slight lifting of the pressure on his body. The rocket was still in the stratosphere, but the sky was getting purple.

Mach 14—10,000 miles an hour.

“Dick” would jettison any moment. Marsh had been aloft only about four minutes, but it had seemed an age, every tortured second of it.

There was another rumble as the second stage broke free. Marsh felt a new surge directly beneath him as his own occupied section, “Harry,” began blasting. It was comforting to realize he had successfully weathered those tons of exploding hydrazine and acid that could have reduced him to nothing if something had gone wrong. Although his speed was still building up, the weight on him began to ease steadily as his body’s inertia finally yielded to the sickeningly swift acceleration.

The speedometer needle climbed to Mach 21, the peak velocity of the rocket, 16,000 miles per hour. His altitude was 350 miles—man’s highest ascent. Slowly then, the speedometer began to drop back. Marsh heard the turbo pumps and jets go silent as the “lift” fuel was spent and rocket “Harry” began its free-flight orbit around Earth.

The ship had reached a speed which exactly counterbalanced the pull of gravity, and it could, theoretically, travel this way forever, provided no other outside force acted upon it. The effect on Marsh now was as if he had stopped moving. Relieved of the viselike pressure, his stomach and chest for a few seconds felt like inflated balloons.

“Cadet Farnsworth,” the voice of General Forsythe spoke into his helmet receiver, “are you all right?”

“Yes, sir,” Marsh replied. “That is, I think so.”

It was good to hear a human voice again, something to hold onto in this crazy unreal world into which he had been hurtled.

“We’re getting the electronic readings from your gauges O.K.,” the voice went on. “The doctor says your pulse is satisfactory under the circumstances.”

It was queer having your pulse read from 350 miles up in the air.

Marsh realized, of course, that he was not truly in the “air.” A glance at his air-pressure gauge confirmed this. He was virtually in a vacuum. The temperature and wind velocity outside might have astounded him if he were not prepared for the readings. The heat was over 2000 degrees Fahrenheit, and the wind velocity was of 

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