A Mixture of Genius Part 1

A Mixture of Genius.

by Arnold Castle.

_Who, but the imaginative young, shall inherit the stars?_

The sleek transcontinental airliner settled onto one of the maze of runways that was Stevenson Airport. With its turbojets fading into a dense roar, it taxied across the field toward the central building.

Inside the plane a red light went off.

Senator Vance Duran unhooked the seat belt, reached for his briefcase, and stepped into the crowded aisle. The other pa.s.sengers were all strangers, which had meant that for nearly an hour he had been able to give his full attention to the several hundred pages of proposed legislation and reports presented to the Committee on Extraterrestrial Development, of which he was chairman. But now there would be reporters, local political pleaders, the dinner at the Governor's, and the inevitable unexpected interruptions which were a part of every trip home.

As he strode through the door and onto the mobile escalator, he donned his smile of tempered confidence in the economic future of the nation.

A television camera went into action at once and news-men formed a small circle at the bottom of the ramp.

"That was a great little debate you put on with Ben Wickolm last week," one of the reporters said. "You really tied him up."

"You can thank Senator Wickolm for arousing me," Duran answered, observing to himself that perhaps _all_ of his efforts on the Hill did not go unnoticed in his home state, if most of them seemed to.

"What do you think, Senator, of the FCC's modified ruling on the integrated lunar relay station plan?" another asked.

"I haven't had time to get fully acquainted with it," the senator evaded, stepping onto the ground and out of the way of the ramp.

"Say, Senator, what about the Mars colony project?" a third put in.

"How come it's bogged down?"

"No comment at present," the senator said. But he gave them an ambiguous little grimace which was meant to suggest a minor but sticky snarl behind the scenes. He hoped it would satisfy them for the moment.

Making his escape as quickly as possible, he climbed onto the shuttle car already loaded down with the other pa.s.sengers. Finding an empty seat, he folded himself into it, and was immediately joined by someone else.

"Well, Senator, how does it feel to be home?" his companion asked with sympathetic irony.

Duran turned, grinned, and reached for the man's hand.

"Great, Wayne," he answered, recognizing an old friend who had been of no small aid during his earlier years in politics. "Say, I'd ask you over for dinner if we weren't going to the Governor's tonight. Molly would love to see you. Unfortunately I'm leaving for Was.h.i.+ngton again in the morning."

"Why doesn't Molly move to D.C. with you, Vance?" the journalist asked.

Duran hesitated. "Maybe in a year or so. After the boys are out of highschool. _If_ I get the job again."

The smile on the younger man's face was heartening.

"Don't play coy with me, Vance. You know you've got this state sewed up." Then came the slight frown of doubt. "Just one thing, though. A lot of people are wondering why the hold up on the colony project.

You're bound to get a little of the criticism. What the h.e.l.l's wrong, anyway?"

"Can't you guess?"

"Yeah. I can guess. There's only one possibility, since the government scientists a.s.sure us they've ironed out all the technical wrinkles.

But it's pretty hard to believe that out of the thousands of people who volunteer every week, not even a couple of hundred are acceptable."

Duran considered his answer carefully before voicing it.

"Ever ask yourself _who_ volunteers, Wayne?"

The journalist looked at him oddly, then nodded.

The senator took an elevator directly to the helicopter landing on the roof of the building. It was several minutes before he had located the little runabout he had bought for his wife the previous Christmas.

Jack Woodvale, their caretaker, gardener, and chauffeur, was just retrieving his suitcase from the baggage lift as the senator arrived.

Waiting until Woodvale had secured the suitcase in the luggage compartment and climbed into the pilot's seat, Duran squeezed himself into the cabin. A minute or two later the little craft was rising from the port, directed automatically into the appropriate channel and guided off toward the city.

"How've things been going, Jack?" the senator asked. He felt good.

Wayne's friends.h.i.+p and a.s.surances had provided a needed boost.

"Everything okay?"

"I'd say so, sir," Woodvale told him. "Had a little trouble with the solar screen. The store sent a man out to fix it. It's all right now."

The new power unit had been another of Molly's ideas, Duran recalled.

The old crystal sulfide screen had been perfectly reliable. But Molly had thought it looked ugly up there on the roof. Molly's main faults, he decided, derived from her concern with the neighbors' opinions.

"Oh, there was something else came up while I was on my way out to get you," Woodvale continued abruptly. "The state's Attorney General called--said it was important you contact him immediately."

Duran sensed anger surging up as he remembered the times when, as District Attorney, Sig Loeffler had openly snubbed him. That, of course, had been back in the days when Duran had been a junior partner in one of the city's smaller law firms. He had not forgiven Loeffler, nor had Loeffler given him any reason to do so. Only the Governor's back-slapping mediation had allowed them to reach a politically stable relations.h.i.+p. The relations.h.i.+p did not involve Duran's compliance with the man's whims, however.

"Get him on the phone, Jack," Duran said at last. "But just make one call. If he's not at his office, forget it."

In less than a minute Woodvale was turning around to say:

"He's in, sir. You want to talk to him?"

Duran grunted and lifted the phone from the clamp beside his seat.

"Senator Duran speaking," he said.

"Vance, this is Loeffler," boomed a voice in considerable contrast to the senator's own mild tone. "Something pretty fantastic has happened.

We're trying to keep it quiet, at least until we decide on what action to take. But if you can make it over here some time this evening, I'll tell you the story. You're going to be in on it eventually, and I thought you'd prefer getting in on it early."

Duran had intended quite bluntly to explain that he had more important business. But there was something compelling about the man's apparently ingenuous urgency that caused the senator to change his mind.

"Okay, Loeffler. I'll be right over."

He broke the contact and told Woodvale to dial his home number.

"Ernie, this is Dad," he said at the sound of his younger son's voice.

"Tell Mother I'm going to stop off at the Attorney General's office--that's right--but that I'll be home in plenty of time to get ready for the dinner. Got that? That's right. How's school? Something wrong? Okay, son, I'll see you later."