"Yes," I grunted.
My secretary cleared her throat on my time.
"Dr. Thorn," she said, "there's a Mr. Madison here to see you. He lays
claim to be from the Star Project."
He could come in and file his claim, I told the girl.
I rummaged in the wastebasket and uncrumpled the morning's facsimile
newspaper. It was full of material about the Star Project.
We were building Man's first interstellar spaceship.
* * * * *
A surprising number of people considered it important. Flipping from the
rear to page one, Wild Bill Star in the comics who had been blasting all
the way to forty-first sub-space universe for decades was harking back
to the good old days of Man's first star flight (which he had made
himself through the magic of time travel), the editor was calling the
man to make the jaunt the Lindbergh of Space, and the staff photographer
displayed a still of a Space Force pilot in pressure suit up front with
his face blotted out by an air-brushed interrogation mark.
Who was going to be the Lindbergh of Space?
We had used up the Columbus of Space, the Magellan of Space, the Van
Reck of Space. Now it was time for the Lone Eagle, one man who would
wait out the light years to Alpha Centauri.