subtle variations Bridget
+had added to the basic maneuvers. On the tight starboard circle, for
+instance, she had him keep his eyes on Earth, making him slightly dizzy.
+
+Then she requested a free-fall drop from a stall with the provision he
+this time place his attention on the instrument panel--"with no peeking
+outside." He complied, watching the altimeter trace forty miles toward
+the basement, and experienced effects no different than usual.
+
+After a while, he came to consider it a game and might have gained
+amusement from it, were it not for the tiredness creeping in behind his
+eyes and the fact two dozen technicians somewhere down there were hoping
+to trip a fatal, hidden synapse.
+
+"How much more of this?" Grant transmitted finally.
+
+"Getting tired?" Bridget replied, and paused for an answer.
+
+"Let's say I don't feel like six sets of tennis."
+
+"A few more, major, and we'll authorize your glide-in." If there was
+disappointment in her voice, it did not manifest itself. "Your next
+exercise is manual navigation with Jupiter as your fix."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Grant took down the figures she gave in acute disinterest. Boredom had
+settled heavily over his outlook on the operation. No longer did it
+matter that his facial reactions were being televised to the syk-happy
+probers; and it made no difference to him any more that his every
+breath, swallow, heart beat, tension, and sweat-secretion was magnified
+by inky needles along moving rolls of paper.
+
+His exercise target was a southwestern New Mexico town, and he swung
+back from the Gulf area and coaxed the responsive craft until the planet
+gleamed brightly in the crosshairs of the navigational sight. That put
+him four degrees off the horizontal, he noted, but Jupiter was setting;
+he adjusted his velocity to maintain the planet's relative skyward
+position in the west.
+
+In some irritation he stepped up the thrust. This one could easily take
+too long. The faint hum of the power plant provided music as the bright
+point of light danced slightly from the sight's center.
+
+The realization came that he had jumped convulsively. Grant was puzzled
+that he was not aware what had happened. Some sort of reflex? But reflex
+from what? Tingling coursed its way up his left leg and he rubbed his
+thigh.
+
+When he put his attention on the sight again, the planet had slipped
+out. In fact, it was nowhere in the immediate starscape ahead of him.
+
+His quick glance at the basement showed first that a twilight shadow was
+moving in from the north-- From the north? It had to be the east! And
+how come so soon?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Small panic twisted his diaphragm when he viewed below the unfamiliar
+topography and increasing cloudiness. And when he saw by his watch it
+was nearly three--
+
+The radio had started to transmit. He swallowed a lump of fear and
+prepared some kind of an answer. "... If you hear me. Please indicate if
+you hear me, Grant."
+
+He nodded at the lens.
+
+"Would you like a pilot to help you orient from here?"
+
+Grant felt sheepish, but the panic still remained. He was now aware his
+alertness was not up to par, so he nodded again. But he was feeling
+better by the minute.
+
+Back on course under one of the pilot's directions, Grant soon took
+over.
+
+"Skip that exercise, Grant, and glide in," Bridget sent. "Feel up to it,
+now?"
+
+"Yeah, but what's it all about? I must've passed out, but damned if I
+know what for."
+
+Grant heard Bridget's laugh and his morale improved. "You come down and
+take me to dinner and I'll give you the answer--and what I think may be
+the answer to all the general's troubles. Right now I've got a report to
+write so the general can get the word soon--and as painlessly as
+possible."
+
+Grant pressed the stud to activate the skin coolant system for entrance
+into the atmosphere. He almost felt like grinning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Grant at the medical officer's advice took a brief nap, which quickly
+cleared up his mental fuzziness. As a surprise to Bridget he ordered a
+rotocab from Barstow, the nearest town, booming since the base had
+become operative.
+
+In a specialty restaurant over freshly arrived seafood from San
+Francisco, Grant tried to persuade Bridget to stop teasing him about the
+navigational foul-up and set him straight. He had put up with it as long
+as he did only because she had worn an off-shoulder yellow gown, snugly
+fitted, that made the uniform seem like the design of a Mid-Victorian
+prude.
+
+Grant, exasperated, brought her teasing up short. "I've been priding
+myself on keeping up the myth I'm a wide-awake young man and pilot.
+Never have I passed out before--never. I feel like a washed-out cadet.
+You've had your fun baiting--now, what made me blank?"
+
+Bridget cringed as he tore a slice of French bread in half with one
+hostile, meaningful bite.
+
+She waved her cigarette haughtily. "We in psychology have found certain
+stimuli productive of consistent human response. Especially true in
+tactile sensation, this, however, is not as true in the auditory and
+visual."
+
+"You're being technical," Grant interrupted. "Just let me know
+simple-like, if you don't mind."
+
+"Consequently," she continued, "the problem presented to the
+investigating psychologist was one of seeking an involuntary response to
+one or more stimuli, in sequence or grouped. Traditionally--"
+
+"Miss Ashley--" Grant held up the small, square tissue-wrapped box, tied
+with a bow--"I would like to have you open this tonight, but obviously
+you're not going to have time what with the thesis, and all." He
+deliberately put the box back in his coat pocket.
+
+Their eyes held over her swordfish momentarily.
+
+"So, O.K., I looked around for nasty stimuli, that's all," Bridget went
+on. "There were lots of possibilities, but I sorta picked two or three.
+Part of our pilot interviews was for getting descriptions from the men
+on what the conditions up there felt like, sounded like, looked like,
+smelled like, and so on. Completely individual, mind you. From that we
+spotted negative elements held in common by them."
+
+Grant reached for her arm and blocked the upward motion of her
+fish-loaded fork.
+
+"You can eat after," he said.
+
+"I threw the nasty ones at you when you began tiring, because that's
+when the body's stimulus-response setup starts pulling away from
+conscious direction. I saved the one I had the hunch on for the last."
+
+"The navigation exercise, you mean? I still don't get what that has to
+do with my leg cramp."
+
+Bridget laughed. "Oh, that. One of those leads attached to your leg
+carried a little voltage--just in case you passed out. The benefits of
+current psychology, you know."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Grant repressed a smile. "Thanks for letting me know what brought me
+around, but you are still stalling about why I went under."
+
+"You figure it out. What were the stimuli associated with the manual
+navigation problem?"
+
+"Let's see," he mused. "Tactile: nothing important, just the control
+levers. Visually, the star field and Jupiter and the crosshairs.
+Auditorily, the power hum--"
+
+"What stands out?"
+
+"The planet and the hum, I guess."
+
+"And how did the planet appear?" Bridget asked.
+
+"A point of light, you mean?"
+
+"And what does that add up to: a bright concentrated light source on
+which you fix your attention and a monotonous hum?"
+
+"Not hypnotism!"
+
+Bridget shrugged. "A reasonable facsimile. Especially when you throw
+mental fatigue in with it."
+
+"But you need a suggestion, I thought--" Grant was amazed.
+
+"Not necessarily," she replied. "You were mentally tired, there was some
+self-suggestion for sleep. But simply a continued fixation of the eyes
+in suggestive subjects can be enough. There may be a subconscious
+association with previous hypnosis, or early states of mental shock. In
+the highly suggestive, a steady lulling noise can be sufficient in
+itself. And you were alone, with no one around to snap a finger under
+your nose. Add it up in your situation, and you blank out."
+
+Grant slapped his forehead. "What did I look like?"
+
+"Not any different than usual," she said, laughing. "You continued to
+hold the controls, but you stared vacantly and tensed quite a bit. Well,
+we have the complete recording on your reactions if you want to check.
+Naturally, you pulled off course, ended up over Mexico, gaining about
+fifty miles in altitude."
+
+The others, thought Grant, rode until their oxygen gave out or dived
+through the atmosphere without skin-cooling, or came out of it too late
+and found-- He decided not to think about it.
+
+"But I don't think I'm hypnotic," Grant protested.
+
+"Everyone is hypnotic to a degree. Some are a great deal more than
+others, and these are the ones that are apparent. Impose the right
+conditions and a quasi-hypnotic condition could be affected on most
+anyone."
+
+"But why hasn't this happened elsewhere?"
+
+Bridget took a quick bite of fish before he could stop her. "It has.
+First documentation I found was in the South Pacific air war in the
+'40s. One-man escorting fighter planes in several cases slipped out of
+bomber formations they were following at night and splashed. One of the
+explanations at their hearings, but never investigated thoroughly, was
+hypnosis from the single red taillight of the bombers. In one outfit,
+the losses stopped when the fighters flew up front."
+
+"Not only sharp, but good-looking, too," Grant admired, and began
+chewing on the other half of his French bread. Then he ceased
+masticating and mouthed anxiously, "You've told the general this?"
+
+Bridget clapped her hands. "With exquisite pleasure."
+
+"And he--?"
+
+"... Got excited, phoned for engineering to remove navigational sights
+and suggested I join the staff at the base."
+
+Grant coughed on the bread and hurriedly reached for his water. "He
+wants you around?"
+
+"Gratitude, I guess, in his own brassy way."
+
+"And you'll stay?"
+
+"If Washington O.K.'s it, and I'm coaxed."
+
+"Then that simplifies the matter," he said and brought out the daintily
+wrapped tiny gift box. "For you."
+
+Her eyes warmed and smiled as she said, "That's the kind of coaxing a
+woman wants."
+
+Grant fumed, "Then you know what it is? Extrasensory perception or
+something psychological?"
+
+Their hands met across the table and lingered.
+
+"Purely an emotional response," said Bridget.
+
+
+THE END
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+    This etext was produced from _Astounding Science Fiction_ March
+    1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+    copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
+    typographical errors have been corrected without note.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Fine Fix, by R. C. Noll
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FINE FIX ***
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Fine Fix, by R. C. Noll
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Fine Fix
+
+Author: R. C. Noll
+
+Illustrator: H. R. van Dongen
+
+Release Date: January 3, 2009 [EBook #27696]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FINE FIX ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
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+
+</pre>
+
+
+<h1><big>A FINE FIX</big></h1>
+
+<h2>BY R. C. NOLL</h2>
+
+<div class="bk1"><p><i><big><b>Generally speaking, human
+beings are fine buck-passers&mdash;but
+there's one circumstance
+under which they refuse to
+pass on responsibility. If the
+other fellow says "Your method
+won't solve the problem!"&mdash;then
+they get mad!</b></big></i></p></div>
+
+<div class="hd1"><small><b>Illustrated by van Dongen</b></small></div>
+
+<div class="figright"><img src="images/001.png" width="189" height="550" alt="" title="" /></div>
+
+<p>The leader climbed sharply in a
+bank to the left, and the two others
+followed close behind. Their jet
+streams cut off at very near the same
+time. Before their speed slowed to
+stalling, the rotors unfolded from
+the canopy hump and beat the air
+viciously, the steam wisping back in
+brief fingers.</p>
+
+<p>Under power again, they dipped
+playfully in tightening circles toward
+the plot-mottled earth. The
+fields expanded beneath them, and
+the leader brought up and hovered
+over a farm road whose dust already
+stirred in the disturbed air.</p>
+
+<p>They settled as one in the rolling
+dust clouds from which emerged a
+coveralled figure who had driven the
+battered pickup truck to meet them.</p>
+
+<p>"Y'sure got back in a rush," he
+addressed the major, who was just
+jumping from the plastiglas cabin.</p>
+
+<p>The major nodded and put his
+attention on seeing that the general
+descended safely. He then indicated
+the farmer.</p>
+
+<p>"He's the one," the major said.</p>
+
+<p>The general grunted socially.</p>
+
+<p>Taking the opening, the farmer
+said, "Out there in the wheat, general."
+His tone carried eager importance.
+"My kid saw the light
+come down this morning feedin' the
+chickens. I felt the ground jump,
+too. Called the sheriff, first off."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, you were a hero," said
+the general shortly. "Now, Grant,
+will you take me to it? I can't mess
+around here all day."</p>
+
+<p>The party of six men, two of
+them technicians, waded into the
+field from the road. The farmer remained
+to watch, frowning.</p>
+
+<p>When they had progressed well
+into the wheat, he shouted after them
+ruefully, "And watch where you're
+steppin', too!"</p>
+
+<p>The group paused on the rim of
+newly gouged earth, clods and dirt
+that had splashed from the center
+of the crater. It was nearly four feet
+deep. The man the major had left
+on guard had uncovered more of the
+blackened object, which lay three-quarters
+exposed and showed a
+warped but cylindrical shape.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's have a counter on it," the
+general ordered.</p>
+
+<p>A technician slid into the crater
+and swept the metal with his instrument.
+The needle swung far over
+and stuck.</p>
+
+<p>To the other technician the general
+said, "Get a chunk for verification
+of the alloy." He kicked a
+small avalanche of dirt down the
+crater side and turned back to the
+road, adding, "Although I don't
+know why the formality. Even a
+cadet could see that's an atomjet
+reactor, beat up as it is."</p>
+
+<p>The major absorbed the jibe without
+comeback. An hour ago he had
+informed the general of his indecision
+over the object's identity,
+though he had suspected it to be
+the reactor.</p>
+
+<p>"We may find more when we get
+it examined in the shop," the general
+mused, swishing by the wheat.
+"But at least we know they do come
+down some place, and it wasn't flash
+fusion. On this one, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think about instituting
+a search of this vicinity for
+other parts, general?"</p>
+
+<p>The officer growled negatively.
+"Obviously, the reactor was the only
+part not vaporized in the fall&mdash;because
+of its construction."</p>
+
+<p>"That's assuming the ship entered
+the atmosphere at operational velocity
+and not less than free fall," the
+major qualified.</p>
+
+<p>"How can anyone assume free
+fall? Way outside probability."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, but there are degrees
+of velocity involved. He could have
+used reverse thrust and entered at
+a relatively slow speed."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, all right&mdash;let's say
+possible, then. Pull off your search
+if you want to. I'm in this thing
+so deep now, I'll try anything to get
+going. I've got Congress ready to
+investigate, and some senator yesterday
+put pressure on to cancel the
+United Nuclear contract. I'll try anything
+at this point, Grant!"</p>
+
+<p>The big man's voice had risen
+to anger, but Major Grant Reis had
+not missed the vocal breaking in
+the last syllables.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>"I'm First Lieutenant Ashley and
+I've an appointment to see General
+Morrison."</p>
+
+<p>The adjutant said, "Sorry, but
+you'll have to wait a little longer.
+The general's unexpectedly busy."</p>
+
+<p>"My appointment was over an
+hour ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Another half-hour and you can
+go in."</p>
+
+<p>"Another half-hour and I'll go."</p>
+
+<p>"It's your bar."</p>
+
+<p>The lieutenant plopped back into
+a chair just as Grant strode swiftly
+past the adjutant's desk from the
+private office.</p>
+
+<p>"Major," the adjutant asked,
+"how long is the general going to
+be tied up? He won't let me in the
+conference and the lieutenant here
+is supposed to see him."</p>
+
+<p>Grant paused at the opposite door
+and pointing two thumb-and-forefinger
+guns at his head exploded
+them. The adjutant groaned understandingly.
+Even the first lieutenant
+caught on.</p>
+
+<p>"Major, it's pretty important," the
+waiting officer said, standing again.
+Grant shifted his attention.</p>
+
+<p>"Look, lieutenant&mdash;" Grant bottled
+the sarcasm behind his suddenly
+lax mouth. He saw a first lieutenant's
+uniform, but it bulged
+aesthetically; and he saw a first lieutenant's
+cap and bar, but it sat
+rakishly on puffed-up brown curls.</p>
+
+<p>"If you'll just look at these papers,
+major, you'll understand. I stratoed
+in from the Pentagon this morning,"
+she said crisply.</p>
+
+<p>Though it was Grant's turn to
+say something, he found too much
+of his concentration on her challenging
+brown eyes and the efficient
+down-sweep of her half-pouting
+mouth, plus a nub of a nose that
+pointed proudly upwards with the
+tilt of her head. In a temporary
+defensive maneuver, Grant took the
+papers handed him.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The borders were marked CONFIDENTIAL
+and the attached signatures
+would have impressed even
+the general. The subject&mdash;he might
+have expected&mdash;ATOMJET PATROL
+LOSSES.</p>
+
+<p>"Er ... look, lieutenant&mdash; What
+was it?" Grant glanced down at the
+papers.</p>
+
+<p>"First Lieutenant Bridget Ashley."</p>
+
+<p>"Look, Lieutenant Ashley, the
+general's been getting nothing but
+troubles all day. For your sake and
+his sake, I suggest you come back
+tomorrow, huh?" Grant handed back
+the papers and put a hand on her
+elbow, but she jerked back.</p>
+
+<p>"Major, I've been given a great
+deal of responsibility in this assignment,"
+she flared, "and it's important
+for me to get work started at
+once. I was led to understand these
+patrol losses constituted a fairly
+urgent matter."</p>
+
+<p>Grant glanced ominously toward
+the general's door. "Lieutenant, I'm
+trying to explain to you that it's in
+your best interests to take this up
+with him tomorrow. I'm one of his
+aides and I know him. I realize
+you're authorized to see him today,
+but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'll wait." She reseated
+herself and emphatically crossed her
+legs&mdash;a motion not escaping Grant's
+notice.</p>
+
+<p>The adjutant and Grant mutually
+shrugged at each other, and Grant
+headed outside, saying over his
+shoulder, "I'll be back in a minute."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>As it developed, it was far more
+than a minute; but whatever it was,
+when Grant returned she was gone.
+The major looked at the adjutant,
+and the adjutant indicated the general's
+door with an apprehensive
+nod. Grant bit his lip and entered
+the private office.</p>
+
+<p>He had expected to hear the general's
+bass raging, but through the
+inner door came the strident tones
+of the lieutenant's modulating contralto.
+He had expected to see the
+general towering over the girl's
+shrinking figure, but as he entered
+she was bent earnestly in the middle,
+and the top of her torso inclined
+toward General Morrison, who had
+tilted as far back as his swivel chair
+would permit.</p>
+
+<p>"... So, if you haven't isolated
+any mechanical causation, how can
+you be sure it's mechanical?" she
+was laying it on. "And if you're not
+sure it's mechanical, how can you
+suggest there's no possibility of psychological
+causation? The authorities
+that sent me here have not only
+considered the possibility, they feel
+it's quite probable. All I am requesting,
+sir, is immediate implementation
+of my authority so your
+investigation can be broadened. It's
+really to your benefit that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Grant said, "Lieutenant Ashley."</p>
+
+<p>"... My work be started at once
+so as to catch up on what findings
+you have obtained in the&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Grant shouted, "Lieutenant Ashley!"</p>
+
+<p>"... Investigation so far in the
+mechanical aspects. It's not unlikely
+that a combining factor, both psychological
+and mechanical&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Grant yelled, "LIEUTENANT
+ASHLEY!!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, major."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you please wait in the
+outer office for just a moment?"</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"For just a moment, lieutenant."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Grant waited until the door closed
+before he tried communication with
+the general. The officer still teetered
+in his chair, his eyes bulging from
+his reddened face.</p>
+
+<p>"They sent me a shape," he sputtered.
+"That I could take. Shapes I
+don't mind, even with authority. But
+this one&mdash; You know where she's
+from, Grant?"</p>
+
+<p>Grant sighed hopelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"She's from syk," the general was
+beginning to roar, "with a blank
+check of authority from Washington.
+She stood there and called the losses
+pilot-error. My pilots, Grant, the
+ones I trained!"</p>
+
+<p>"Just a possibility, she meant,"
+soothed Grant.</p>
+
+<p>"Possibility, hell! With that attitude
+around Mojave we'll never get
+anywhere in this investigation." He
+untilted with a crash. "I want her
+kept away from me, do you hear?
+Give her anything she wants&mdash;but
+appointments with me. I've got
+United Nuclear here for stress tests,
+coolant analyses, radiation metering
+in the morning just as a start, and
+I'm not going to have that shape
+around fusing up the works."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll see what I can do, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"You're right you will. I'm putting
+Colonel Sorenson in as G-2,
+and you're going to be the new Syk
+Co&ouml;rdinator for the duration of this
+investigation!"</p>
+
+<p>"The what?"</p>
+
+<p>"You heard me."</p>
+
+<p>"It couldn't be that bad, general,"
+Grant grumbled.</p>
+
+<p>"It is."</p>
+
+<p>"Baby-sitting."</p>
+
+<p>The general stood up from his
+desk. "No, you'll relay any data she
+may turn up to me, and you'll see
+she gets what supplies and personnel
+she may need. Look, Washington
+thinks we need her, so I take orders.
+And so do you, Grant. I'll have a
+special order out this afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," Grant saluted and
+wheeled, grinding his molars.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>With dubious explanations, Grant
+managed to steer Lieutenant Ashley
+toward the Officers' Club. What
+excuses he gave her evidently had
+some effect; after the first fifty yards
+across the drill ground she steered
+easily, though still under vocal
+protest.</p>
+
+<p>A drink, and Grant felt he could
+face the future. They sat in a plastiweave
+booth, one against the far
+wall that overlooked through a
+curved window the blasting circle.</p>
+
+<p>So wrapped up with his own
+feelings, Grant had been unaware
+of his companion's. Her face had
+paled, and she stirred her drink
+absently. The reflections in her eyes
+were over-bright with moisture.</p>
+
+<p>Offered Grant: "The general has
+a lot on his mind."</p>
+
+<p>"Yeah," she choked.</p>
+
+<p>"The losses have upset him pretty
+bad."</p>
+
+<p>"I notice. Me, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Take a drink."</p>
+
+<p>She sipped one CC and said, "And
+syk upsets him."</p>
+
+<p>Grant smiled, "And shapes."</p>
+
+<p>"And I suppose the rank of first
+lieutenant makes him nervous."</p>
+
+<p>"No," Grant chuckled, "he can
+take or leave that. It's majors that
+get him."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled vaguely, so Grant followed
+up with: "What's your background?"</p>
+
+<p>"Psychometrics. Got a doctorate
+in it. I thought it might be valuable
+to the Air Force&mdash;at one time." She
+sipped two CCs.</p>
+
+<p>"I've a little syk background,"
+Grant said. She looked up in sudden
+interest. "Started to major in it
+until I ran up against some of the
+profs. If this is what syk produces,
+I decided, it's not for me. Changed
+to engineering then. Unfortunately,
+the general knows about my record."</p>
+
+<p>"How did he take it out on you,
+parade duty?"</p>
+
+<p>"Worse. He made me an aide."</p>
+
+<p>The girl leaned on an elbow and
+regarded him with her chin in her
+hand. "You bring his slippers?"</p>
+
+<p>"As G-2, I did up until quarter
+of an hour ago. I've been promoted.
+Meet the Base Mojave Syk Co&ouml;rdinator."</p>
+
+<p>Putting her nose in her drink,
+she giggled softly. "What is it he
+wants co&ouml;rdinated, the syk or me?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're on bearing," he laughed.
+"My name's Grant."</p>
+
+<p>His hand went across the table,
+opened, and waited.</p>
+
+<p>"Bridget," she said, and her hand
+fell into his in a handshake which
+lingered slightly.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>At Grant's insistence they jeep-toured
+the base. To his surprise
+Bridget took interest in the installations,
+but asked most of her questions
+around the atomjet hangars.</p>
+
+<p>"I've never seen one close," she
+hinted.</p>
+
+<p>Grant flashed his Security card at
+the guards and they went in. She
+strolled about the tapering, snub-winged
+craft, apparently inspecting
+it closely. Grant's thought was that
+she felt she had to dramatize understanding
+something about Air Force
+rocketry.</p>
+
+<p>After a short silence Bridget
+asked, "What is the compensating
+factor for the reactor's being placed
+off the center of stability?"</p>
+
+<p>Grant blinked. "What's that
+again?"</p>
+
+<p>She swung a pointed finger at the
+ship. "Naturally," she interrupted,
+"the nose will float downward in
+the canal, hoisting the hot tubes out
+of the liquid at the end of the glide-ins.
+But you've got pilot, power
+plant, and wings frontside. How can
+you affect glide-ins at surface air
+density without nosing in?"</p>
+
+<p>The major decided she must have
+been reading the latest confidential
+files. High-viscosity liquid landing
+canals constituted a subject recent
+enough to be Security and important
+enough not to be bandied about
+outside engineering and Base
+Mojave.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you see," Grant cleared
+his throat, "there're the fuel tanks
+along the back of the blast chamber,
+partly lead&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The tanks usually are nearly
+empty for glide-ins," she reminded.</p>
+
+<p>Grant frowned. "Yes, usually empty,
+but still a weight factor. Then
+there's the automatic wing stabilizer
+that adjusts to the air speed and
+density and acts to pull up the
+nose&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"O.K.," she interrupted. "Now,
+would you lift me through the
+canopy, please? I'd like to sit inside
+a minute."</p>
+
+<p>"That's out," he said. "Only pilots
+and technicians."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, if you won't, I'll get
+up myself." She marched over to the
+hangar wall and pulled over boarding
+steps, which were braced on
+three pivotal tires.</p>
+
+<p>"Bridget, Security says pilots and
+mechanics."</p>
+
+<p>"And you're forgetting why I'm
+here, and besides that you're supposed
+to co&ouml;rdinate. Right now
+you're unco&ouml;rdinating."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Before Grant's eyes flashed the
+memory of her orders with the signatures
+at the bottom. She was already
+climbing the steps.</p>
+
+<p>"Just don't touch anything, that's
+all," he conciliated, following her
+up. Her seams were straight, he
+noted.</p>
+
+<p>Bridget thudded into the narrow
+pilot's seat and wiggled herself into
+a comfortable position.</p>
+
+<p>"Awful crowded," she smiled up
+at Grant.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you tore your nylons,"
+he groused.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, if you'll just explain these
+gadgets," she said, moving her hand
+over the panel embedded with digit-rimmed
+dials.</p>
+
+<p>"Hands off, please."</p>
+
+<p>"By your reaction, I would say
+you don't know what some of them
+are," she counter-fired, and tossed
+her protruding bunch of curls.</p>
+
+<p>Grant took the bait. He leaned
+into the canopy and with an over-stiffened
+index finger pointed forcefully
+at each gauge. For more than
+a quarter-hour this went on, with
+Bridget pitching questions&mdash;most of
+which he juggled.</p>
+
+<p>She seemed to show more interest
+in the radar screen, the navigational
+equipment, and the communications
+system. About these, she milked
+Grant's available knowledge until
+he felt like reaching down and
+throwing open the reactor valve and
+fuel switch.</p>
+
+<p>"Lieutenant, if you don't mind,
+my back is paralyzed. Let's go back
+to the club and I'll answer anything
+you want."</p>
+
+<p>"Just one more," she coaxed.
+"This crosshair sight with the little
+black circle in the middle. How
+does that work again?"</p>
+
+<p>Grant straightened up and carefully
+massaged the small of his back.
+"It's for precise manual navigation
+if you need it. You sit up straight
+and sight through it."</p>
+
+<p>"And what do you sight at?"</p>
+
+<p>"A star, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Put it in the little black circle?"</p>
+
+<p>"An A for you. Then you snap
+in Automatic Navigational and
+you're in business. Or you can navigate
+manually by using Gyroscopic
+Navigational if you want."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm ready to get out now."
+Bridget lifted her hands where Grant
+stood on the platform of the boarding
+device.</p>
+
+<p>Back or no back, Grant couldn't
+resist the opportunity. He pulled her
+by the hands to where she was leaning
+out the opened canopy, then he
+stooped and grabbed her under the
+arms and swung her up. For a
+moment her soft hair brushed his
+ear, and a light scent from her neck
+suggested he keep her pliant form
+close to him a little longer than
+necessary.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/002.png" width="450" height="360" alt="" title="" /></div>
+
+<p>He planted her next to the steps,
+and she muttered an uninspired
+thank you. But halfway down, she
+halted and turned.</p>
+
+<p>"It's much easier asking me out
+dancing, Grant," she smiled impishly,
+and clacked across the hangar
+floor toward the jeep.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>By the next morning arrangements
+for a small staff and office space had
+swiftly gone through. Working
+through lunch, Bridget had the office
+set up and the staff briefed and
+researching when Grant returned
+from dining with the general.</p>
+
+<p>"You're just in time," she said,
+looking up from an already cluttered
+desk. "I'm ready now to scan
+through any G-2 you have on atomjet
+operation in your Mojave files."</p>
+
+<p>Grant bristled. "These files are
+under the general's nose, and I don't
+think he'd appreciate&mdash;" He broke
+off when he observed Bridget tapping
+her pencil and frowning at him
+impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>With a degree of diplomacy he
+had to admire, Grant lifted the non-technical
+files from the general's office
+and furtively smuggled them out
+in his brief case.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't take all day," he warned,
+handing them to Bridget. "Part of
+my job is keeping the general neutral
+about you, and not against."</p>
+
+<p>Bridget jumped up and drew another
+chair up to her desk. "How
+about scanning with me? That'll get
+the files back faster. Here, take these
+on pilot training."</p>
+
+<p>The files repulsed him less than
+Bridget attracted him, and he sat
+down promptly. "And what do I
+look for, psychologically significant
+portions, is that it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Even psychologically insignificant
+portions, major, if you please."</p>
+
+<p>Grant began to read. As he scanned
+the copies of directives, reports,
+operations logs, and procedures the
+process became automatic, and part
+of his consciousness turned contemplative.</p>
+
+<p>Three months ago he would have
+considered the situation in which he
+now found himself a future development
+out of the question. Mojave
+had brimmed with optimism and
+pride and accomplishment and eagerness.
+Base Mojave loomed vital in
+national defense, constituted a main
+element of national scientific pride.</p>
+
+<p>From the dusty desert stretches
+the sprawling, efficient base had
+taken shape while United Nuclear
+had yet to assemble an atomjet. The
+schedules came out perfectly, and
+the first single-manned fusion-propulsed
+rocketplane thundered off the
+corporation proving grounds and
+glided into Base Mojave as planned.
+Designed for patrol of the mesosphere,
+the ships were to have gained
+for the West control of near-Earth
+space, besides affording superior observation
+posts for Eastern developments
+and activity of a space nature.</p>
+
+<p>Training of the pilots had lasted
+thirty weeks and went by without
+a casualty or serious damage. Testing
+and re-testing of the electronics
+brought out no flaws. Stress and
+thermal analyses held up under all
+conditions imposed.</p>
+
+<p>The losses began after the third
+week of patrol. UNR-6 failed to
+return to base&mdash;with no hint of the
+cause, with no communication from
+the pilot. That one was hushed up
+by the base PR officer, but news of
+the second reached the press. During
+the fifth week, UNR-2 never returned
+for its glide-in, and, of course,
+the first loss came out at that time,
+too.</p>
+
+<p>General Morrison worked with
+the pilots and engineers steadily on
+the problem with apparent good results&mdash;for
+a month. Then UNR-9
+vanished.</p>
+
+<p>Lately the orders had been for
+patrol over the States, and it was presumed
+UNR-9 would have made an
+appearance somewhere had it been
+in trouble. That's why the Dakota
+farmer's report had been investigated
+so swiftly.</p>
+
+<p>As of now, the situation had become
+one patrol a day with reluctant
+pilots, Congress sending a committee
+to the base, a taxpayers' injunction
+against the Air Force rocketplane
+operation, and United Nuclear
+men experimenting hourly with robot-piloted
+atomjets at all altitudes
+below four hundred miles.</p>
+
+<p>Plus the syk research, naturally.</p>
+
+<p>Bridget's ash tray spilled over with
+right-angled cigarette butts, half-burned.
+Grant studied her as she read
+through the files intently although
+her eyes rolled his way briefly on
+occasion. She faced him with an
+unexpected snap of the head.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just looking," Grant explained.</p>
+
+<p>"Then just look for a pilot's
+manual. It's been mentioned and I
+haven't seen one around. Would you
+mind?"</p>
+
+<p>Grant opened his mouth to inform
+her a pilot's manual for the
+atomjet was classified secret, but
+caught himself before he could verbalize
+the protest. He shrugged and
+planned more strategy for invading
+the general's files.</p>
+
+<p>The only things he could be
+grateful for so far were Bridget's
+beauty and the fact the staff had not
+realized he was her adjutant.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The Mayo psychiatrist and the
+Yale psychologist had been in conference
+with Bridget for almost an
+hour. She had been giving them
+preliminary findings and the results
+of tests and interviews with the base
+pilots.</p>
+
+<p>When they finally broke up, Bridget
+approached Grant with a there's-something-I-want-from-you
+look.
+Grant nearly had a chance to offer
+lunch before she suggested it.</p>
+
+<p>What she wanted from him came
+out over their aerated sherbet pie.
+By the time she finished, Grant's
+dessert was beginning to taste like
+vitaminized space rations.</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible," he said, dabbing at
+sherbet spots on his trousers. "The
+general would react faster than to a
+red alert."</p>
+
+<p>"Your concern may be the general's
+reactions, but mine's not,"
+Bridget snapped. "I just want an
+objective engineering answer, yes or
+no."</p>
+
+<p>Grant threw up his hands. "O.K.,
+O.K. With a live pilot, yes, you
+can get a TV transmitter in an atomjet
+with some doing. You'd have to
+jerk out the extra oxygen space
+and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Wonderful! When can you have
+it for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bridget, what I'm getting at, the
+general will take this as a slap at him
+and his pilots. We've had TV transmission
+from robotized atomjets
+dozens of times&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"With no results."</p>
+
+<p>"With no results," Grant admitted,
+"but that doesn't mean that with
+a pilot you'll necessarily get any,
+either."</p>
+
+<p>"No, but why hasn't someone
+tried?" Bridget waited for him to
+answer a decent two seconds and
+then added, "The general, naturally."</p>
+
+<p>They left the base lunchroom in
+silence, Bridget pouting a lip-edge
+more than Grant. Before entering
+the office, Grant brought up a rebuttal.</p>
+
+<p>"Another thing, no pilot is going
+to push up under those conditions,
+with you down there hoping something
+will happen."</p>
+
+<p>Bridget had her hand on the door,
+but instead of opening it, paused.
+"The pilot would have to trust me."
+Her eyes darkened, widened, split
+Grant emotionally down the middle.
+He could understand, for an instant
+when he let himself, how a man
+could be inveigled to do anything
+for a woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Yeah," he said. "A pilot like
+that might be hard to find. I'll see
+what I can do."</p>
+
+<p>As he walked toward the hangars,
+he heard the office door close softly
+behind him.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>At the engineering conference
+after supper Grant had never seen
+General Morrison looking quite that
+old. The man was sustaining an
+overload of responsibility, and probably
+self-imposed guilt on top of it.</p>
+
+<p>The mechanical engineers made
+their report, followed by the electronic
+engineers, followed by the
+physicist&mdash;all negative. But each
+group had a suspicion that another
+had overlooked something. Before
+it regressed to a high-school debate,
+the general bellowed the conference
+to order.</p>
+
+<p>Grant was surprised at the twinge
+of emotion he experienced when he
+realized the general was not going
+to ask for a report from syk. Why
+should Grant care, anyway? The
+position meant nothing to him, Syk
+Co&ouml;rdinator.</p>
+
+<p>It meant something to Bridget,
+though.</p>
+
+<p>That General Morrison had not
+even checked for syk findings annoyed
+Grant, perhaps. Under the circumstances
+he was justified: nothing
+had yet come out, nothing that Bridget
+had told Grant, anyway. The
+general could not be aware of this.
+He assumed it. Maybe that's what
+upset Grant.</p>
+
+<p>"Then there's this De-Meteor,"
+the general was saying. "I've always
+been suspicious of that gadget."</p>
+
+<p>An electronics man spoke up. "A
+Clary man checked them all, even
+used instrument flight to be certain.
+I was with him and counter-checked
+the radar high-speed scanners, the
+computers, and the course-alteration
+mechanism. I was convinced myself
+it would steer the ship out of any
+situation involving the approach of
+one or two penetrating meteors."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>General Morrison turned to the
+spatialogist. "What about the incidence
+of penetrating meteors in the
+mesosphere?"</p>
+
+<p>"In average fall," the man replied,
+"fairly low."</p>
+
+<p>"And the probability of encountering
+three at once along a given
+atomjet trajectory?"</p>
+
+<p>"From what limited experiments
+we have made, the odds would be
+astronomical, I'd say."</p>
+
+<p>The general snorted. "Too great
+to account for three ships, anyway,
+is that it?" He soothed his forehead
+with his big hand. "All right, let's
+make another check starting tomorrow
+morning. More robot-flight tests.
+Let's have ships outside the mesosphere
+operation range. And I want
+reports on anything that looks like
+anything, understand?"</p>
+
+<p>The group emitted a low groan.
+This was the fourth comprehensive
+check&mdash;grueling, close, meticulous,
+nerve-racking work.</p>
+
+<p>From the rear came the voice of
+a courageous civilian mechanical engineer,
+"What about a check on the
+pilots?"</p>
+
+<p>The sudden silence was like an
+electrical field. The base commander
+continued to shuffle up his notes
+and papers, but his neck crimsoned.</p>
+
+<p>He's not going to hear it, Grant
+thought.</p>
+
+<p>"Conference dismissed!" the general
+ordered.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Three-four-five rings, and Bridget
+answered. The first word was a yawned
+"Lieutenant" and the next was
+an exhaled "Ashley."</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry to get you up, Bridget.
+This is Grant. Can you come down
+to Hangar Four?"</p>
+
+<p>"What time is it?" she asked
+thickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Three-fifteen. Will you come
+down here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Unchaperoned?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's not the point. A surprise.
+What we talked about the other
+day."</p>
+
+<p>Bridget's interest picked up.
+"What we talked about? But I'll
+have to dress and fix my face&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Put on a robe and slippers. It's
+a warm morning. I've got it fixed
+with the O.D. Now, will you come
+on down?"</p>
+
+<p>She paused. "You've convinced
+me."</p>
+
+<p>In a few minutes Grant heard her
+slippers shuffling over the concrete.
+She arrived in a brilliant blue nylon
+robe, with white fluffy slippers and
+traces of a lighter blue nightgown
+underneath. The hangar brightness
+brought a frown to her eyes, which
+she shielded with a hand cupped to
+her brow. A creature as entrancing
+as that, Grant decided, should now
+recite prose poetry in contralto tones
+to make his ideal complete.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" she croaked, a sleepy
+frog in her throat. "So I'm here."</p>
+
+<p>The last mechanic was picking up
+his tools and was about ready to
+leave. Otherwise, they were alone,
+except for the guard at the hangar
+entrance.</p>
+
+<p>"Up on the platform," said Grant,
+unlocking the canopy of UNR-12.
+He busied himself adjusting the
+guiding tension.</p>
+
+<p>He heard the slippers, shuffling
+and gritting, climb the loading device
+and stop next to him. He heard
+the gasp as she saw the pilot compartment's
+freshly built-in TV transmitter
+and lens. When he felt the
+pull on his arm, he chose to notice
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, Grant. I thought for a
+while&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It's ready for tomorrow if you
+want it," Grant mentioned casually.</p>
+
+<p>Bridget's fists clenched and her
+eyes brightened. "Wow," she observed.
+"Then you've got a pilot?"</p>
+
+<p>Grinning sourly, Grant said, "As
+if you don't know who."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes showed concern. "What
+do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean things have worked out
+creamy as you planned."</p>
+
+<p>"Grant, I don't understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, don't tell me you didn't
+know I could push up one of these
+things." He patted the side of the
+atomjet.</p>
+
+<p>"You, a pilot? Grant. I didn't
+know."</p>
+
+<p>"Let's say it's been convenient for
+you, anyway."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>They had walked outside, Bridget
+trying to find Grant's gaze, which
+he put onto a distant ridge of hills
+rising dimly against the desert starscape.</p>
+
+<p>Bridget said seriously, "You think
+I've been enticing you into the pilot
+job, is that it?"</p>
+
+<p>Grant's glance fell to hers. "It
+looked that way to me. All the
+general's staff have to fly 'em, I
+thought you knew that. I don't
+patrol, of course."</p>
+
+<p>They neared her quarters, and
+the shadow of the building that
+spilled over them was deep.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know, Grant, believe
+me." Her voice carried earnestness.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't have to prove it,"
+Grant said huskily.</p>
+
+<p>He had caught her hand, and
+then her arm slid softly around his
+neck. Her kiss was meant as brief,
+but he persuaded her differently.
+They clung together silently until
+the barracks guard had spun an
+about-face and headed back their
+way.</p>
+
+<p>"Please, Grant, get someone else
+to go up," she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"You said you wanted a pilot
+who trusted you," reminded Grant.
+"Now, get to bed before I gig you
+for being out of uniform. See me
+tomorrow on TV."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The miles altimeter needle swept
+steadily and was about to pass the
+300 division. Star-sprinkled space-darkness
+lay ahead by now, but when
+he looked to the side the Earth's
+surface reflected the sunlight dazzlingly.</p>
+
+<p>It wasn't that he felt self-consciousness
+over the lens in front of
+him, or over the one showing him
+in profile, and the one just over his
+shoulder viewing the instrument
+panel. Nor was it based on his not
+pushing up in over a month. He
+traced it probably to the uncertainty
+of his position.</p>
+
+<p>His position was uncertain, because
+Bridget could easily be right.
+Actually, considering the lack of one
+lead in the other avenues of the
+investigation, chances were good
+something was happening to pilots
+and could happen to him.</p>
+
+<p>That was not what bothered him:
+not that something might occur, but
+<i>what</i> might occur. Fighting unknowns
+for Grant carried no interest.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm over 300," he transmitted.
+"Now what?"</p>
+
+<p>Bridget's voice arrived with an
+ionospheric waver. "Level at 375.
+Please remember, you're trying to
+simulate patrol conditions. Don't
+transmit unless it's your report period
+or something goes wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"Like what, lieutenant?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you knew all the psychological
+quirks possible, you'd avoid them,
+major. And if you're still worried,
+I've taken adequate precautions.
+There's a staff of twenty-five persons
+here with instruments on you. By the
+way, your picture is coming over
+horribly."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/003.png" width="450" height="316" alt="" title="" /></div>
+
+<p>"Try my profile. I've heard it's
+better."</p>
+
+<p>"And please replace your galvanometric
+and respiratory clamps. We're
+getting no register here."</p>
+
+<p>"They're too uncomfortable."</p>
+
+<p>"Major, let me remind you this
+flight is costing the taxpayers plenty,
+hasn't General Morrison's clearance,
+and may have to be flown again unless
+you co&ouml;perate fully." Grant
+smiled at the lens. He could visualize
+her curls whipping around.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, please co&ouml;perate and replace
+the clamps, and try to simulate
+patrol conditions. I will call you from
+time to time for further instructions.
+Ashley at Mojave&mdash;out."</p>
+
+<p>Grant returned, "Reis over Mojave&mdash;nuts."</p>
+
+<p>After parodying annoyance at the
+lens, he dutifully replaced the chest
+and palm clamps and settled down
+to the tedium of patrol.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Behind him, tons of pressure thundered
+silently out in controlled gaseous
+fusion, hurled him starward on
+a pillar of energy. He had already
+broken his vertical ascent and was
+slanting toward the latitude Bridget
+requested. The Pacific rolled up
+under the atomjet's polished nose,
+which sparkled with myriads of
+brighter star reflections. Then he
+recalled he couldn't play over the
+ocean and veered slowly northward,
+up the coast to the telltale configuration
+of Puget Sound.</p>
+
+<p>Over the eastern lakes he cut
+fusion and watched on the altimeter
+dial the battle between gravity and
+inertia. Near the Mississippi delta he
+was wrenched in a sharp maneuver
+as the De-Meteor suddenly took
+over. He was fortunate to see the
+streaking missile glow brightly and
+flare out of existence in the thin
+regions of atmosphere miles beneath
+him.</p>
+
+<p>More than three hours of patrol,
+and no word from Mojave. Obediently,
+Grant had not called in. He
+set course for Mojave and was nearly
+ready to transmit when a bark of
+static filled the pressurized control
+bubble. Disappointed, Grant heard
+a male voice over the speaker.</p>
+
+<p>"High altitude weather observation
+overdue. UNR-12, please report
+synoptics in quadrants."</p>
+
+<p>They really want simulation, Grant
+grumbled mentally. "Southwest
+quadrant, southeast quadrant clear
+except for banner-clouding higher
+ranges. Northwest, scattered alto-cumulus,
+looks like the onset of a
+warm front, with the northeast quadrant
+moderate-high cirrus. And let
+me talk to Br ... to Lieutenant
+Ashley, please."</p>
+
+<p>A pause. "Ashley, Mojave."</p>
+
+<p>"How's my picture now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your vertical is off, and you
+flutter. Major, the first three hours
+have been without direction from the
+base. For the next two, we're going
+to ask you to perform certain patrol
+tasks, perhaps repeat them. The
+process may not prove especially
+enjoyable. Your close co&ouml;peration
+will be appreciated."</p>
+
+<p>"If this is all stuff we went
+through in training&mdash;" Grant sputtered.</p>
+
+<p>"Some of it may be," Bridget's
+voice. "The fact it's distasteful may
+make it the more significant. Are you
+ready to co&ouml;perate?"</p>
+
+<p>Grant nodded at the lens and
+screwed up his face in an exaggerated
+frown.</p>
+
+<p>Bridget's thoroughness called for
+admiration. She had him at the end
+of a string, activating him from a
+plot taken directly from the pilot's
+manual. He would co&ouml;perate, but he
+was not enthusiastic.</p>
+
+<p>As the exercises progressed, Grant
+detected subtle variations Bridget
+had added to the basic maneuvers.
+On the tight starboard circle, for
+instance, she had him keep his eyes
+on Earth, making him slightly dizzy.</p>
+
+<p>Then she requested a free-fall
+drop from a stall with the provision
+he this time place his attention on
+the instrument panel&mdash;"with no
+peeking outside." He complied,
+watching the altimeter trace forty
+miles toward the basement, and
+experienced effects no different than
+usual.</p>
+
+<p>After a while, he came to consider
+it a game and might have gained
+amusement from it, were it not for
+the tiredness creeping in behind his
+eyes and the fact two dozen technicians
+somewhere down there were
+hoping to trip a fatal, hidden
+synapse.</p>
+
+<p>"How much more of this?" Grant
+transmitted finally.</p>
+
+<p>"Getting tired?" Bridget replied,
+and paused for an answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's say I don't feel like six sets
+of tennis."</p>
+
+<p>"A few more, major, and we'll
+authorize your glide-in." If there
+was disappointment in her voice, it
+did not manifest itself. "Your next
+exercise is manual navigation with
+Jupiter as your fix."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Grant took down the figures she
+gave in acute disinterest. Boredom
+had settled heavily over his outlook
+on the operation. No longer did it
+matter that his facial reactions were
+being televised to the syk-happy
+probers; and it made no difference
+to him any more that his every
+breath, swallow, heart beat, tension,
+and sweat-secretion was magnified
+by inky needles along moving rolls
+of paper.</p>
+
+<p>His exercise target was a southwestern
+New Mexico town, and he
+swung back from the Gulf area and
+coaxed the responsive craft until the
+planet gleamed brightly in the crosshairs
+of the navigational sight. That
+put him four degrees off the horizontal,
+he noted, but Jupiter was
+setting; he adjusted his velocity to
+maintain the planet's relative skyward
+position in the west.</p>
+
+<p>In some irritation he stepped up
+the thrust. This one could easily take
+too long. The faint hum of the
+power plant provided music as the
+bright point of light danced slightly
+from the sight's center.</p>
+
+<p>The realization came that he had
+jumped convulsively. Grant was puzzled
+that he was not aware what
+had happened. Some sort of reflex?
+But reflex from what? Tingling
+coursed its way up his left leg and
+he rubbed his thigh.</p>
+
+<p>When he put his attention on the
+sight again, the planet had slipped
+out. In fact, it was nowhere in the
+immediate starscape ahead of him.</p>
+
+<p>His quick glance at the basement
+showed first that a twilight shadow
+was moving in from the north&mdash; From
+the north? It had to be the
+east! And how come so soon?</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Small panic twisted his diaphragm
+when he viewed below the unfamiliar
+topography and increasing cloudiness.
+And when he saw by his watch
+it was nearly three&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The radio had started to transmit.
+He swallowed a lump of fear and
+prepared some kind of an answer.
+"... If you hear me. Please indicate
+if you hear me, Grant."</p>
+
+<p>He nodded at the lens.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you like a pilot to help
+you orient from here?"</p>
+
+<p>Grant felt sheepish, but the panic
+still remained. He was now aware
+his alertness was not up to par, so
+he nodded again. But he was feeling
+better by the minute.</p>
+
+<p>Back on course under one of the
+pilot's directions, Grant soon took
+over.</p>
+
+<p>"Skip that exercise, Grant, and
+glide in," Bridget sent. "Feel up to
+it, now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yeah, but what's it all about?
+I must've passed out, but damned
+if I know what for."</p>
+
+<p>Grant heard Bridget's laugh and
+his morale improved. "You come
+down and take me to dinner and
+I'll give you the answer&mdash;and what
+I think may be the answer to all
+the general's troubles. Right now I've
+got a report to write so the general
+can get the word soon&mdash;and as painlessly
+as possible."</p>
+
+<p>Grant pressed the stud to activate
+the skin coolant system for entrance
+into the atmosphere. He almost felt
+like grinning.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Grant at the medical officer's advice
+took a brief nap, which quickly
+cleared up his mental fuzziness. As
+a surprise to Bridget he ordered a
+rotocab from Barstow, the nearest
+town, booming since the base had
+become operative.</p>
+
+<p>In a specialty restaurant over
+freshly arrived seafood from San
+Francisco, Grant tried to persuade
+Bridget to stop teasing him about
+the navigational foul-up and set him
+straight. He had put up with it as
+long as he did only because she had
+worn an off-shoulder yellow gown,
+snugly fitted, that made the uniform
+seem like the design of a Mid-Victorian
+prude.</p>
+
+<p>Grant, exasperated, brought her
+teasing up short. "I've been priding
+myself on keeping up the myth I'm a
+wide-awake young man and pilot.
+Never have I passed out before&mdash;never.
+I feel like a washed-out cadet.
+You've had your fun baiting&mdash;now,
+what made me blank?"</p>
+
+<p>Bridget cringed as he tore a slice
+of French bread in half with one
+hostile, meaningful bite.</p>
+
+<p>She waved her cigarette haughtily.
+"We in psychology have found certain
+stimuli productive of consistent
+human response. Especially true in
+tactile sensation, this, however, is
+not as true in the auditory and
+visual."</p>
+
+<p>"You're being technical," Grant
+interrupted. "Just let me know
+simple-like, if you don't mind."</p>
+
+<p>"Consequently," she continued,
+"the problem presented to the investigating
+psychologist was one of
+seeking an involuntary response to
+one or more stimuli, in sequence or
+grouped. Traditionally&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Ashley&mdash;" Grant held up
+the small, square tissue-wrapped box,
+tied with a bow&mdash;"I would like to
+have you open this tonight, but obviously
+you're not going to have time
+what with the thesis, and all." He
+deliberately put the box back in his
+coat pocket.</p>
+
+<p>Their eyes held over her swordfish
+momentarily.</p>
+
+<p>"So, O.K., I looked around for
+nasty stimuli, that's all," Bridget
+went on. "There were lots of possibilities,
+but I sorta picked two or
+three. Part of our pilot interviews
+was for getting descriptions from
+the men on what the conditions up
+there felt like, sounded like, looked
+like, smelled like, and so on. Completely
+individual, mind you. From
+that we spotted negative elements
+held in common by them."</p>
+
+<p>Grant reached for her arm and
+blocked the upward motion of her
+fish-loaded fork.</p>
+
+<p>"You can eat after," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I threw the nasty ones at you
+when you began tiring, because that's
+when the body's stimulus-response
+setup starts pulling away from conscious
+direction. I saved the one I
+had the hunch on for the last."</p>
+
+<p>"The navigation exercise, you
+mean? I still don't get what that
+has to do with my leg cramp."</p>
+
+<p>Bridget laughed. "Oh, that. One
+of those leads attached to your leg
+carried a little voltage&mdash;just in case
+you passed out. The benefits of
+current psychology, you know."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Grant repressed a smile. "Thanks
+for letting me know what brought
+me around, but you are still stalling
+about why I went under."</p>
+
+<p>"You figure it out. What were the
+stimuli associated with the manual
+navigation problem?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let's see," he mused. "Tactile:
+nothing important, just the control
+levers. Visually, the star field and
+Jupiter and the crosshairs. Auditorily,
+the power hum&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What stands out?"</p>
+
+<p>"The planet and the hum, I
+guess."</p>
+
+<p>"And how did the planet appear?"
+Bridget asked.</p>
+
+<p>"A point of light, you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"And what does that add up to:
+a bright concentrated light source
+on which you fix your attention and
+a monotonous hum?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not hypnotism!"</p>
+
+<p>Bridget shrugged. "A reasonable
+facsimile. Especially when you throw
+mental fatigue in with it."</p>
+
+<p>"But you need a suggestion, I
+thought&mdash;" Grant was amazed.</p>
+
+<p>"Not necessarily," she replied.
+"You were mentally tired, there was
+some self-suggestion for sleep. But
+simply a continued fixation of the
+eyes in suggestive subjects can be
+enough. There may be a subconscious
+association with previous hypnosis, or
+early states of mental shock. In the
+highly suggestive, a steady lulling
+noise can be sufficient in itself. And
+you were alone, with no one around
+to snap a finger under your nose.
+Add it up in your situation, and you
+blank out."</p>
+
+<p>Grant slapped his forehead.
+"What did I look like?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not any different than usual,"
+she said, laughing. "You continued
+to hold the controls, but you stared
+vacantly and tensed quite a bit. Well,
+we have the complete recording on
+your reactions if you want to check.
+Naturally, you pulled off course,
+ended up over Mexico, gaining about
+fifty miles in altitude."</p>
+
+<p>The others, thought Grant, rode
+until their oxygen gave out or dived
+through the atmosphere without skin-cooling,
+or came out of it too late
+and found&mdash; He decided not to
+think about it.</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't think I'm hypnotic,"
+Grant protested.</p>
+
+<p>"Everyone is hypnotic to a degree.
+Some are a great deal more than
+others, and these are the ones that
+are apparent. Impose the right conditions
+and a quasi-hypnotic condition
+could be affected on most anyone."</p>
+
+<p>"But why hasn't this happened
+elsewhere?"</p>
+
+<p>Bridget took a quick bite of fish
+before he could stop her. "It has.
+First documentation I found was in
+the South Pacific air war in the '40s.
+One-man escorting fighter planes in
+several cases slipped out of bomber
+formations they were following at
+night and splashed. One of the
+explanations at their hearings, but
+never investigated thoroughly, was
+hypnosis from the single red taillight
+of the bombers. In one outfit, the
+losses stopped when the fighters flew
+up front."</p>
+
+<p>"Not only sharp, but good-looking,
+too," Grant admired, and began
+chewing on the other half of his
+French bread. Then he ceased masticating
+and mouthed anxiously,
+"You've told the general this?"</p>
+
+<p>Bridget clapped her hands. "With
+exquisite pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>"And he&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"... Got excited, phoned for
+engineering to remove navigational
+sights and suggested I join the staff
+at the base."</p>
+
+<p>Grant coughed on the bread and
+hurriedly reached for his water. "He
+wants you around?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gratitude, I guess, in his own
+brassy way."</p>
+
+<p>"And you'll stay?"</p>
+
+<p>"If Washington O.K.'s it, and
+I'm coaxed."</p>
+
+<p>"Then that simplifies the matter,"
+he said and brought out the daintily
+wrapped tiny gift box. "For you."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes warmed and smiled as
+she said, "That's the kind of coaxing
+a woman wants."</p>
+
+<p>Grant fumed, "Then you know
+what it is? Extrasensory perception
+or something psychological?"</p>
+
+<p>Their hands met across the table
+and lingered.</p>
+
+<p>"Purely an emotional response,"
+said Bridget.</p>
+
+<div class="hd1"><b>THE END</b></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/004.png" width="450" height="206" alt="" title="" /></div>
+
+<div class="trn"><b>Transcriber's Note:</b>
+This etext was produced from <i>Astounding Science Fiction</i> March 1955.
+Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
+typographical errors have been corrected without note.</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Fine Fix, by R. C. Noll
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+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,1552 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Fine Fix, by R. C. Noll
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Fine Fix
+
+Author: R. C. Noll
+
+Illustrator: H. R. van Dongen
+
+Release Date: January 3, 2009 [EBook #27696]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FINE FIX ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A FINE FIX
+
+BY R. C. NOLL
+
+[Illustration]
+
+    _Generally speaking, human beings are fine buck-passers--but there's
+    one circumstance under which they refuse to pass on responsibility.
+    If the other fellow says "Your method won't solve the
+    problem!"--then they get mad!_
+
+Illustrated by van Dongen
+
+
+The leader climbed sharply in a bank to the left, and the two others
+followed close behind. Their jet streams cut off at very near the same
+time. Before their speed slowed to stalling, the rotors unfolded from
+the canopy hump and beat the air viciously, the steam wisping back in
+brief fingers.
+
+Under power again, they dipped playfully in tightening circles toward
+the plot-mottled earth. The fields expanded beneath them, and the leader
+brought up and hovered over a farm road whose dust already stirred in
+the disturbed air.
+
+They settled as one in the rolling dust clouds from which emerged a
+coveralled figure who had driven the battered pickup truck to meet them.
+
+"Y'sure got back in a rush," he addressed the major, who was just
+jumping from the plastiglas cabin.
+
+The major nodded and put his attention on seeing that the general
+descended safely. He then indicated the farmer.
+
+"He's the one," the major said.
+
+The general grunted socially.
+
+Taking the opening, the farmer said, "Out there in the wheat, general."
+His tone carried eager importance. "My kid saw the light come down this
+morning feedin' the chickens. I felt the ground jump, too. Called the
+sheriff, first off."
+
+"All right, you were a hero," said the general shortly. "Now, Grant,
+will you take me to it? I can't mess around here all day."
+
+The party of six men, two of them technicians, waded into the field from
+the road. The farmer remained to watch, frowning.
+
+When they had progressed well into the wheat, he shouted after them
+ruefully, "And watch where you're steppin', too!"
+
+The group paused on the rim of newly gouged earth, clods and dirt that
+had splashed from the center of the crater. It was nearly four feet
+deep. The man the major had left on guard had uncovered more of the
+blackened object, which lay three-quarters exposed and showed a warped
+but cylindrical shape.
+
+"Let's have a counter on it," the general ordered.
+
+A technician slid into the crater and swept the metal with his
+instrument. The needle swung far over and stuck.
+
+To the other technician the general said, "Get a chunk for verification
+of the alloy." He kicked a small avalanche of dirt down the crater side
+and turned back to the road, adding, "Although I don't know why the
+formality. Even a cadet could see that's an atomjet reactor, beat up as
+it is."
+
+The major absorbed the jibe without comeback. An hour ago he had
+informed the general of his indecision over the object's identity,
+though he had suspected it to be the reactor.
+
+"We may find more when we get it examined in the shop," the general
+mused, swishing by the wheat. "But at least we know they do come down
+some place, and it wasn't flash fusion. On this one, anyway."
+
+"What do you think about instituting a search of this vicinity for other
+parts, general?"
+
+The officer growled negatively. "Obviously, the reactor was the only
+part not vaporized in the fall--because of its construction."
+
+"That's assuming the ship entered the atmosphere at operational velocity
+and not less than free fall," the major qualified.
+
+"How can anyone assume free fall? Way outside probability."
+
+"Yes, sir, but there are degrees of velocity involved. He could have
+used reverse thrust and entered at a relatively slow speed."
+
+"All right, all right--let's say possible, then. Pull off your search if
+you want to. I'm in this thing so deep now, I'll try anything to get
+going. I've got Congress ready to investigate, and some senator
+yesterday put pressure on to cancel the United Nuclear contract. I'll
+try anything at this point, Grant!"
+
+The big man's voice had risen to anger, but Major Grant Reis had not
+missed the vocal breaking in the last syllables.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I'm First Lieutenant Ashley and I've an appointment to see General
+Morrison."
+
+The adjutant said, "Sorry, but you'll have to wait a little longer. The
+general's unexpectedly busy."
+
+"My appointment was over an hour ago."
+
+"Another half-hour and you can go in."
+
+"Another half-hour and I'll go."
+
+"It's your bar."
+
+The lieutenant plopped back into a chair just as Grant strode swiftly
+past the adjutant's desk from the private office.
+
+"Major," the adjutant asked, "how long is the general going to be tied
+up? He won't let me in the conference and the lieutenant here is
+supposed to see him."
+
+Grant paused at the opposite door and pointing two thumb-and-forefinger
+guns at his head exploded them. The adjutant groaned understandingly.
+Even the first lieutenant caught on.
+
+"Major, it's pretty important," the waiting officer said, standing
+again. Grant shifted his attention.
+
+"Look, lieutenant--" Grant bottled the sarcasm behind his suddenly lax
+mouth. He saw a first lieutenant's uniform, but it bulged aesthetically;
+and he saw a first lieutenant's cap and bar, but it sat rakishly on
+puffed-up brown curls.
+
+"If you'll just look at these papers, major, you'll understand. I
+stratoed in from the Pentagon this morning," she said crisply.
+
+Though it was Grant's turn to say something, he found too much of his
+concentration on her challenging brown eyes and the efficient down-sweep
+of her half-pouting mouth, plus a nub of a nose that pointed proudly
+upwards with the tilt of her head. In a temporary defensive maneuver,
+Grant took the papers handed him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The borders were marked CONFIDENTIAL and the attached signatures would
+have impressed even the general. The subject--he might have
+expected--ATOMJET PATROL LOSSES.
+
+"Er ... look, lieutenant-- What was it?" Grant glanced down at the
+papers.
+
+"First Lieutenant Bridget Ashley."
+
+"Look, Lieutenant Ashley, the general's been getting nothing but
+troubles all day. For your sake and his sake, I suggest you come back
+tomorrow, huh?" Grant handed back the papers and put a hand on her
+elbow, but she jerked back.
+
+"Major, I've been given a great deal of responsibility in this
+assignment," she flared, "and it's important for me to get work started
+at once. I was led to understand these patrol losses constituted a
+fairly urgent matter."
+
+Grant glanced ominously toward the general's door. "Lieutenant, I'm
+trying to explain to you that it's in your best interests to take this
+up with him tomorrow. I'm one of his aides and I know him. I realize
+you're authorized to see him today, but--"
+
+"Then I'll wait." She reseated herself and emphatically crossed her
+legs--a motion not escaping Grant's notice.
+
+The adjutant and Grant mutually shrugged at each other, and Grant headed
+outside, saying over his shoulder, "I'll be back in a minute."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As it developed, it was far more than a minute; but whatever it was,
+when Grant returned she was gone. The major looked at the adjutant, and
+the adjutant indicated the general's door with an apprehensive nod.
+Grant bit his lip and entered the private office.
+
+He had expected to hear the general's bass raging, but through the inner
+door came the strident tones of the lieutenant's modulating contralto.
+He had expected to see the general towering over the girl's shrinking
+figure, but as he entered she was bent earnestly in the middle, and the
+top of her torso inclined toward General Morrison, who had tilted as far
+back as his swivel chair would permit.
+
+"... So, if you haven't isolated any mechanical causation, how can you
+be sure it's mechanical?" she was laying it on. "And if you're not sure
+it's mechanical, how can you suggest there's no possibility of
+psychological causation? The authorities that sent me here have not only
+considered the possibility, they feel it's quite probable. All I am
+requesting, sir, is immediate implementation of my authority so your
+investigation can be broadened. It's really to your benefit that--"
+
+Grant said, "Lieutenant Ashley."
+
+"... My work be started at once so as to catch up on what findings you
+have obtained in the--"
+
+Grant shouted, "Lieutenant Ashley!"
+
+"... Investigation so far in the mechanical aspects. It's not unlikely
+that a combining factor, both psychological and mechanical--"
+
+Grant yelled, "LIEUTENANT ASHLEY!!"
+
+"Yes, sir, major."
+
+"Would you please wait in the outer office for just a moment?"
+
+"But--"
+
+"For just a moment, lieutenant."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Grant waited until the door closed before he tried communication with
+the general. The officer still teetered in his chair, his eyes bulging
+from his reddened face.
+
+"They sent me a shape," he sputtered. "That I could take. Shapes I don't
+mind, even with authority. But this one-- You know where she's from,
+Grant?"
+
+Grant sighed hopelessly.
+
+"She's from syk," the general was beginning to roar, "with a blank
+check of authority from Washington. She stood there and called the
+losses pilot-error. My pilots, Grant, the ones I trained!"
+
+"Just a possibility, she meant," soothed Grant.
+
+"Possibility, hell! With that attitude around Mojave we'll never get
+anywhere in this investigation." He untilted with a crash. "I want her
+kept away from me, do you hear? Give her anything she wants--but
+appointments with me. I've got United Nuclear here for stress tests,
+coolant analyses, radiation metering in the morning just as a start, and
+I'm not going to have that shape around fusing up the works."
+
+"I'll see what I can do, sir."
+
+"You're right you will. I'm putting Colonel Sorenson in as G-2, and
+you're going to be the new Syk Cooerdinator for the duration of this
+investigation!"
+
+"The what?"
+
+"You heard me."
+
+"It couldn't be that bad, general," Grant grumbled.
+
+"It is."
+
+"Baby-sitting."
+
+The general stood up from his desk. "No, you'll relay any data she may
+turn up to me, and you'll see she gets what supplies and personnel she
+may need. Look, Washington thinks we need her, so I take orders. And so
+do you, Grant. I'll have a special order out this afternoon."
+
+"Yes, sir," Grant saluted and wheeled, grinding his molars.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With dubious explanations, Grant managed to steer Lieutenant Ashley
+toward the Officers' Club. What excuses he gave her evidently had some
+effect; after the first fifty yards across the drill ground she steered
+easily, though still under vocal protest.
+
+A drink, and Grant felt he could face the future. They sat in a
+plastiweave booth, one against the far wall that overlooked through a
+curved window the blasting circle.
+
+So wrapped up with his own feelings, Grant had been unaware of his
+companion's. Her face had paled, and she stirred her drink absently. The
+reflections in her eyes were over-bright with moisture.
+
+Offered Grant: "The general has a lot on his mind."
+
+"Yeah," she choked.
+
+"The losses have upset him pretty bad."
+
+"I notice. Me, too."
+
+"Take a drink."
+
+She sipped one CC and said, "And syk upsets him."
+
+Grant smiled, "And shapes."
+
+"And I suppose the rank of first lieutenant makes him nervous."
+
+"No," Grant chuckled, "he can take or leave that. It's majors that get
+him."
+
+She smiled vaguely, so Grant followed up with: "What's your background?"
+
+"Psychometrics. Got a doctorate in it. I thought it might be valuable to
+the Air Force--at one time." She sipped two CCs.
+
+"I've a little syk background," Grant said. She looked up in sudden
+interest. "Started to major in it until I ran up against some of the
+profs. If this is what syk produces, I decided, it's not for me. Changed
+to engineering then. Unfortunately, the general knows about my record."
+
+"How did he take it out on you, parade duty?"
+
+"Worse. He made me an aide."
+
+The girl leaned on an elbow and regarded him with her chin in her hand.
+"You bring his slippers?"
+
+"As G-2, I did up until quarter of an hour ago. I've been promoted. Meet
+the Base Mojave Syk Cooerdinator."
+
+Putting her nose in her drink, she giggled softly. "What is it he wants
+cooerdinated, the syk or me?"
+
+"You're on bearing," he laughed. "My name's Grant."
+
+His hand went across the table, opened, and waited.
+
+"Bridget," she said, and her hand fell into his in a handshake which
+lingered slightly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At Grant's insistence they jeep-toured the base. To his surprise Bridget
+took interest in the installations, but asked most of her questions
+around the atomjet hangars.
+
+"I've never seen one close," she hinted.
+
+Grant flashed his Security card at the guards and they went in. She
+strolled about the tapering, snub-winged craft, apparently inspecting it
+closely. Grant's thought was that she felt she had to dramatize
+understanding something about Air Force rocketry.
+
+After a short silence Bridget asked, "What is the compensating factor
+for the reactor's being placed off the center of stability?"
+
+Grant blinked. "What's that again?"
+
+She swung a pointed finger at the ship. "Naturally," she interrupted,
+"the nose will float downward in the canal, hoisting the hot tubes out
+of the liquid at the end of the glide-ins. But you've got pilot, power
+plant, and wings frontside. How can you affect glide-ins at surface air
+density without nosing in?"
+
+The major decided she must have been reading the latest confidential
+files. High-viscosity liquid landing canals constituted a subject recent
+enough to be Security and important enough not to be bandied about
+outside engineering and Base Mojave.
+
+"Well, you see," Grant cleared his throat, "there're the fuel tanks
+along the back of the blast chamber, partly lead--"
+
+"The tanks usually are nearly empty for glide-ins," she reminded.
+
+Grant frowned. "Yes, usually empty, but still a weight factor. Then
+there's the automatic wing stabilizer that adjusts to the air speed and
+density and acts to pull up the nose--"
+
+"O.K.," she interrupted. "Now, would you lift me through the canopy,
+please? I'd like to sit inside a minute."
+
+"That's out," he said. "Only pilots and technicians."
+
+"All right, if you won't, I'll get up myself." She marched over to the
+hangar wall and pulled over boarding steps, which were braced on three
+pivotal tires.
+
+"Bridget, Security says pilots and mechanics."
+
+"And you're forgetting why I'm here, and besides that you're supposed to
+cooerdinate. Right now you're uncooerdinating."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before Grant's eyes flashed the memory of her orders with the signatures
+at the bottom. She was already climbing the steps.
+
+"Just don't touch anything, that's all," he conciliated, following her
+up. Her seams were straight, he noted.
+
+Bridget thudded into the narrow pilot's seat and wiggled herself into a
+comfortable position.
+
+"Awful crowded," she smiled up at Grant.
+
+"I hope you tore your nylons," he groused.
+
+"Now, if you'll just explain these gadgets," she said, moving her hand
+over the panel embedded with digit-rimmed dials.
+
+"Hands off, please."
+
+"By your reaction, I would say you don't know what some of them are,"
+she counter-fired, and tossed her protruding bunch of curls.
+
+Grant took the bait. He leaned into the canopy and with an
+over-stiffened index finger pointed forcefully at each gauge. For more
+than a quarter-hour this went on, with Bridget pitching questions--most
+of which he juggled.
+
+She seemed to show more interest in the radar screen, the navigational
+equipment, and the communications system. About these, she milked
+Grant's available knowledge until he felt like reaching down and
+throwing open the reactor valve and fuel switch.
+
+"Lieutenant, if you don't mind, my back is paralyzed. Let's go back to
+the club and I'll answer anything you want."
+
+"Just one more," she coaxed. "This crosshair sight with the little black
+circle in the middle. How does that work again?"
+
+Grant straightened up and carefully massaged the small of his back.
+"It's for precise manual navigation if you need it. You sit up straight
+and sight through it."
+
+"And what do you sight at?"
+
+"A star, of course."
+
+"Put it in the little black circle?"
+
+"An A for you. Then you snap in Automatic Navigational and you're in
+business. Or you can navigate manually by using Gyroscopic Navigational
+if you want."
+
+"I'm ready to get out now." Bridget lifted her hands where Grant stood
+on the platform of the boarding device.
+
+Back or no back, Grant couldn't resist the opportunity. He pulled her by
+the hands to where she was leaning out the opened canopy, then he
+stooped and grabbed her under the arms and swung her up. For a moment
+her soft hair brushed his ear, and a light scent from her neck suggested
+he keep her pliant form close to him a little longer than necessary.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+He planted her next to the steps, and she muttered an uninspired thank
+you. But halfway down, she halted and turned.
+
+"It's much easier asking me out dancing, Grant," she smiled impishly,
+and clacked across the hangar floor toward the jeep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By the next morning arrangements for a small staff and office space had
+swiftly gone through. Working through lunch, Bridget had the office set
+up and the staff briefed and researching when Grant returned from dining
+with the general.
+
+"You're just in time," she said, looking up from an already cluttered
+desk. "I'm ready now to scan through any G-2 you have on atomjet
+operation in your Mojave files."
+
+Grant bristled. "These files are under the general's nose, and I don't
+think he'd appreciate--" He broke off when he observed Bridget tapping
+her pencil and frowning at him impatiently.
+
+With a degree of diplomacy he had to admire, Grant lifted the
+non-technical files from the general's office and furtively smuggled
+them out in his brief case.
+
+"Don't take all day," he warned, handing them to Bridget. "Part of my
+job is keeping the general neutral about you, and not against."
+
+Bridget jumped up and drew another chair up to her desk. "How about
+scanning with me? That'll get the files back faster. Here, take these on
+pilot training."
+
+The files repulsed him less than Bridget attracted him, and he sat down
+promptly. "And what do I look for, psychologically significant portions,
+is that it?"
+
+"Even psychologically insignificant portions, major, if you please."
+
+Grant began to read. As he scanned the copies of directives, reports,
+operations logs, and procedures the process became automatic, and part
+of his consciousness turned contemplative.
+
+Three months ago he would have considered the situation in which he now
+found himself a future development out of the question. Mojave had
+brimmed with optimism and pride and accomplishment and eagerness. Base
+Mojave loomed vital in national defense, constituted a main element of
+national scientific pride.
+
+From the dusty desert stretches the sprawling, efficient base had taken
+shape while United Nuclear had yet to assemble an atomjet. The schedules
+came out perfectly, and the first single-manned fusion-propulsed
+rocketplane thundered off the corporation proving grounds and glided
+into Base Mojave as planned. Designed for patrol of the mesosphere, the
+ships were to have gained for the West control of near-Earth space,
+besides affording superior observation posts for Eastern developments
+and activity of a space nature.
+
+Training of the pilots had lasted thirty weeks and went by without a
+casualty or serious damage. Testing and re-testing of the electronics
+brought out no flaws. Stress and thermal analyses held up under all
+conditions imposed.
+
+The losses began after the third week of patrol. UNR-6 failed to return
+to base--with no hint of the cause, with no communication from the
+pilot. That one was hushed up by the base PR officer, but news of the
+second reached the press. During the fifth week, UNR-2 never returned
+for its glide-in, and, of course, the first loss came out at that time,
+too.
+
+General Morrison worked with the pilots and engineers steadily on the
+problem with apparent good results--for a month. Then UNR-9 vanished.
+
+Lately the orders had been for patrol over the States, and it was
+presumed UNR-9 would have made an appearance somewhere had it been in
+trouble. That's why the Dakota farmer's report had been investigated so
+swiftly.
+
+As of now, the situation had become one patrol a day with reluctant
+pilots, Congress sending a committee to the base, a taxpayers'
+injunction against the Air Force rocketplane operation, and United
+Nuclear men experimenting hourly with robot-piloted atomjets at all
+altitudes below four hundred miles.
+
+Plus the syk research, naturally.
+
+Bridget's ash tray spilled over with right-angled cigarette butts,
+half-burned. Grant studied her as she read through the files intently
+although her eyes rolled his way briefly on occasion. She faced him with
+an unexpected snap of the head.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Just looking," Grant explained.
+
+"Then just look for a pilot's manual. It's been mentioned and I haven't
+seen one around. Would you mind?"
+
+Grant opened his mouth to inform her a pilot's manual for the atomjet
+was classified secret, but caught himself before he could verbalize the
+protest. He shrugged and planned more strategy for invading the
+general's files.
+
+The only things he could be grateful for so far were Bridget's beauty
+and the fact the staff had not realized he was her adjutant.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Mayo psychiatrist and the Yale psychologist had been in conference
+with Bridget for almost an hour. She had been giving them preliminary
+findings and the results of tests and interviews with the base pilots.
+
+When they finally broke up, Bridget approached Grant with a
+there's-something-I-want-from-you look. Grant nearly had a chance to
+offer lunch before she suggested it.
+
+What she wanted from him came out over their aerated sherbet pie. By the
+time she finished, Grant's dessert was beginning to taste like
+vitaminized space rations.
+
+"Impossible," he said, dabbing at sherbet spots on his trousers. "The
+general would react faster than to a red alert."
+
+"Your concern may be the general's reactions, but mine's not," Bridget
+snapped. "I just want an objective engineering answer, yes or no."
+
+Grant threw up his hands. "O.K., O.K. With a live pilot, yes, you can
+get a TV transmitter in an atomjet with some doing. You'd have to jerk
+out the extra oxygen space and--"
+
+"Wonderful! When can you have it for me?"
+
+"Bridget, what I'm getting at, the general will take this as a slap at
+him and his pilots. We've had TV transmission from robotized atomjets
+dozens of times--"
+
+"With no results."
+
+"With no results," Grant admitted, "but that doesn't mean that with a
+pilot you'll necessarily get any, either."
+
+"No, but why hasn't someone tried?" Bridget waited for him to answer a
+decent two seconds and then added, "The general, naturally."
+
+They left the base lunchroom in silence, Bridget pouting a lip-edge more
+than Grant. Before entering the office, Grant brought up a rebuttal.
+
+"Another thing, no pilot is going to push up under those conditions,
+with you down there hoping something will happen."
+
+Bridget had her hand on the door, but instead of opening it, paused.
+"The pilot would have to trust me." Her eyes darkened, widened, split
+Grant emotionally down the middle. He could understand, for an instant
+when he let himself, how a man could be inveigled to do anything for a
+woman.
+
+"Yeah," he said. "A pilot like that might be hard to find. I'll see what
+I can do."
+
+As he walked toward the hangars, he heard the office door close softly
+behind him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the engineering conference after supper Grant had never seen General
+Morrison looking quite that old. The man was sustaining an overload of
+responsibility, and probably self-imposed guilt on top of it.
+
+The mechanical engineers made their report, followed by the electronic
+engineers, followed by the physicist--all negative. But each group had a
+suspicion that another had overlooked something. Before it regressed to
+a high-school debate, the general bellowed the conference to order.
+
+Grant was surprised at the twinge of emotion he experienced when he
+realized the general was not going to ask for a report from syk. Why
+should Grant care, anyway? The position meant nothing to him, Syk
+Cooerdinator.
+
+It meant something to Bridget, though.
+
+That General Morrison had not even checked for syk findings annoyed
+Grant, perhaps. Under the circumstances he was justified: nothing had
+yet come out, nothing that Bridget had told Grant, anyway. The general
+could not be aware of this. He assumed it. Maybe that's what upset
+Grant.
+
+"Then there's this De-Meteor," the general was saying. "I've always been
+suspicious of that gadget."
+
+An electronics man spoke up. "A Clary man checked them all, even used
+instrument flight to be certain. I was with him and counter-checked the
+radar high-speed scanners, the computers, and the course-alteration
+mechanism. I was convinced myself it would steer the ship out of any
+situation involving the approach of one or two penetrating meteors."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+General Morrison turned to the spatialogist. "What about the incidence
+of penetrating meteors in the mesosphere?"
+
+"In average fall," the man replied, "fairly low."
+
+"And the probability of encountering three at once along a given atomjet
+trajectory?"
+
+"From what limited experiments we have made, the odds would be
+astronomical, I'd say."
+
+The general snorted. "Too great to account for three ships, anyway, is
+that it?" He soothed his forehead with his big hand. "All right, let's
+make another check starting tomorrow morning. More robot-flight tests.
+Let's have ships outside the mesosphere operation range. And I want
+reports on anything that looks like anything, understand?"
+
+The group emitted a low groan. This was the fourth comprehensive
+check--grueling, close, meticulous, nerve-racking work.
+
+From the rear came the voice of a courageous civilian mechanical
+engineer, "What about a check on the pilots?"
+
+The sudden silence was like an electrical field. The base commander
+continued to shuffle up his notes and papers, but his neck crimsoned.
+
+He's not going to hear it, Grant thought.
+
+"Conference dismissed!" the general ordered.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Three-four-five rings, and Bridget answered. The first word was a yawned
+"Lieutenant" and the next was an exhaled "Ashley."
+
+"Sorry to get you up, Bridget. This is Grant. Can you come down to
+Hangar Four?"
+
+"What time is it?" she asked thickly.
+
+"Three-fifteen. Will you come down here?"
+
+"Unchaperoned?"
+
+"That's not the point. A surprise. What we talked about the other day."
+
+Bridget's interest picked up. "What we talked about? But I'll have to
+dress and fix my face--"
+
+"Put on a robe and slippers. It's a warm morning. I've got it fixed with
+the O.D. Now, will you come on down?"
+
+She paused. "You've convinced me."
+
+In a few minutes Grant heard her slippers shuffling over the concrete.
+She arrived in a brilliant blue nylon robe, with white fluffy slippers
+and traces of a lighter blue nightgown underneath. The hangar brightness
+brought a frown to her eyes, which she shielded with a hand cupped to
+her brow. A creature as entrancing as that, Grant decided, should now
+recite prose poetry in contralto tones to make his ideal complete.
+
+"Well?" she croaked, a sleepy frog in her throat. "So I'm here."
+
+The last mechanic was picking up his tools and was about ready to leave.
+Otherwise, they were alone, except for the guard at the hangar entrance.
+
+"Up on the platform," said Grant, unlocking the canopy of UNR-12. He
+busied himself adjusting the guiding tension.
+
+He heard the slippers, shuffling and gritting, climb the loading device
+and stop next to him. He heard the gasp as she saw the pilot
+compartment's freshly built-in TV transmitter and lens. When he felt the
+pull on his arm, he chose to notice her.
+
+"Thanks, Grant. I thought for a while--"
+
+"It's ready for tomorrow if you want it," Grant mentioned casually.
+
+Bridget's fists clenched and her eyes brightened. "Wow," she observed.
+"Then you've got a pilot?"
+
+Grinning sourly, Grant said, "As if you don't know who."
+
+Her eyes showed concern. "What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean things have worked out creamy as you planned."
+
+"Grant, I don't understand."
+
+"Now, don't tell me you didn't know I could push up one of these
+things." He patted the side of the atomjet.
+
+"You, a pilot? Grant. I didn't know."
+
+"Let's say it's been convenient for you, anyway."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They had walked outside, Bridget trying to find Grant's gaze, which he
+put onto a distant ridge of hills rising dimly against the desert
+starscape.
+
+Bridget said seriously, "You think I've been enticing you into the pilot
+job, is that it?"
+
+Grant's glance fell to hers. "It looked that way to me. All the
+general's staff have to fly 'em, I thought you knew that. I don't
+patrol, of course."
+
+They neared her quarters, and the shadow of the building that spilled
+over them was deep.
+
+"I didn't know, Grant, believe me." Her voice carried earnestness.
+
+"You don't have to prove it," Grant said huskily.
+
+He had caught her hand, and then her arm slid softly around his neck.
+Her kiss was meant as brief, but he persuaded her differently. They
+clung together silently until the barracks guard had spun an about-face
+and headed back their way.
+
+"Please, Grant, get someone else to go up," she whispered.
+
+"You said you wanted a pilot who trusted you," reminded Grant. "Now, get
+to bed before I gig you for being out of uniform. See me tomorrow on
+TV."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The miles altimeter needle swept steadily and was about to pass the 300
+division. Star-sprinkled space-darkness lay ahead by now, but when he
+looked to the side the Earth's surface reflected the sunlight
+dazzlingly.
+
+It wasn't that he felt self-consciousness over the lens in front of him,
+or over the one showing him in profile, and the one just over his
+shoulder viewing the instrument panel. Nor was it based on his not
+pushing up in over a month. He traced it probably to the uncertainty of
+his position.
+
+His position was uncertain, because Bridget could easily be right.
+Actually, considering the lack of one lead in the other avenues of the
+investigation, chances were good something was happening to pilots and
+could happen to him.
+
+That was not what bothered him: not that something might occur, but
+_what_ might occur. Fighting unknowns for Grant carried no interest.
+
+"I'm over 300," he transmitted. "Now what?"
+
+Bridget's voice arrived with an ionospheric waver. "Level at 375. Please
+remember, you're trying to simulate patrol conditions. Don't transmit
+unless it's your report period or something goes wrong."
+
+"Like what, lieutenant?"
+
+"If you knew all the psychological quirks possible, you'd avoid them,
+major. And if you're still worried, I've taken adequate precautions.
+There's a staff of twenty-five persons here with instruments on you. By
+the way, your picture is coming over horribly."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Try my profile. I've heard it's better."
+
+"And please replace your galvanometric and respiratory clamps. We're
+getting no register here."
+
+"They're too uncomfortable."
+
+"Major, let me remind you this flight is costing the taxpayers plenty,
+hasn't General Morrison's clearance, and may have to be flown again
+unless you cooeperate fully." Grant smiled at the lens. He could
+visualize her curls whipping around.
+
+"Now, please cooeperate and replace the clamps, and try to simulate
+patrol conditions. I will call you from time to time for further
+instructions. Ashley at Mojave--out."
+
+Grant returned, "Reis over Mojave--nuts."
+
+After parodying annoyance at the lens, he dutifully replaced the chest
+and palm clamps and settled down to the tedium of patrol.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Behind him, tons of pressure thundered silently out in controlled
+gaseous fusion, hurled him starward on a pillar of energy. He had
+already broken his vertical ascent and was slanting toward the latitude
+Bridget requested. The Pacific rolled up under the atomjet's polished
+nose, which sparkled with myriads of brighter star reflections. Then he
+recalled he couldn't play over the ocean and veered slowly northward,
+up the coast to the telltale configuration of Puget Sound.
+
+Over the eastern lakes he cut fusion and watched on the altimeter dial
+the battle between gravity and inertia. Near the Mississippi delta he
+was wrenched in a sharp maneuver as the De-Meteor suddenly took over. He
+was fortunate to see the streaking missile glow brightly and flare out
+of existence in the thin regions of atmosphere miles beneath him.
+
+More than three hours of patrol, and no word from Mojave. Obediently,
+Grant had not called in. He set course for Mojave and was nearly ready
+to transmit when a bark of static filled the pressurized control bubble.
+Disappointed, Grant heard a male voice over the speaker.
+
+"High altitude weather observation overdue. UNR-12, please report
+synoptics in quadrants."
+
+They really want simulation, Grant grumbled mentally. "Southwest
+quadrant, southeast quadrant clear except for banner-clouding higher
+ranges. Northwest, scattered alto-cumulus, looks like the onset of a
+warm front, with the northeast quadrant moderate-high cirrus. And let me
+talk to Br ... to Lieutenant Ashley, please."
+
+A pause. "Ashley, Mojave."
+
+"How's my picture now?"
+
+"Your vertical is off, and you flutter. Major, the first three hours
+have been without direction from the base. For the next two, we're going
+to ask you to perform certain patrol tasks, perhaps repeat them. The
+process may not prove especially enjoyable. Your close cooeperation will
+be appreciated."
+
+"If this is all stuff we went through in training--" Grant sputtered.
+
+"Some of it may be," Bridget's voice. "The fact it's distasteful may
+make it the more significant. Are you ready to cooeperate?"
+
+Grant nodded at the lens and screwed up his face in an exaggerated
+frown.
+
+Bridget's thoroughness called for admiration. She had him at the end of
+a string, activating him from a plot taken directly from the pilot's
+manual. He would cooeperate, but he was not enthusiastic.
+
+As the exercises progressed, Grant detected subtle variations Bridget
+had added to the basic maneuvers. On the tight starboard circle, for
+instance, she had him keep his eyes on Earth, making him slightly dizzy.
+
+Then she requested a free-fall drop from a stall with the provision he
+this time place his attention on the instrument panel--"with no peeking
+outside." He complied, watching the altimeter trace forty miles toward
+the basement, and experienced effects no different than usual.
+
+After a while, he came to consider it a game and might have gained
+amusement from it, were it not for the tiredness creeping in behind his
+eyes and the fact two dozen technicians somewhere down there were hoping
+to trip a fatal, hidden synapse.
+
+"How much more of this?" Grant transmitted finally.
+
+"Getting tired?" Bridget replied, and paused for an answer.
+
+"Let's say I don't feel like six sets of tennis."
+
+"A few more, major, and we'll authorize your glide-in." If there was
+disappointment in her voice, it did not manifest itself. "Your next
+exercise is manual navigation with Jupiter as your fix."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Grant took down the figures she gave in acute disinterest. Boredom had
+settled heavily over his outlook on the operation. No longer did it
+matter that his facial reactions were being televised to the syk-happy
+probers; and it made no difference to him any more that his every
+breath, swallow, heart beat, tension, and sweat-secretion was magnified
+by inky needles along moving rolls of paper.
+
+His exercise target was a southwestern New Mexico town, and he swung
+back from the Gulf area and coaxed the responsive craft until the planet
+gleamed brightly in the crosshairs of the navigational sight. That put
+him four degrees off the horizontal, he noted, but Jupiter was setting;
+he adjusted his velocity to maintain the planet's relative skyward
+position in the west.
+
+In some irritation he stepped up the thrust. This one could easily take
+too long. The faint hum of the power plant provided music as the bright
+point of light danced slightly from the sight's center.
+
+The realization came that he had jumped convulsively. Grant was puzzled
+that he was not aware what had happened. Some sort of reflex? But reflex
+from what? Tingling coursed its way up his left leg and he rubbed his
+thigh.
+
+When he put his attention on the sight again, the planet had slipped
+out. In fact, it was nowhere in the immediate starscape ahead of him.
+
+His quick glance at the basement showed first that a twilight shadow was
+moving in from the north-- From the north? It had to be the east! And
+how come so soon?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Small panic twisted his diaphragm when he viewed below the unfamiliar
+topography and increasing cloudiness. And when he saw by his watch it
+was nearly three--
+
+The radio had started to transmit. He swallowed a lump of fear and
+prepared some kind of an answer. "... If you hear me. Please indicate if
+you hear me, Grant."
+
+He nodded at the lens.
+
+"Would you like a pilot to help you orient from here?"
+
+Grant felt sheepish, but the panic still remained. He was now aware his
+alertness was not up to par, so he nodded again. But he was feeling
+better by the minute.
+
+Back on course under one of the pilot's directions, Grant soon took
+over.
+
+"Skip that exercise, Grant, and glide in," Bridget sent. "Feel up to it,
+now?"
+
+"Yeah, but what's it all about? I must've passed out, but damned if I
+know what for."
+
+Grant heard Bridget's laugh and his morale improved. "You come down and
+take me to dinner and I'll give you the answer--and what I think may be
+the answer to all the general's troubles. Right now I've got a report to
+write so the general can get the word soon--and as painlessly as
+possible."
+
+Grant pressed the stud to activate the skin coolant system for entrance
+into the atmosphere. He almost felt like grinning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Grant at the medical officer's advice took a brief nap, which quickly
+cleared up his mental fuzziness. As a surprise to Bridget he ordered a
+rotocab from Barstow, the nearest town, booming since the base had
+become operative.
+
+In a specialty restaurant over freshly arrived seafood from San
+Francisco, Grant tried to persuade Bridget to stop teasing him about the
+navigational foul-up and set him straight. He had put up with it as long
+as he did only because she had worn an off-shoulder yellow gown, snugly
+fitted, that made the uniform seem like the design of a Mid-Victorian
+prude.
+
+Grant, exasperated, brought her teasing up short. "I've been priding
+myself on keeping up the myth I'm a wide-awake young man and pilot.
+Never have I passed out before--never. I feel like a washed-out cadet.
+You've had your fun baiting--now, what made me blank?"
+
+Bridget cringed as he tore a slice of French bread in half with one
+hostile, meaningful bite.
+
+She waved her cigarette haughtily. "We in psychology have found certain
+stimuli productive of consistent human response. Especially true in
+tactile sensation, this, however, is not as true in the auditory and
+visual."
+
+"You're being technical," Grant interrupted. "Just let me know
+simple-like, if you don't mind."
+
+"Consequently," she continued, "the problem presented to the
+investigating psychologist was one of seeking an involuntary response to
+one or more stimuli, in sequence or grouped. Traditionally--"
+
+"Miss Ashley--" Grant held up the small, square tissue-wrapped box, tied
+with a bow--"I would like to have you open this tonight, but obviously
+you're not going to have time what with the thesis, and all." He
+deliberately put the box back in his coat pocket.
+
+Their eyes held over her swordfish momentarily.
+
+"So, O.K., I looked around for nasty stimuli, that's all," Bridget went
+on. "There were lots of possibilities, but I sorta picked two or three.
+Part of our pilot interviews was for getting descriptions from the men
+on what the conditions up there felt like, sounded like, looked like,
+smelled like, and so on. Completely individual, mind you. From that we
+spotted negative elements held in common by them."
+
+Grant reached for her arm and blocked the upward motion of her
+fish-loaded fork.
+
+"You can eat after," he said.
+
+"I threw the nasty ones at you when you began tiring, because that's
+when the body's stimulus-response setup starts pulling away from
+conscious direction. I saved the one I had the hunch on for the last."
+
+"The navigation exercise, you mean? I still don't get what that has to
+do with my leg cramp."
+
+Bridget laughed. "Oh, that. One of those leads attached to your leg
+carried a little voltage--just in case you passed out. The benefits of
+current psychology, you know."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Grant repressed a smile. "Thanks for letting me know what brought me
+around, but you are still stalling about why I went under."
+
+"You figure it out. What were the stimuli associated with the manual
+navigation problem?"
+
+"Let's see," he mused. "Tactile: nothing important, just the control
+levers. Visually, the star field and Jupiter and the crosshairs.
+Auditorily, the power hum--"
+
+"What stands out?"
+
+"The planet and the hum, I guess."
+
+"And how did the planet appear?" Bridget asked.
+
+"A point of light, you mean?"
+
+"And what does that add up to: a bright concentrated light source on
+which you fix your attention and a monotonous hum?"
+
+"Not hypnotism!"
+
+Bridget shrugged. "A reasonable facsimile. Especially when you throw
+mental fatigue in with it."
+
+"But you need a suggestion, I thought--" Grant was amazed.
+
+"Not necessarily," she replied. "You were mentally tired, there was some
+self-suggestion for sleep. But simply a continued fixation of the eyes
+in suggestive subjects can be enough. There may be a subconscious
+association with previous hypnosis, or early states of mental shock. In
+the highly suggestive, a steady lulling noise can be sufficient in
+itself. And you were alone, with no one around to snap a finger under
+your nose. Add it up in your situation, and you blank out."
+
+Grant slapped his forehead. "What did I look like?"
+
+"Not any different than usual," she said, laughing. "You continued to
+hold the controls, but you stared vacantly and tensed quite a bit. Well,
+we have the complete recording on your reactions if you want to check.
+Naturally, you pulled off course, ended up over Mexico, gaining about
+fifty miles in altitude."
+
+The others, thought Grant, rode until their oxygen gave out or dived
+through the atmosphere without skin-cooling, or came out of it too late
+and found-- He decided not to think about it.
+
+"But I don't think I'm hypnotic," Grant protested.
+
+"Everyone is hypnotic to a degree. Some are a great deal more than
+others, and these are the ones that are apparent. Impose the right
+conditions and a quasi-hypnotic condition could be affected on most
+anyone."
+
+"But why hasn't this happened elsewhere?"
+
+Bridget took a quick bite of fish before he could stop her. "It has.
+First documentation I found was in the South Pacific air war in the
+'40s. One-man escorting fighter planes in several cases slipped out of
+bomber formations they were following at night and splashed. One of the
+explanations at their hearings, but never investigated thoroughly, was
+hypnosis from the single red taillight of the bombers. In one outfit,
+the losses stopped when the fighters flew up front."
+
+"Not only sharp, but good-looking, too," Grant admired, and began
+chewing on the other half of his French bread. Then he ceased
+masticating and mouthed anxiously, "You've told the general this?"
+
+Bridget clapped her hands. "With exquisite pleasure."
+
+"And he--?"
+
+"... Got excited, phoned for engineering to remove navigational sights
+and suggested I join the staff at the base."
+
+Grant coughed on the bread and hurriedly reached for his water. "He
+wants you around?"
+
+"Gratitude, I guess, in his own brassy way."
+
+"And you'll stay?"
+
+"If Washington O.K.'s it, and I'm coaxed."
+
+"Then that simplifies the matter," he said and brought out the daintily
+wrapped tiny gift box. "For you."
+
+Her eyes warmed and smiled as she said, "That's the kind of coaxing a
+woman wants."
+
+Grant fumed, "Then you know what it is? Extrasensory perception or
+something psychological?"
+
+Their hands met across the table and lingered.
+
+"Purely an emotional response," said Bridget.
+
+
+THE END
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+    This etext was produced from _Astounding Science Fiction_ March
+    1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+    copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
+    typographical errors have been corrected without note.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Fine Fix, by R. C. Noll
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FINE FIX ***
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