get a decent post disbursing part of that money. He wouldnât, if he made too much trouble now. On the other hand, they would feel there was something wrong about an administrator who did not put up a spirited fight for the bureau he already headed. Scylla and Charybdis.â¦
He bought a few seconds by stubbing out his cigarette, and several more by talking while he marshalled his thoughts:
âMr. Chairman, distinguished members of this committee, I wish to express my appreciation of your foresight as well as your graciousness in offering me this opportunity to contribute to the illumination of those polymorphously reticulated interrelationships, sociological and humanistic as well as technological and economic, which determine the forwarding of a nonalienated and viable infrastructure. This is probably not the appropriate body before which to disseminate multigraphic and quantitative scientific and engineering presentations. Rather, it would appear evident to my perception of the situation that the aegis of this distinguished group is superimposed on the intricacy of era-characteristic fields of inquiry falling more under the rubric of basic philosophical justifications, while simultaneously concerning ourselves not to lose sight of the over-all necessity for action-oriented orchestration of innovative inputs.â
Three or four representatives shifted in their chairs and glanced at their watches. Stanhope let his eyelids droop.
âIn short,â Harleman finished, gauging his moment, âwe are about to start off on a whole new tack.â
âTacking in space? â Thomasson muttered.
âNo one disputes that NASA has exhausted certain possibilities.â For just an instant the buried dream flickered in Harleman, that he had known in the eerie rising of Sputnik One before dawn, and in manâs first landing on the moon. He could not but add, quietly: âNo basic reason for that, gentlemen. If weâd had more vision, if weâd worked only a little harder, we could have succeeded with the tools we had. We could have built larger and better Earth-orbital stations; supplied them from a colonized, really colonized moon; developed the nuclear-powered reaction drive to its true limits; built our giant ships in space and kept them there, so they neednât contaminate this planet and neednât fight their way up through its gravity well. We could have gone to the ends of the Solar System. By now, perhaps, we might already be thinking about the stars. Maybe then our young people wouldnât be playing at gangsterism and political radicalism. Theyâd have had better things to do.â
Bitterness tinged his words, for he remembered how he had become estranged from his only son. But he saw he was losing them and sprang back in haste:
âWell, never mind. We confront an existing situation. We need a whole new approach. And I think weâve found one.â
Stanhope opened his eyes wide. âIndeed?â he murmured. âMight Ah ask what?â
âIâm delighted to explain. Have you heard of gyrogravitics?â
Stanhope shook his knaggy head. Carter of Virginia said, slowly, âHas to do with atomic theory, doesnât it.â
âThatâs right,â Harleman answered. âI donât claim to follow the mathematics myself, but Iâve had scientists give me a lay explanation. It grew out of the effort to reconcile relativity and quantum mechanics. Those two branches of physics, both indispensable, were at odds on certain fundamental questions. Is nature or is nature not deterministicâdescribable by differential equations? Well, you may have read how Einstein once declared he couldnât believe that God plays dice with the world, while Heisenberg thought cause-and-effect was nothing but the statistics of large numbers, and Bohr suggested in his complementarity principle that both views might be true. Later, building on the work of such