abinet of wide, flat drawers and brought back a sheaf of drawings. Not
blueprints, but original drawings in pencil. "Such as this. I haven't
even got it designed yet, to say nothing of building it."

* * *

James began to leaf through the stack of drawings. They were full of
erasures, re-drawings, and such notations as "See sheets 17-B, 21-A, and
27-F." Halfway through the pile he paused, turned backward three sheets,
and studied for minutes. Then, holding that one sheet by a corner, he
went rapidly through the rest of the stack.

"This is it," he said then, pulling the one sheet out and spreading it
flat. "What we call Unit Eight--the heart of the drive." Then,
tight-beamed to Garlock:

"This is the thing that you designed _in toto_ and that I never could
understand any part of. All I did was build it. It must generate those
Prime fields."

"Probably," Garlock flashed back. "I didn't understand it any too well
myself. How does it look?"

"He isn't even close. He's got only half of the constants down, and half
of the ones he has got down are wrong. Look at this mess here...."

"I'll take your word for it. I haven't your affinity for blueprints, you
know, or your eidetic memory for them."

"Do you want me to give him the whole works?"

"We'll have to, I think. Or the ship might not work at all."

"Could be--but how about intergalactic hops?"

"He couldn't do it with the _Pleiades_, so he won't be able to with
this. Besides, if we change it in any particular he _might_. You see, I
don't know very much more about Unit Eight than you do."

"_That_ could be, too." Then, as though just emerging from his
concentration on the drawings, James thought at Delcamp and Fao, but on
the open, general band.

"A good many errors and a lot of blanks, but in general you're on the
right track. I can finish up this drawing in a couple of hours, and we
can build the unit in a couple of days. With that in place, the rest of
the ship will go fast.

"_If_ Miss Talaho wants me to," he concluded, pointedly.

"Oh, I do, Jim--really I do!" At long last, stiff-backed Fao softened
and bent. She seized both his hands. "If you can, it'd be too wonderful
for words!"

"Okay. One question. Why are you building your ship so small?"

"Why, it's plenty big enough for two," Delcamp said. "For four, in a
pinch. Why did you make yours so big? Your Main is big enough almost for
a convention hall."

"That's what