It did take under three-fifths of a second. The gadget
works!"
Holden drew a deep breath.
"So now you need more money and you want me not to discharge my patient
as cured."
"Not a bit of it!" snapped Cochrane. "I don't want him as a patient! I'm
only willing to accept him as a customer! But if he wants fame, I'll
sell it to him. Not as something to lean his fragile psyche on, but
something to wallow in! Do you think he could ever get too famous for
his own satisfaction?"
"Of course not," said Holden. "He's the same fool."
"Then we're in business," Cochrane told him. "Not that I couldn't peddle
my fish elsewhere. I'm going to! But I'll give him old-customer
preference. I'll want him out at the distress-torp tests this afternoon.
They'll be public."
"This afternoon?" asked Holden. "Distress-torp?"
A lunar day is two Earth-weeks-long. A lunar night is equally
long-drawn-out. Cochrane said impatiently:
"I got out of bed four hours ago. To me that's morning. I'll eat lunch
in an hour. That's noon. Say, three hours from now, whatever o'clock it
is lunar time."
Holden glanced at his watch and made computations.
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