The Railhead at Kysyl Khoto
By Allen K. Lang
Illustrated by SCHOENHERR
"Kysyl. Railhead. K. E. Ziolkovsky.
5000 meters/second. Luna." That was the
entire message. But its meaning made
White Sands look pretty trivial, and
turned a rocket engineer into a salesman!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Infinity November 1957.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
I've been told that during the season of the simoom winds in Morocco,Arab judges let confessed murderers off with a fine. The weatherjustifies homicide. Washington judges should be as lenient in thesummer, I thought, scooting on the contours of my chair to keep theseat of my pants from sweating into the varnish. Ten bucks and costsseemed a fair price to pay society if I killed this Doctor Francis vonMunger.
My cigarettes had become limp and brown with the sweat through myshirt. I eased one of these unappetizing noodles out of the pack andlit it. It tasted like burning, damp wool stockings. I picked up anancient magazine to keep from staring at the blonde receptionist, theonly object in the waiting room upon which the eye could rest withcomfort.
I'd viewed all the cartoons without smiling and was working my waythrough the ads when the blonde peeked over my magazine. "Dr. vonMunger will see you now, Dr. Huguenard," she said.
"Damn right he will!" I growled, slapping the magazine down andtrailing the blonde into the holy of holies. Inside, an efficient youngwoman sat behind an efficient steel desk. She looked insultingly cool."How much of von Munger's typewriter pool do I have to work throughbefore I get to see the great man in the flesh?" I demanded of thecool-looking redhead.
"Have a cigar, Dr. Huguenard," the girl said, tipping a cylindricalhumidor my way. "And sit down," indicating the chair that squattedbeside her desk. "I've got news for you, Huguenard. I'm von Munger. Thefirst name is Frances, with an 'e.' Makes all the difference."
I accepted the cigar, crushed my wool-sock cigarette in the ash-tray,and leaned back silent to indicate my availability for furtherastonishments.
"I suppose you wonder why you were sent here," she began.
I murmured something about Washington's being delightful to visit inmid-June, whatever the occasion might be. She ignored this subtlety."We've needed a rocket engineer in Economic Analysis for some time,"she said. "Recent developments have made your employment hereimperative."
I lit the cigar slowly. "I'd been led to believe that our work at WhiteSands was important, too," I said through my smoke.
Von Munger looked as put out as though I'd belched during theinvocation at an ambassadorial tea party. She took a deep breath—apretty process, despite the mannish suit she was wearing—and launchedinto her sales talk. "Dr. Huguenard, our work here in the CommerceDepartment's Special Bureau of Economic Analysis is the most importantwork in the world. If a war is fought, we will win it. If that war isprevented, we will have prevented it."
I'd seen this sort of megalomania displayed by chiefs of paperworkbefore, but never in a more acute form. I smiled. This little redheadobviously saw herself as a sort of benign Lucrezia Borgia, erecting afortress of filing-cabinets around the American Way.
"I'm glad you smiled, Dr. Huguenard," she said. "I was afraid