“Nothing's wrong, and yes I'm still here. Some interesting things are going on here, some big names are really interested in the Sleep Project. I'll be stuck here at least another day. I have an early morning meeting with a Four Star who's got lots of questions. I need to know something; would it be possible to design a capsule that could hold more than one person?”

There was a brief pause while James pondered the question. “I don't see any reason why not; we've always done separate capsules to better monitor individual responses and systems, but there's no reason we can't place more than one person in a capsule.”

“How many people could you probably fit in a single capsule?” Matt asked.

“I've never thought about it, but I guess it would be possible to design a capsule that could hold a many as a dozen, maybe more.”

“Thanks, that gives me a place to start,” Fitch said.

“I'll think about the idea and see if I can come up with anything else. What's this all about, anyway?” Cowan asked.

“I'll give you as much info as I can when I return, but they might be giving us a larger facility and want us to try something on a much larger scale,” Fitch answered evasively.

“Sounds exciting, let me know as soon as you're back in town,” Cowan said.

Fitch hung up the phone and lay down, although he continued to think about the problem for another hour before falling asleep.

Now here he was in General Draper's office, on less than four hours sleep, and still, he had no solid answers.

Draper walked into the room and sat a pot of hot coffee on the desk. Fitch chuckled inwardly when he saw the General intentionally circle around the ornate rug in front of the desk. He looked over at Fitch. “You still mad about the unexpected chat with the president, Matt?”

“What makes you think I was mad, sir?” Fitch responded.

“I could see it in your face; if I hadn't been wearing these stars, you would've probably killed me. Right?”

“Right,” Fitch agreed.

“Have you come up with any ideas?”

“I think it might be possible to build larger sleep capsules, ones that will hold about a dozen people. That should make it possible to greatly increase the number of sleepers. But every day we delay in getting started, decreases the number of units we'll get functional,” Fitch explained.