Nowadays Eppinger told the story of how they wanted to call it “Galactic Central.” Typical network. First off, it wasn’t at the center of anything. It was at the edge, the jumping-off point, the brink of deep space. He had sold the show to them that way: San Francisco on the Barbary Coast, with half-settled wilderness around it and the Pacific beyond. Second, he kept driving home that this was not kidvid, and what did “Galactic” sound like? The men in the offices, bless them, had only so many ideas to go around. No, really—and here the audience’s laughter would ripple up in anticipation—just so many ideas they all had to share. He’d been talking with Isaac, the good professor, and Professor Asimov put the figure at 17. But, for his part, he was an optimist, he had faith in the system, and he believed the list easily got up to 24—25, if you counted ass separately from tits.
