Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Illustrator: Sanford Kossin]
THE BIG TOMORROW
BY PAUL LOHRMAN
_There are certain rare individuals in this world who seem bereft of all common sense. These are the people who set their eyes upon an objective and immediately all intelligence, logic, good advice, unsolvable problems, and insurmountable obstacles go completely by the boards. The characters we refer to are obviously just plain stupid. What they want to do, just can't be done. The objectives they have in mind are unachievable and anyone with an ounce of brains can tell them so and give them good reasons. They are usually pretty sad cases and often land in the funny house. But then again, some of them go out and discover new worlds._
He hadn't gotten any work done that morning. He'd spent most of the timepacing the floor of his small back office, and the rest of it at thewindow--hands clasped behind his somewhat bowed back--staring up intothe cloudless sky.
At ten-forty, the intercom buzzed. He snapped the switch.
"Yes?"
"I've got those figures, Mr. Lake. We have nine--"
"Maybe you'd better come in and tell me personally, Lucy."
"All right, Mr. Lake."
The intercom snapped off and a few moments later a girl entered theoffice--if the prim little wisp that was Lucy Crane could be sogenerously classified.
Joshua Lake stared at the elongated bun of black hair on the top of herhead as she came toward his desk. There was an odd streak of richimagination in Joshua Lake and he always felt Lucy Crane's bun was asymbol of disapproval. "Sit down, Lucy. You use up too much energy."
"I try to do my job, Mr. Lake."
"You do that--and more. What are the figures, Lucy?"
"We're in desperate shape. We have nine thousand, four hundred andtwenty dollars in the payroll account. That leaves it over five thousandshort. There is only about two thousand in General Disbursements, butthat isn't enough to cover invoices due tomorrow. I'm afraid--"
"Don't be afraid, Lucy. That's negative. If we waste our time sittingaround shivering, we won't make any progress at all."
"I didn't mean it that way, Mr. Lake. I'm not shivering. I was merelystating that we haven't got enough money."
"Then I'll go to the bank and get some more."
"Of course, Mr. Lake. Is that all?"
"Yes, that's all, Lucy. You run on to lunch."
"You aren't going out?"
"No. I'm not hungry today."
Her bun bobbed in disapproval as she left the office. Joshua Lake staredat the closed door and sighed. Lucy knew exactly how things were. Shewasn't one to be fooled. But Joshua hoped the rest of the personnel werenot so perceptive. The engineers and the draftsmen particularly. Theycould all walk out at noon and be working somewhere else by one o'clock,what with the huge current industrial demand.
He walked again to the window; an old man; bone-weary, with the weightof his sixty-odd years bending his shoulders like a brick-carrier's hod.
"_Then I'll go to the bank and get some more._" He hadn't even fooledhimself this time. His chances at the bank were nil. Less than nil. Hisvery presence there could tip the balance of their decision. Loans couldbe called; the doors locked before nightfall.
At the window, he lowered his eyes from the sky and looked to the gatethat led into the horseshoe sweep of low buildings and back to thegreat, bulking hangar where precious work was being done.
A man and his dream, Lake mused.
He could see only the back of the sign hanging over the gate, but he wasquite familiar with the other side. _Lake Interstellar Enterprises_ inbold, brave letters; and in the lower right-hand corner--barelydiscernible--_Joshua Lake--President_.
* * * * *
A visitor looking closely at the sign could see that it had been doneover--that a discarded legend lay beneath a coat of white paint. The oldname of the firm was still faintly visible: _Lake and Gorman--Castingsand Extrusions_.
It wasn't difficult for Joshua to conjure up Lee Gorman's craggy,hostile face. Nor his words. Lee had a voice like gravel being groundto powder. A voice to remember....
"Of course I won't go along with this damn-fool idea of yours! Turn aperfectly sound, entrenched business into a blue-sky factory? You'vegone crazy, Joshua."
"But it's feasible, Lee! Entirely feasible. All we need is a littleimagination. I've investigated. I've hired the best brains in the world.I have all the necessary preliminary data. A rocket _can_ be built thatwill take three men to the Moon and bring them back!"
"That's idiocy, Joshua!"
"Don't you believe it can be done?"
"I don't care whether it can be done or not!"
"But open your eyes, man! This is an age of development. An era ofmovement. We're on the threshold of the big tomorrow, and we can't letit pass us by! We can't let the honor and the glory go to others whilewe sit on our hands and hoot from the gallery! Come alive, Lee! Theworld is passing us!"
"I don't want honor and glory. All I want is a sound going business.Suppose we could put a rocket on the Moon and bring it back? Where wouldthat leave us? Broke and famous. And laughed at probably in thebargain."
"Nothing of the kind. We could write our own ticket. We'd control thegateway to the greatest mineral deposits within reach of Man! Think ofit, Lee. Use your imagination."
"I won't go along with you, Joshua. That's all there is to it."
More of the same; days of it, and finally: "You can have the customersthen, Lee. I'll keep the plant--the physical properties."
"But that's not fair."
"Perhaps not, but it's legal."
"How can I service them--from my basement?"
"I offered you an alternative only a fool would have turned down--"
"That only a fool would accept!"
"--so now I'm going ahead and nothing can stop me. I've got a dream,man--a dream of a big tomorrow. I'm going to make that dream come true."
"Name it right, Joshua. You've got an obsession."
The end of _Lake and Gorman_....
Joshua turned from the window, then paused and looked again into thesky. The Moon was up, a round, white will-o'-the-wisp in the clear blueafternoon sky. He stared at it and the old feeling of affinity sweptover him, stronger than ever. The Moon was, for him, both a goal and atonic. Sight of its illusive form could always sweep away his doubts;straighten his shoulders.
The intercom buzzed. Joshua went over and snapped it. "Yes?"
"Mr. Coving to see you, sir."
"Send him in."
Rayburn Coving was probably the best rocket-fuel man in the world. Hehad a little of his sandy hair left, not much, and his forehead waspermanently creased from frowning. "I'm afraid that new benzoicderivative is a failure, Chief. It piles up corrosion in the tubes toofast. They'd be clogged halfway through the trip."
One hundred and twenty thousand dollars up the spout. Joshua sighed."Well, I suppose the chance of success was worth it. The added power inrelatively smaller space would have solved so many other problems."
"I'm sorry it failed."
Joshua smiled. "To paraphrase a certain American inventor--we're findingany number of ways you can't go to the Moon. What now, Coving?"
"Back to the old method--and the other problems. None of them areinsurmountable, though. A little more time--"
"Yes--a little more time." Joshua grimaced inwardly. He was talking toCoving as though they had years--not as though their time had run out.He was even in debt for Coving's labor; overdrawn on it without enoughmoney to pay.
The moment of weakness--of deep-down weariness--passed. Joshua Lakestiff
ened as he had stiffened so many times before. As he had stiffenedwhen Zornoff's alloys had flunked out and the first trip to the bank hadbeen made necessary. The first trip to the bank. Joshua smiled wryly.The bank people had been cordial then. Even servile. Later it had beendifferent. Now--
"You were saying, Mr. Lake--?"
"Have you seen Morton lately? What's the latest on the radar relayequipment?"
"No major bugs, I think. It's coming along famously."
"Good!" For two hundred odd thousand it certainly should, Joshua felt."Let me know how you make out, Coving."
"I will, Chief. I'll get the order in for the new chemicalsimmediately."
"Eh--oh, yes. Do that. Do that by all means."
Coving left. Joshua Lake put his head against the back rest of the chairand closed his eyes. He dozed, drifting into a haze from weariness._It's been so long--so very long. Seven years--eight--ten. Ten years.Good heavens! Was it possible? It didn't seem that long. Ten years tomake a dream succeed._
_Or fail._
Joshua slept and again--as in the past--his rest was plagued withvisions. The torment of his days took many forms in an alertsubconscious too taut to relax. He had seen before him mountains toosteep to cross--chasms too deep and wide to bridge. Often, when a greatproblem was solved, he would look back, nights later, to see themountain or the chasm from the other side.
Now his vision was different. No mountain before him, but a face--thestern craggy face of an obstacle in his path.
Lee Gorman.
The face was of clay--yet it lived. The eyes were cold, disdainful. Anda weird, green creation of Joshua's own mind was sketching Gorman in thenumbers, signs, and symbols of a rocket that would never reach the Moon.
Joshua awoke with a start and found Lucy bending over him. "You didn'tanswer the buzzer, Mr. Lake. I was worried."
"I must have dozed off, Lucy. Sorry."
"I'm going home now--if there's nothing else."
"Nothing else. I'm going home myself. Good night."
Joshua paused beside his car in the parking lot to stare at the lightedwindows of the big hangar. The second shift had come on. They would workall night; then, tomorrow, they would line up with the others at the paywindow. But there wouldn't be any money. The next night the hangarwindows would be dark.
He got into the car and drove home.
Myra was waiting for him. She took his hat. After he kissed her, shesaid, "Your eyes are red, dear. You've been working much too hard. Shallwe have dinner in the patio?"
"That would be nice."
Joshua had little to say during the meal, and Myra was quietalso--adjusting herself, as she had always done, to his mood. Finally,she said, "That will be all, Bertha. Leave the coffee pot."
The maid left. A slight chill was coming in off the desert. Joshuashivered and said, "We're through, Myra."
"Through? I don't understand."
"The Moon trip. I can't swing it. The money's run out. There's no placeI can raise another dime."
"But you've worked so hard--and so long! And you are so close tosuccess."
"We've made a lot of progress, but the rocket isn't ready yet. Now it'stoo late."
They were silent for a time. Then Myra said, "In a way, I'm glad. Youshould have stopped long ago. You aren't strong enough to stand thispace forever. Now we can go away--get a small place somewhere. That Moonrocket was killing you, Joshua."
Joshua pondered the point. "Killing me? No, I don't think so. I think ithas been keeping me alive."
"Don't say that, dear! You make it sound so--so brutal! Year in andyear out. Fighting disappointment--failure. Aging before my eyes while Isit here night after night!"
_Fighting disappointment--failure._ Yes. That was the kind of fight ithad been. How many failures? The first big one had come six yearsbefore....
"Acceleration, Monsieur, must be achieved in the first two thousandmiles of flight. After that, the speed of the ship remains constant. Youfollow me?" Tardeau, the half-mad French genius had explained it sologically. And Joshua had believed in him. That's where you made yourbig gamble in a project of this kind. You selected your men and thenbelieved in them. Others dissented, of course. There are alwaysdissenters. And always points that could not be proven or disproven onthe drawing boards or in the test pits....
* * * * *
"I follow you, Henri. The booster units will be in three sections."
"Exactly, Msieu. The primary--ah, booster, as you say, breaks free attwelve miles. That one, and the secondary, we control with radar. Wetouch a button and Voila! they are free!"
"In case of the men in the ship blacking out, I think you said."
"Exactly. But the third will be disengaged from within the ship and shewill be free as a bird to fly to your most illusive Moon!"
"And the return?"
"There we have a much lighter ship, Monsieur. The smaller boosters willlift her easily. The return trip will be slower--much slower, but shewill return!"
Michael Bernard was the dissenter. "The Frenchman's crazy! Mad as ahatter, Chief."
"You think it won't work, then?"
"Too damn complicated. A dozen units of time and mechanism have to meshperfectly. The odds are against that happening. After all, you've got toremember, what we're attempting has never been done before."
"But if it did work--?"
"It would be a beauty."
"Better than your idea of a single booster?"
"If it worked--yes. The weight problem would be solved. Five men couldride the rocket. But--"
"Let's try it, Mike. Let's believe in our destiny."
"Okay--you're the boss. But destiny's a hard thing to lay out andanalyze on a drawing board."
A man and his dream....
The radar equipment had failed. Burdened with the weight of exhaustedbooster sections, the rocket curved back into the clutches of gravity.
It crashed on the fringe of the Amazon jungles.
Five Moon pioneers dead. Three uninsured, dependent families. Joshuaprovided for them, but the critical newspapers overlooked that point.One editorial observed that Joshua Lake would get a rocket to the Moonand back if it took every able-bodied man in the country. The projectwould have died right there if Joshua had needed money. No bank in thenation would have loaned him a dime. Fortunately he was not yet broke.He started over.
_Fortunately?_
* * * * *
At times he had wondered. But always, his faith had returned to buoy himup....
Joshua reached out and took Myra's hand. He looked up into the sky. "Youmay be wrong, my dear. Possibly it's the other way. A man's ambition--"he smiled. "Lee called it an obsession once. A man's dream can keep himalive."
"But why does it have to be so hard? Why can't one of the bigcorporations help you? They'll profit from your success!"
"At least I had no competition in the fulfillment of my dream."
They were silent for a time; then Myra said, "But now you can rest.We'll go away. We don't need much money. We'll have a garden. You canlie in the sun."
He laughed softly; not with humor; rather from a quiet, new-wellingcourage. "We're talking as though it were all over--finished, done with.That isn't right."
She glanced at him quickly. "But you just said--"
"I know. But I didn't really mean it that way. We aren't through yet."
"You know where you can raise--more money?"
"I know where it is. I'm going to see Lee Gorman tomorrow."
"Lee Gorman! You aren't serious."
"There's no place else to go."
"You'll be wasting your time, Joshua. He'll--he'll humiliate you."
"He probably will. And I may not get the money. But there's no placeelse to go."
Tears came into Myra's eyes. "Don't do it, Joshua. Please don't do it."
"It won't be as bad as you think, dear. I guess Lee is entitled to crowa little."
* *
* * *
Lee Gorman looked at the intercom on his desk as though it had snappedat him. "Who?" he barked. But there had been no mistake. Gorman sat inpuzzled silence for a few moments. Then he said, "All right, show himin."
Joshua Lake entered the office with his hat in one hand and a briefcasein the other. He paused halfway to Gorman's desk. "You haven't changedmuch, Lee."
"You have," Gorman answered. "You look like the devil."
"I've been working hard." Joshua Lake covered the intervening distanceand stood before the desk. Gorman surveyed him coldly--up and down.Joshua looked around the office as Gorman sat silent, not inviting himto sit down.
"You've done very well, Lee. This is the first time I've seen yourplant."
"I've expanded a little since my basement days. You remember my basementdays, don't you Joshua?"
Joshua winced. "Yes, I remember."
"And now you might tell me the purpose of this visit."
"I came to you because I need money."
Gorman's eyes snapped
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