Free The Return of the Manhattan by Lee Ecker

chastise him, “Kevin, what’s going on? Who gave you the right to teach Laura about flying behind my back?” He couldn’t even convince himself that Kevin was wrong, but he tried.
    Kevin shrugged, “David, you know as well as I that neither you nor anybody else aboard this ship can say no to Laura about anything. Besides, I can’t see any harm in letting her fly the simulator. We have only been at it a couple of months, and already she can fly circles around me in that thing.”
    “But you’re a starfighter pilot. What are you doing in the shuttle simulator?”
    “It doesn’t matter, she flies both equally well. I think I can beat her in a dogfight, but I don’t know how long I can say that. All the starfighter pilots are learning to fly the shuttle. I don’t see much use for starfighter pilots for the rest of the mission and we are short on shuttle pilots. The simulator is so good; they will be seasoned pilots by the time we reach our destination. We originally planned to spend more time and only shuttle during daylight hours. But, the way I see it, with the amount of oil we must transfer, it will take too long unless we shuttle around the clock. We have been practicing the mission in darkness, and most of the pilots are doing very well. Of course, it will only be night on the planet surface. In orbit, it won’t matter. I think weather conditions could be more limiting than darkness, although we won’t know much about the weather until we get there. I highly recommend we shuttle around the clock.”
    David pondered the idea for a moment, “Good idea; I can’t even remember how long we took to ferry those empty bladders on board and every moment counts. How much time do you think we can save?”
    I don’t know; it depends on the amount of gravity on the planet before we can determine how many bladders we can take on each trip. If we worked only during daylight hours, I think it would take between four and six months. We can cut that in half and probably more with the additional pilots.”
    Roger joined in their conversation and seconded that recommendation. “David, I don’t know how long we want to spend on the planet, but the more time we spend, the less time we will have to construct a ship capable of going back through time when we get back to Earth.”
    David agreed, “Thanks Kevin, you’re right on and I guess you can continue to let Laura fly. I guess the only difference between her and normal kids, is the size and price of her toys. By the way, Roger, how are you coming on the time machine?”
    “Okay if you want to change the subject. Actually, it seems to work well, but I don’t know how to control it! We have sent it forward many times, successfully, I might add. But back in time is another story. The real problem is we have no way of testing sending an object back and seeing the results.”
    “But that’s what we’ve got to do to change the past!”
    “Don’t forget, we’ve got to get back too. I don’t think we will find those answers until we build the thing and put our lives on the line testing it. I’m willing to take the chance, but I wouldn’t want to make any guarantees. Everyone working on the project with me is willing to take that gamble too.”
    “Well, if there’s a chance it will work, then we don’t have much choice. I’m with you Roger!”
    “Thanks for your vote of confidence. I am certain it can be done with relative safety, but I wouldn’t hazard a guess as to whether we can get back to the same world we left. If you remember when we first began discussing the problem, we didn’t know how many pasts, presents or futures there are. We might return to a completely different and parallel future.”
    “That’s not so bad. We would be alive and it would be quite an adventure.”
    “And you’re the man who complained because his daughter wanted an adventurous career.”
    “She’s too young to make that kind of decision.”
    Laura spoke up, “I have an idea