To Sail Beyond The Sunset

And the sound reached us. How many seconds does it take sound to go seven miles? I've forgotten and, anyhow, they weren't using ordinary seconds that night.

It was ‘white' noise, almost unbearable even at that distance. It rumbled on and on. .. and at last the turbulence reached us, whipping skirts and knocking over chairs. Someone fell, down, cursed, and said, ‘I'm going to sue somebody! '

Man was on his way to the Moon. His first step to his Only Home -

George died in 1971. He lived to see every cent paid back, Pikes Peak Space Catapult operational, Luna City a going concern with over six hundred inhabitants, more than a hundred of them women, and some babies born there - and Harriman Industries richer than ever. I think he was happy. I know I miss him, still.

I'm not sure Mr Harriman was happy. He was not looking for billions; he simply wanted to go to the Moon - and Daniel Dixon euchred him out of it.

In the complex manoeuvrings that got a man to the Moon Dixon wound up controlling more shares of voting stock than Mr Harriman controlled, and Mr Harriman lost control of Harriman Industries.

On top of that, in lobbying manoeuvres in Washington and in the United Nations, a Harriman daughter firm, Spaceways Ltd, became the ‘chosen instrument' for the early development of space, with a rule, The Space Precautionary Act, under which the company controlled who could go into space. I heard that Mr Harriman had been turned down physically, under this rule. I'm not certain what went on behind the scenes; I was eased off the board of directors once Mr Dixon was in control. I didn't mind; I didn't like Dixon.

In Boondock, centuries later or about sixty-odd years ago on my personal time line, I listened to a cube Myths, Legends, and Traditions - The Romantic Side of History. There was a tale in it concerning time line two that asserted that the legendary D. D. Harriman had managed, many years later, when he was very old and almost forgotten, to buy a pirate rocket, in which he finally made it to the Moon. .. there to die in a bad landing. But on the Moon, where he longed to be.

I asked Lazarus about this. He said that he did not know. ‘But it's possible. God knows the Old Man was stubborn. '

I hope he made it.