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Out of the corner of his eye, McLaris caught a glimpse of Tomkins’s sketches hanging on the wall. He remembered his initial meeting with the chief administrator, back when he first left the infirmary. And then it hit him. He smiled.

“If we’re ever going to leave the Moon again, if we ever hope to grow beyond these tunnels, we’ve got to keep our Golden Age alive. Dr. Clancy, your crew can construct just about anything, am I correct?”

“Within reason,” Clancy said. “If you’re thinking about that spaceship, though, forget it. It would take years to gear up for that, not to mention the lack of hydrogen and nitrogen for chemical fuels, or even atomics.”

“No, no.” McLaris shook his head. He perched at the edge of his chair. “Maybe in a decade we’ll be willing to tackle something like it, but not right now. This is a precursor to all that. If we can pull it off, this could be the largest solo construction project since Orbitech 2.”

He took a deep breath and turned to the chief administrator. “Dr. Tomkins, how would you like us to build your giant radio telescope—your lunar Arecibo?”

“A radio telescope?” Clancy flopped back in his chair. “What in the world do we need a telescope for?”

But Tomkins’s dark eyes sparkled. “Didn’t you hear him, Clifford? The largest construction project since Orbitech 2. Wouldn’t that excite your men?”

“My people. But what’s it going to be used for?”

Tomkins shushed the head engineer. “What does it matter? Isn’t the challenge enough? That’s the beauty of it.”

Clancy ran a finger over his lips. “I thought you did radio astronomy with aperture synthesis now? There’s no need for a giant telescope—you just hook a bunch of smaller receivers together along a big baseline.”

“You need two ends of a baseline for that to work,” Tomkins said. “And our Earth end is no longer communicating.”

McLaris spoke up. “If you need a different reason, Dr. Clancy, then how about as a communications focal point? The ideal would have been to place the telescope on Farside, away from Earth’s noisy radio environment.” He hesitated.

“Well, that isn’t a concern anymore, but it just amplifies my point. We can place it here at Clavius-B to probe Earth, to look for the milliwatt home transmitter that someone built, trying to raise communications with the rest of the world.”

Tomkins’s smile seemed filled with unspoken ideas. “Or we can use it as humanitarian aid, to supplement the geosynchronous navigation satellites knocked out during the War, when the people on Earth get back to that stage again.” His voice grew quieter. “Or maybe even use it as an anchor back to our solar system if we head out for the stars.”

Clancy struggled to his feet, and McLaris saw clearly on his face the point when he dropped his skeptical resistance to the idea and embraced it. “We’d need to completely revamp our technology base here on the Moon. Upgrade the mining and smelting facility—”

Tomkins broke in, smiling. “Refurbish the machine shops, electrical labs.”

McLaris nodded, ticking off items on his fingers as they occurred to him. “The welding capability, generators, power supplies, control panels, diagnostics. I think you get the idea. Dr. Clancy, do you think you could convince your crew to take on this project?”

“You’re wasting time, McLaris!” He stood with his feet wide apart, looking ready for action.

“All right. Dr. Tomkins, do you think you’d be willing to oversee this project? Coordinate things?”

Tomkins straightened and towered over both McLaris and Clancy. “I’m the chief administrator, so I’m supposed to be good at delegating responsibility.”

He placed a massive hand on McLaris’s shoulder. “I think I’ve found my niche—and yours, as well. I’m officially appointing you base manager. That’ll involve some restructuring, but I’ll turn my daily responsibilities over to you.”

McLaris sputtered. He hadn’t intended that at all. “I can’t do—”

“What do you mean, can’t?” asked Clancy, waving the protest away. “Practice what you preach, McLaris.”

Tomkins steered McLaris over to where Clancy stood beside the photograph of the original Arecibo telescope on Puerto Rico. “Clifford is absolutely right. I told you I was a scientist, tied down by a bureaucratic job. You’ve got managerial experience, you’ve proven you can handle the job, and you actually like the horrible stuff. No excuses allowed. This job is your punishment, remember?”

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