The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein Read Free Book Online

won’t take long. Actually, dear, you haven’t been paying much attention to the firm’s business lately. Miles wants to gather up loose ends and settle some policies.”
    “I’ve been sticking close to the engineering. What else am I supposed to do for the firm?”
    “Nothing, dear. Miles says it won’t take long.”
    “What’s the trouble? Can’t Jake handle the assembly line?”
    “Please, dear. Miles didn’t tell me why. Finish your coffee.”
    Miles was waiting for us at the plant and shook hands as solemnly as if we had not met in a month. I said, “Miles, what’s this all about?”
    He turned to Belle. “Get the agenda, will you?” This alone should have told me that Belle had been lying when she claimed that Miles had not told her what he had in mind. But I did not think of it—hell, I trusted Belle!—and my attention was distracted by something else, for Belle went to the safe, spun the knob, and opened it.
    I said, “By the way, dear, I tried to open that last night and couldn’t. Have you changed the combination?”
    She was hauling papers out and did not turn. “Didn’t I tell you? The patrol asked me to change it after that burglar scare last week.”
    “Oh. You’d better give me the new numbers or some night I’ll have to phone one of you at a ghastly hour.”
    “Certainly.” She closed the safe and put a folder on the table we used for conferences.
    Miles cleared his throat and said, “Let’s get started.”
    I answered, “Okay. Darling, if this is a formal meeting, I guess you had better make pothooks… Uh, Wednesday, November eighteenth, 1970, 9:20 P.M. , all stockholders present—put our names down—D. B. Davis, chairman of the board and presiding. Any old business?”
    There wasn’t any. “Okay, Miles, it’s your show. Any new business?”
    Miles cleared his throat. “I want to review the firm’s policies, present a program for the future, and have the board consider a financing proposal.”
    “Financing? Don’t be silly. We’re in the black and doing better every month. What’s the matter, Miles? Dissatisfied with your drawing account? We could boost it.”
    “We wouldn’t stay in the black under the new program. We need a broader capital structure.”
    “What new program?”
    “Please, Dan. I’ve gone to the trouble of writing it up in detail. Let Belle read it to us.”
    “Well…okay.”
    Skipping the gobbledygook—like all lawyers, Miles was fond of polysyllables—Miles wanted to do three things: (a) take Flexible Frank away from me, hand it over to a production-engineering team, and get it on the market without delay; (b)—but I stopped it at that point. “No!”
    “Wait a minute, Dan. As president and general manager, I’m certainly entitled to present my ideas in an orderly manner. Save your comments. Let Belle finish reading.”
    “Well…all right. But the answer is still ‘no.’ ”
    Point (b) was in effect that we should quit frittering around as a one-horse outfit. We had a big thing, as big as the automobile had been, and we were in at the start; therefore we should at once expand and set up organization for nationwide and worldwide selling and distribution, with production to match.
    I started drumming on the table. I could just see myself as chief engineer of an outfit like that. They probably wouldn’t even let me have a drafting table and if I picked up a soldering gun, the union would pull a strike. I might as well have stayed in the Army and tried to make general.
    But I didn’t interrupt. Point (c) was that we couldn’t do this on pennies; it would take millions. Mannix Enterprises would put up the dough—what it amounted to was that we would sell out to Mannix, lock, stock, and Flexible Frank, and become a daughter corporation. Miles would stay on as division manager and I would stay on as chief research engineer, but the free old days would be gone; we’d both be hired hands.
    “Is that all?” I said.
    “Mmm…yes.