By Proxy Part 5

"Looks like it. The CAA has already forbidden him to lift that s.h.i.+p. The s.p.a.ce Force flatly told him that he couldn't take off without permission, and they said he wouldn't get permission unless he let them look over his gizmo ... whatever it is."

"And he refused?"

"Well, he did let Colonel Manetti look it over, but the colonel said that, whatever the drive principle was, it wouldn't operate a s.h.i.+p. He said the engines didn't make any sense. What it boils down to is that the CAA thinks Porter has rockets in the s.h.i.+p, and the s.p.a.ce Force does, too. So they've both forbidden him to take off."

"_Are_ there any rocket motors in the s.h.i.+p?" Winstein asked.

"Not as far as I can see," Elshawe said. "He's got two big atomic-powered DC generators aboard--says they have to be DC to avoid electromagnetic effects. But the drive engines don't make any more sense to me than they do to Colonel Manetti."

Another pause. Then: "O.K., Terry; you stick with it. If Porter tries to buck the Government, we've got a h.e.l.l of a story if his gadget works the way he says it does. If it doesn't--which is more likely--then we can still get a story when they haul him back to the Bastille."

"Check-check. I'll call you if anything happens."

He hung up and stepped out of the phone booth into the lobby of the Murray Hotel. Across the lobby, a glowing sign said _c.o.c.ktail lounge_ in lower-case script.

He decided that a tall cool one wouldn't hurt him any on a day like this and ambled over, fumbling in his pockets for pipe, tobacco pouch, and other paraphernalia as he went. He pushed open the door, spotted a stool at the bar of the dimly-lit room, went over to it and sat down.

He ordered his drink and had no sooner finished than the man to his left said, "Good afternoon, Mr. Elshawe."

The reporter turned his head toward his neighbor. "Oh, h.e.l.lo, Mr.

Skinner. I didn't know you'd come to town."

"I came in somewhat earlier. Couple, three hours ago." His voice had the careful, measured steadiness of a man who has had a little too much to drink and is determined not to show it. That surprised Elshawe a little; Skinner had struck him as a middle-aged accountant or maybe a high school teacher--the mild kind of man who doesn't drink at all, much less take a few too many.

"I'm going to hire a 'copter and fly back," Elshawe said. "You're welcome if you want to come along."

Skinner shook his head solemnly. "No. Thank you. I'm going back to Los Angeles this afternoon. I'm just killing time, waiting for the local plane to El Paso."

"Oh? Well, I hope you have a good trip." Elshawe had been under the impression that Skinner had come to New Mexico solely to see the test of Porter's s.h.i.+p. He had wondered before how the man fitted into the picture, and now he was wondering why Skinner was leaving. He decided he might as well try to find out. "I guess you're disappointed because the test has been called off," he said casually.

"Called off? Hah. No such thing," Skinner said. "Not by a long shot. Not Porter. He'll take the thing up, and if the Army doesn't shoot him down, the CAA will see to it that he's taken back to prison. But that won't stop him. Malcom Porter is determined to go down in history as a great scientist, and nothing is going to stop him if he can help it."

"You think his s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p will work, then?"

"Work? Sure it'll work. It worked in '79; it'll work now. The way that drive is built, it can't help but work. I just don't want to stick around and watch him get in trouble again, that's all."

Elshawe frowned. All the time that Porter had been in prison, his technicians had been getting together the stuff to build the so-called "s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p," but none of them knew how it was put together or how it worked. Only Porter knew that, and he'd put it together after he'd been released on parole.

But if that was so, how come Skinner, who didn't even work for Porter, was so knowledgeable about the drive? Or was that liquor talking?

"Did you help him build it?" the reporter asked smoothly.

"_Help_ him build it? Why, I--" Then Skinner stopped abruptly. "Why, no," he said after a moment. "No. I don't know anything about it, really. I just know that it worked in '79, that's all." He finished his drink and got off his stool. "Well, I've got to be going. Nice talking to you. Hope I see you again sometime."

"Sure. So long, Mr. Skinner." He watched the man leave the bar.

Then he finished his own drink and went back into the lobby and got a phone. Ten minutes later, a friend of his who was a detective on the Los Angeles police force had promised to check into Mr. Samuel Skinner.

Elshawe particularly wanted to know what he had been doing in the past three years and very especially what he had been doing in the past year.

The cop said he'd find out. There was probably nothing to it, Elshawe reflected, but a reporter who doesn't follow up accidentally dropped hints isn't much of a reporter.

He came out of the phone booth, fired up his pipe again, and strolled back to the bar for one more drink before he went back to Porter's ranch.

Malcom Porter took one of the darts from the half dozen he held in his left hand and hurled it viciously at the target board hung on the far wall of the room.

_Thunk!_

"Four ring at six o'clock," he said in a tight voice.

_Thunk! Thunk! Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!_

The other five darts followed in rapid succession. As he threw each one, Porter snapped out a word. "They ... can't ... stop ... Malcom ...

Porter!" He glared at the board "Two bull's-eyes; three fours, and a three. Twenty-five points. You owe me a quarter, Elshawe."

The reporter handed him a coin. "Two bits it is. What can you do, Porter? They've got you sewed up tight. If you try to take off, they'll cart you right back to The Rock--if the Army doesn't shoot you down first. Do you want to spend the next ten years engrossed in the scenic beauties of San Francis...o...b..y?"

"No. And I won't, either."

"Not if the Army gets you. I can see the epitaph now:

_Malcom Porter, with vexation, Thought he could defy the nation.

He shot for s.p.a.ce with great elation-- Now he's dust and radiation._

Beneath it, they'll engrave a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p argent with A-bombs rampant on a field sable."

Porter didn't take offense. He grinned. "What are you griping about? It would make a great story."

"Sure it would," Elshawe agreed. "But not for me. I don't write the obituary column."

"You know what I like about you, Elshawe?"

"Sure. I lose dart games to you."

"That, yes. But you really sound worried. That means two things. One: You like me. Two: You believe that my s.h.i.+p actually will take off.

That's more than any of those other reporters who have been prowling around and phoning in do."

Elshawe shrugged silently and puffed at his pipe. Malcom Porter's ego was showing through. He was wrong on two counts. Elshawe didn't like him; the man's arrogance and his inflated opinion of himself as a scientific genius didn't sit well with the reporter. And Elshawe didn't really believe there was anything but a rocket motor in that hull outside. A new, more powerful kind of rocket perhaps--otherwise Porter wouldn't be trying to take a one-stage rocket to the Moon. But a rocket, nonetheless.

"I don't want to go back to prison," Porter continued, "but I'll risk that if I have to. But I won't risk death just yet. Don't worry; the Army won't know I'm even gone until I'm halfway to the Moon."

"Foo!" said Elshawe. "Every radar base from Albuquerque to the Mexican border has an antenna focused on the air above this ranch. The minute you get above those mountains, they'll have a fix on you, and a minute after that, they'll have you bracketed with Cobras.

"Why don't you let the Government inspectors look it over and give you an O.K.? What makes you think they're all out to steal your invention?"

"Oh, they won't _steal_ it," Porter said bitterly. "Heaven's-to-Betsy _no_! But this invention of mine will mean that the United States of America will be in complete control of the planets and the s.p.a.ce between. When the Government wants a piece of property, they try to buy it at their price; if they can't do that, they condemn it and pay the owner what they think it's worth--not what the owner thinks it's worth.