“So you see,” Udet finished up, “the NERVA is indeed not worth a snap, today. But” — and he leaned forward, fixing Josephson with a glare — “neither was the F-1, the Saturn’s great first-stage engine, at a similar stage in its development, back in ’62 or ’63. If anything, the prospects were worse. There we had combustion instability problems; there the damn things kept exploding on us. But we were allowed to stay on the case, Tim. We got on with our work. And we solved the problems, so much so that the Saturn V has never suffered a single significant engine failure.

“It is the same now. We do not need an alternative program. With NERVA we face problems: yes, of course we do. But they are only engineering issues. We have never let such issues intimidate us before, and we will not now.” As he spoke, Conlig thought, a kind of subliminal message was radiating out of him at Josephson. When you look at me you are looking at von Braun himself. My engines are heroes. We got you to the Moon, we can get you to Mars. Trust my judgment, and allow me to proceed with my work….

Conlig longed to be in Santa Susana — or better still, back in Nevada, at Jackass Flats, in the still emptiness of the desert. He longed to get away from all the politicking, and back to the engineering.

He thought of Natalie.

His relationship with Natalie was a kind of nagging ache on the fringe of his awareness. He knew she wasn’t happy. Damn it, neither was he. But just then there just wasn’t room in his head to think about it. Maybe in a couple of years, when NERVA had dug itself out of the hole, he -

Josephson was looking at him. His cue to perform.

Slowly, haltingly, with none of Udet’s Prussian-aristocrat fluency, Conlig began to speak.

He described the steps being taken to reduce the latest cavitation and hydrogen-graphite corrosion problems, and the difficulties they were having with the way the intense radiation was making capacitance gauges produce erroneous hydrogen tank measurements. And so forth. But, he told Josephson, the team was hopeful nevertheless of getting to the first extended burn and full system test soon, and the rigs were demonstrating that the design would hold up under the vibration and shock to be expected during a flight…

As he spoke, he couldn’t tell how well he was doing.

Josephson listened without comment. Then he turned to Bert Seger.

The program director had been sitting in with the NERVA people over the last week, poking around Santa Susana and the other sites, evidently figuring out for himself what the prospects were. He sat facing Josephson, whiplash-thin, with his trademark carnation glowing on his buttonhole, just above the crucifix pin there.