Monday. Enough for three bubbs.
The Archer Fives were expected to be somewhat delayed, due to massive
ordering. But small boxes of parts and raw stock for the ionics had
begun to arrive, too. Capacitors, resistors, thermocouple units.
Magnesium rods for Storey or Ramos or the Kuzaks to shape in a lathe.
Sheet aluminum to be spun and curved and polished. With Eileen Sands
helping, Gimp Hines would do most of that.

So the real work began. Nobody in the Bunch denied that it was a grind.
For most, there were those tough courses at Tech. And a job, for money,
for sustenance. And the time that must be spent working for--Destiny.
Sleep was least important--a few hours, long after midnight, usually.

Frank Nelsen figured that he had it relatively easy--almost as easy as
the Kuzak twins, who, during football season, were under strict orders
to get their proper sack time. He worked at Hendricks'--old Paul didn't
mind his combining the job with his labors of aspiration. Ramos, the
night-mechanic, Tiflin, the car-washer, and Two-and-Two Baines, the
part-time bricklayer, didn't have it so easy. Eileen, a first-rate legal
typist employed for several hours a day by a partnership of lawyers,
could usually work from notes, at the place where she lived.

Two-and-Two would lift a big hand facetiously, when he came into the
shop. Blinking and squinting, he would wiggle his fingers. "I can still
see 'em--to count!" he would moan. "Thanks, all you good people, for
coaching me in my math."

"Think nothing of it," Charlie Reynolds or David Lester, or most any of
the others, would tell him. Two-and-Two hadn't come near Frank Nelsen
very much, during the last few days, though Frank had tried to be
friendly.

Lester was the only one without an activity to support himself. But he
was at the shop every weekday, six to ten p.m., cementing stellene with
meticulous care, while he muttered and dreamed.

The Bunch griped about courses, jobs, and the stubbornness of materials,
but they made progress. They had built their first bubb and ionic. The
others would be easier.

Early in November, Nelsen collected all available fresh capital,
including a second thousand from Paul Hendricks and five hundred from
Charlie Reynolds, and sent it in with new orders.

That about exhausted their own finances for a long time to come. Seven
bubbs, minus most of even their simpler fittings, and five ionics,
seemed as much as they could pay for, themselves. Charli