Houlihan's Equation

The narrator, a scientist at a nuclear propulsion center, struggles to derive a discharge coefficient for a rocket drive and retreats to a park, where he discovers a colony of small people constructing a gleaming, cigar-shaped miniature spaceship. Fluent in his native Irish speech, he seeks conversation to relieve loneliness and to clear his mind, and after threatening to destroy the craft he compels their foreman to appear; the foreman identifies himself as Keech. The tale mixes technical detail about rocket engineering with encounters between modern science and folkloric beings, exploring solitude, cultural memory, and the collision of experimental rigor with fanciful intrusions.