es. Dealing with you, I could even get into trouble."

Nelsen's mouth tightened. "I came to make a proposition and get an
answer," he responded. "Thank you for your no. It helps clear the view."

"Hold on, Nelsen," J. John growled. "I don't remember saying no. I said
'gall,' intending it to mean guts. That's what young spacemen need,
isn't it? They've almost got to be _young_, so legal viewpoints about
the age at which competence is reached are changing. Oh, there is plenty
of brass among your generation. But it fails in peculiar places. I was
waiting for one place where it didn't fail. Charlie, my grandson,
doesn't count. It has never taken him any courage to talk to me any way
he wants."

This whole encounter was still dreamlike to Frank Nelsen.

"Then you are saying yes?"

"I might. Do you foolishly imagine that my soul is so completely sour
milk that in youth I couldn't feel the same drives that you feel, now,
for the limited opportunity there was, then? But under some damnable
pressure toward conformity, I took a desk job in a bank. I am now
eighty-one years old... How much does your 'Bunch' need--at minimum,
mind you--for the opportunity to ride in space-armor till the rank smell
of their bodies almost chokes them, for developing weird allergies or
going murdering mad, but, in the main, doing their best, anyway,
pathfinding and building, if they've got the guts? Come on, Nelsen--you
must know."

"Fifty thousand," Frank answered quickly. "There are still eleven in our
group."

"Yes... More may quit along the way... Here is _my_ proposition: I would
make funds available for your expenses up to that amount--from my
personal holdings, separate from this bank. The amount due from each
individual shall be ten percent of whatever his gains or earnings are,
off the Earth, over a period of ten years, but he will not be required
to pay back any part of the original loan. This is a high-risk,
high-potential profit arrangement for me--with an experimental element.
I will ask for no written contract--only a verbal promise. I have found
that people are fairly honest, and I know that, far in space,
circumstances become too complicated to make legal collections very
practical, anyway, even if I ever felt inclined to try them... Now,
if--after I see your friends, whom you will send to me for an interview
and to give me their individual word, also, I decide to make my
proposition effective--will you, yourself, promise to ab