 What is Houlihan's relationship with the little people?
Every writer must seek his own Flowery Kingdom in imagination's wide demesne, and if that search can begin and end on Earth his problem has been greatly simplified. A one-time Air Force officer, he has turned to fantasy in his lighter moments, to bring us such brightly sparkling little gems as this. houlihan's equation by ... But its small, mischievous pilots had a rendezvous with destiny—on Earth. It was in a park near the nuclear propulsion center—a cool, green spot, with the leaves all telling each other to hush, be quiet, and the soft breeze stirring them up again. Without this coefficient to give us control, we would have lacked a workable equation when we set about putting the first moon rocket around those extraordinary engines of ours, which were still in the undeveloped blueprint stage. Perhaps you had better take my word for it that without this equation—correctly stated, mind you—mankind would be well advised not to make a first trip to the moon. And all this talk of coefficients and equations sits strangely, you might say, upon the tongue of a man named Kevin Francis Houlihan. Not children, but a group of little people, hard at work. I had seen them first as a boy of eight, and then, very briefly again, on my tenth birthday. "Come along now, people!" said this crotchety one, looking straight at me.
 He has some kind of historical relationship with them but it's not clear what
 He has some kind of historical relationship with them but it's not clear what  He has seen them once before and is suspicious of what they're taking from the area  He is a little person himself and is glad to finally find his own people  He believes in all fantastical creatures so he is an honorary member of their group