Tight Squeeze | Page 3

scared-y cat. Well, why not? It's a
helluva risk every time you make a shot, in spite of all the propaganda.
Hooey; if you didn't know everything's O.K., you wouldn't be getting
ready to make the shot. Yeah, but you never can tell----He stopped his
inward battle and forced some spring into his step as he moved toward
Logan and Ruiz.
"I've tried my best to abort this big bug, but I can't find anything
amiss."
"That's Granny MacNamara for you," jibed Logan. "Always trying to
find fault." He winked at Ruiz and rubbed his hands together.
"Well--tennis, anyone?"
Mac knew without asking that Logan, for all his apparent indifference,
had painstakingly gone over every phase of the flight, checking
distribution, radar, final instructions from Operations, weather, et al.
Ruiz, as usual, watched and took notes as Logan gathered data.
* * * * *
At minus fifteen minutes, the trio was in the dome, checking personal
equipment, while outside, the scaffolding ponderously slid away,
section by section.
There was little time for soliloquies of to go, or not to go; within the
quarter-hour, Captain Ruiz and Majors MacNamara and Logan would

be in readiness for the final count-down. With the emergency bail-out
equipment checked, the men busied themselves on another continuity
test of the myriad circuits spread like a human neural system
throughout the ship. All relays, servo systems and instrument leads
were in perfect condition as expected, and the trio was settled
comfortably in acceleration couches with minutes to spare.
Logan contacted Ground Control a few seconds after the minus-three
minute signal, informing all and sundry that Gridley could fire when
ready. MacNamara sighed, thinking that if Logan's humor wasn't
exactly original, it was surely tenacious.
The ship was brought to dim half-life at minus one minute by Logan's
agile fingers, and as the final countdown rasped in his headset, Mac felt
his innards wrestle among themselves.
Valier bellowed her enthusiasm suddenly, lifting her eight
thousand-odd tons from the ground almost instantly. Inside, her
occupants grimaced helplessly as they watched various instruments
guide tiny pointers across calibrated faces. Mac's throat mike
threatened to crush his Adam's apple, weighing five times its usual few
ounces. Of his senses, sound was the one that dominated him; an
intolerable, continuous explosion from the motors racked his mind like
tidal waves of formic acid. He forced himself to overcome the
numbness which his brain cast up to defend itself. Then, as quickly as it
had begun, Valier fell deafeningly silent; that meant Mach 1 was
passed.
It was an eternity before stage one separated. The loss of the empty
hulk was hardly felt as Valier streaked high over the Texas border. Ruiz,
watching the radarscope, saw Lubbock slide into focus miles below.
Next stop, Fort Worth, he thought. I used to drive that in five hours.
The jagged line of the caprock told him they were well on their way to
Fort Worth already.
The altimeter showed slightly over forty-two miles when stage two
detached itself. Logan, in constant contact with White Sands, was
informed that they were tracking perfectly as Valier arrowed over

central Texas toward rendezvous at the doughnut. The exhausted lower
stages were forgotten now; only the second stage was of any concern
anyway. The radar boys tracked it all the way down, ready to detonate
it high in the air if its huge 'chutes wafted it near any inhabited
community.
The motors of stage three blasted for a carefully calculated few seconds,
then cut out automatically. With the destitution of his weight, Mac felt
his spirits soar also. They were almost in orbit, now, climbing at a
slight angle with a velocity sufficient to carry them around Earth
forever, a streamlined, tiny satellite.
After the first few moments of disorientation, rocket crews found that a
weightless condition gave them, ambiguously, a buoyant feeling. Only
the doughnut crew had really adapted to this condition, living as they
did without the effects of gravity for hours at a time every day. The
temporary "housing" was rotated for comfort of the crews during rest
periods, but while moving the plates and girders of the giant doughnut
into place, they had no such luxuries. For these men, weightlessness
became an integral part of their activities, but the rocket crews were
subjected to this phenomenon only during the few hours needed to
rendezvous, unload the cargo, and coast back after another initial
period of acceleration.
Hence, Mac felt a strange elation when he tapped his fingers on the arm
of his couch and saw his arm float upward, due to reaction from the tap.
Against all regulations, Logan unstrapped himself and motioned his
comrades to do the same. This unorthodox seventh-inning stretch was
prohibited because it left the pilot's arm-rest controls without an
operator, hence