He took off his hat and coat and laid them on a bench. He quickly got into the suit and in a few minutes was standing beside Dr. Yurris.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Sure. I guess, for what that’s worth.”
He had been in this room hundreds of times when they thought they had achieved a breakthrough, but always left discouraged. Lynn quickly initiated the startup sequence and pointed to the power meter. Devin’s eyes were fixed on it as the needle started to climb.
It was not like the other tests he had witnessed before, this time it went past sixty-five percent and in a few seconds was at one hundred percent. She could see his eyes light up and his mouth open as the needle stayed at the hundred percent level and the test platform stayed steady.
He put his hand on it and felt the slight vibration. She had done it. He couldn’t believe that she had actually done it. He felt like jumping as he reached over and squeezed her arm and gave her a thumbs-up sign. She let it run for a few minutes and then shut the power down.
Devin just stood there, transfixed much the way Lynn had been earlier. Finally he followed her out of the booth. The rest of the team was cheering and shouting. Even Raymond was caught up in the emotion.
“Incredible. Outstanding,” the general shouted, joining in the celebration.
No one had ever seen him like this before. He was actually smiling and shaking hands with the team members.
“Dr. Yuriss, you are amazing. You have done what no one else has been able to accomplish and we have had the best minds working on this. You are the best of the best. How in the world did you do it?” he said, the excitement still in his voice.
“We had been going in the wrong direction for all this time. We kept trying to make the core fit the containment cone and instead we needed to give it a little more room. I can’t take the credit for that. Mr. Eller was the one who made the suggestion,” she said.
Devin stopped shaking one of the team member’s hands, turned and just looked at her, like he had just been hit in the stomach.
“You are kidding, right? Mr. Eller made the suggestion?” he asked.
He couldn’t hide the look of astonishment on his face.
“Yes he did. We were talking and he threw out the idea. Sure enough, when I milled the core a few millimeters, it worked. Mr. Eller is the real hero,” she said.
Several people started shaking his hand and slapping him on the back. The general continued to look on, disbelieving.
“I can’t take the credit. Dr. Yuriss is the one who made it work. I just offered a suggestion but she is the one that pursued the idea and made the changes. She deserves the credit.”
“Well, I guess you both deserve the credit. Whatever the source, it works and that is the main thing,” Devin said at last.
Tomorrow we will start installing it in U-1 and if all goes well we should be ready to test in a few months,” Lynn said.
“Just think of it. We may actually be able to see this thing fly. My God, what a momentous day,” Devin said.
He was getting back into the spirit again and as long as the project moved forward, who cares who gets the credit?
J had been awake and standing in his enclosed room when he became aware that the humans had figured out the anti-matter flux reactor. He was concerned. His people had thought that it would be another five to ten years before the humans reached this level. It was a mistake giving them the disc of Element-115. With the advent of the new super computers, the humans were advancing faster than expected.
While the propulsion unit was ahead of their schedule, it would still take some time before they learned to control the craft and could to begin dimensional travel. The immediate problem was the weapon that they had tested.
His world had always been concerned that the people of earth would look for the destructive side of the material rather that its intended use to allow exploration of the rest of the universe. Of all of the species they had encountered they thought perhaps they could find a common ground with these humans so that each could gain knowledge of the other’s world.
The weapon was an unwelcome development and J’s people were afraid of the implications. Even with his intentional slowdown they were still ahead of schedule. He had the ability to regenerate his cells at any time but he would not do so until it was absolutely necessary.
It served his purpose for now to let them think he was too sick to continue helping them. He was trying to decide whether to contact his planet and let them know of this new development or wait and see how much further they could get. He decided he would wait a little longer.
Dr. Yuriss stayed glued to Raymond's side during the celebration in Bay–1. Others had heard about the breakthrough and came pouring into the large hanger bay.
