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major was stupid enough to raise his bid and then lay down a royal flush in
the face of a superior officer. A man that foolhardy was capable of any
imbecility.
As he was let in through a side door, the general thought the major had just
better be correct. If anything happened to him, the President would be stuck
underground for a long, long time.
Inside the cavernous hangar, light was furnished by banks of fluorescent
tubes. It was hot. At one end, the orange glow of the kilns flared angrily.
They were surrounded by an assortment of heavy anvils. Tools lay on the
concrete floor. But there was no sign of the blacksmiths.
Major Cheek came running up. He was in his shirtsleeves and sweating.
"Where are my blacksmiths?" General Leiber snapped. "I hope they're not
goofing off. They cost the government plenty."
"I sent them to a secure area, General. Their job is done and I thought it was
better that they not be privy to the evaluation process."
"Harumph. Good thinking. Now, let's have the poop on this thing."
"This way, General."
General Leiber followed as he unknotted his tie. "Blasted hot in here," he
muttered.
"It takes a lot of heat to make iron malleable," the major said. "That's why
your barbecue grills weren't enough. We needed extremely high temperatures."
"Blacksmiths on TV westerns always used stuff that looked like barbecue grills
to me. How was I to know the difference?"
At the far end of the hangar there were no lights. Major Cheek started
speaking as he began hitting switches, illuminating one section of the floor
at a time.
"In a way, you were right, General," he said. "The bell was a good starting
point. But even so, we would have had a hard time working from there. It was
really superfluous."
As the general watched, piles of twisted metal came into view. Closest to him
were simple jumbles of blackened slag. Beyond them were the unfused pieces.
They lay about in neat groups. It reminded General Leiber of photos of the
destroyed space shuttle Challenger after the pieces had been recovered and
laid out for inspection. There were a lot of pieces. Leiber saw bent metal
bars, strange constructs, and in a corner pile, huge round flat things that
reminded him of impossibly large gears.
"As I said," the major went on, "when we assembled one of the propulsion
units, it dawned on us what this thing was. But even then, I doubt if I would
have recognized what we had if my son hadn't been into HO models."
"HO?" asked General Leiber clutching at his cigar for support. "My God, are we
talking about hydrogen ordnance?"
"Why, no. I've never heard of hydrogen ordnance."
"Never mind," said Leiber. "I thought you said this thing was safe."
"It is. Now. Please come with me."
General Leiber followed the major through the aisles between the debris.
Although many of the pieces had been restored from their impact-mangled
states, they were not perfect. Exteriors were blackened and pitted and many of
the pieces only approximated the original parts. They had been too badly
compressed to be completely reconstructed.
"This is the heart of it," Major Cheek said, gesturing to a huge black
cylinder set on a wooden frame. It lay open and half-melted at one end.
The general poked his head in. The open end was easily seven feet in diameter
and very black both inside and out. It smelled of scorched metal--like an old
cast-iron stove. He ran his fingers along the outer skin, which was still warm
from being welded.
"From the pieces, we were able to reconstruct this portion."
"The fuel system?"
"You might say that, General."
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"Then it is a missile."
"Uh, yes and no."
"Don't 'yes-and-no' me again. Out with it! It is or it isn't. "
"It's not a conventional missile. But it acted like one in flight. In other
words, it was ballistic."
"That makes it a missile," General Leiber said decisively.
"No," said the major. "A missile is a fuel-propelled rocket. This is no such
thing."
"No? Then how did it get to Washington? By slingshot?"
"That's the part of this I can't answer, General. We haven't a clue there."
The general stubbed his cigar into his mouth. He tilted his service cap off
his lined forehead and his hands went on his hips.
"If you know what it is, you oughta be able to tell me what its motive power
was."
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