And there was a lot about plans for a registration of voters, and organization of election boards, and a local electronics-engineering firm had been awarded a contract for voting machines. I didn't think there had ever been a voting machine on Fenris before.
"The commander of the _Bolivar_ says he'll take your story to Terra with him, and see that it gets to Interworld News," Dad told me as we were sorting the corrected master sheets and loading them into the photoprint machine, to be sent out on the air. "The _Bolivar_'ll make Terra at least two hundred hours ahead of the _Cape Canaveral_. Interworld will be glad to have it. It isn't often they get a story like that with the first news of anything, and this'll be a big story."
"You shouldn't have given me the exclusive by-line," I said. "You did as much work on it as I did."
"No, I didn't, either," he contradicted, "and I knew what I was doing."
With the work done, I remembered that I hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast, and I went down to take inventory of the refrigerator. Dad went along with me, and after I had assembled a lunch and sat down to it, he decided that his pipe needed refilling, lit it, poured a cup of coffee and sat down with me.
"You know, Walt, I've been thinking, lately," he began.
Oh-oh, I thought. When Dad makes that remark, in just that tone, it's all hands to secure ship for diving.
"We've all had to do a lot of thinking, lately," I agreed.
"Yes. You know, they want me to be mayor of Port Sandor."
I nodded and waited till I got my mouth empty. I could see a lot of sense in that. Dad is honest and scrupulous and public-spirited; too much so, sometimes, for his own good. There wasn't any question of his ability, and while there had always been antagonism between the hunter-ship crews and waterfront people and the uptown business crowd, Dad was well liked and trusted by both parties.
"I suppose I'll have to, if they really want me. Be a sort of obligation."
That would throw a lot more work on me. Dad could give some attention to the paper as mayor, but not as much as now.
"What do you want me to try to handle for you?" I asked.
"Well, Walt, that's what I've been thinking about," he said. "I've been thinking about it for a long time, and particularly since things got changed around here. I think you ought to go to school some more."