read and write. More coffee?"
The man tried to get Dad to pay by check or money order. Dad read him
the fine print on a dollar bill, the part about "legal tender for all
debts, public and private."
In a despairing effort to get something out of the trip he asked Dad
please not to fill in the space marked "occupation" with "Spy."
"Why not?"
"What? Why, because you aren't-and it upsets people."
"Have you checked with the F.B.I.?"
"Eh? No."
"They probably wouldn't answer. But you've been very polite. I'll mark
it 'Unemployed Spy.' Okay?"
The tax man almost forgot his brief case. Nothing fazed Dad, he meant
what he said, he wouldn't argue and he never gave in. So when he told me I
could go to the Moon but the means were up to me, he meant just that. I
could go tomorrow-provided I could wangle a billet in a space ship.
But he added meditatively, "There must be a number of ways to get to
the Moon, son. Better check 'em all. Reminds me of this passage I'm
reading. They're trying to open a tin of pineapple and Harris has left the
can opener back in London. They try several ways." He started to read
aloud and I sneaked out-I had heard that passage five hundred times. Well,
three hundred.
I went to my workshop in the barn and thought about ways. One way was
to go to the Air Academy at Colorado Springs-if I got an appointment, if I
graduated, if I managed to get picked for the Federation Space Corps,
there was a chance that someday I would be ordered to Lunar Base, or at
least one of the satellite stations.
Another way was to study engineering, get a job in jet propulsion, and
buck for a spot that would get me sent to the Moon. Dozens, maybe
hundreds, of engineers had been to the Moon, or were still there-for all
sorts of work: electronics, cryogenics, metallurgy, ceramics, air
conditioning, as well as rocket engineering.
Oh, yes! Out of a million engineers a handful got picked for the Moon.
Shucks, I rarely got picked even playing post office.
Or a man could be an M.D., or a lawyer, or geologist, or toolmaker, and
wind up on the Moon at a fat salary-provided they wanted him and nobody
else. I didn't care about salary-but how do you arrange to be number one
