Next comes Dan Houston, the last conference of Lemon’s day. They do this a lot. Dan is a completely different situation from McPherson: more limited technically, but infinitely better with people. He and Lemon have been friends since they both began working for Martin Marietta, years before. The same head-hunter lured them to LSR, bringing Lemon in at the higher position, a distance Lemon has only extended through the years. But Houston doesn’t begrudge it, he isn’t envious. Lemon can charm him. In fact, if Lemon were to come down hard on Dan it would only hurt his feelings, make him sullen and slow him down. It’s necessary to coddle him a bit, to pull rather than push. And the truth is, Lemon likes the man. Houston admires him, they have a good time together sailing, playing racketball, going out with their allies Dawn and Elsa. They’re friends.

So he sits down when Houston comes in, and they look out the window and critique the tacking of the boats clawing back from the south toward Newport. They laugh at some really bad luffs. Then Lemon asks him what the latest is with the Ball Lightning project. Houston starts bitching about it again.

It’s one of their three biggest contracts, and inwardly Lemon seethes; they can’t afford for it to get bogged down too much. But he nods sympathetically. “No one’s solved the dwell time problem,” he says, thinking aloud to himself. “The power requirements are just too much. The Air Force can’t expect magic.”

“The problem is, they thought we had it solved when they gave us the contract.”

“I know.” Of course he knows. Who better? It was Lemon who okayed the inclusion of those Huntsville test results. Dan can be kind of a fool.… “Listen, have you gotten McPherson’s input on this?”

“Well, I’ve asked him for it. He doesn’t like it much.”

“I know.” Lemon shakes his head. “But Dennis is kind of a prima donna.” Got to play this carefully, as Dan and McPherson are also friends. “A little bit, anyway. Get him to talk to your design team, and the programmers. See what he can suggest. He’ll be busy with a new proposal of his own, but I’ll tell him to take time for this. You can’t spend the whole of every day working on one project, after all.”

“No, that’s true. Lot of waiting to be done.” Dan sounds satisfied; he’d like the help. And McPherson has a certain flair for the technical problems, no doubt about it.