"Nope," said Channing.
"May I accompany you?"
Channing looked at Farrell critically. The Terran Electric engineer
seemed sincere, and the pained expression on his face looked like
frustrated sympathy to Don. "Come along," he said.
* * * * *
Barney smiled cheerfully at the sign on Joe's door. "That's a good
one, 'Best Bar in Twenty-seven Million Miles, Minimum!' What's the
qualification for?"
"That's as close as Terra ever gets. Most of the time the nearest bar
is at Northern Landing, Venus; sixty-seven million miles from here.
Come on in and we'll get plastered."
Farrell said, "Look, fellows, I know how you feel. They didn't tell me
that you weren't going to be given permission to work. I understood
that I was to sort of walk along, offer suggestions and sort of prepare
myself to take over some research myself. This is sickening."
"I think you mean that."
"May I use your telephone? I want to resign."
"Wait a minute. If you're that sincere, why don't we outguess 'em?"
"Could do," said Wes. "How?"
"Is there any reason why we couldn't take a poke to Sol himself?"
"You mean haul power out of the sun?"
"That's the general idea. Barney, what do you think?"
"Could be--but it would take a redesign."
"Fine. And may we pray that the redesign is good enough to make a
difference to the Interplanetary Patent Office." Channing called Joe,
"The same. Three Moons all around. Scotch," he explained to the others,
"synthesized in the Palanortis Country."
"Our favorite import," said Walt.