Then Randy nodded worriedly and gave McCauley a cigarette.

"It looks okay," he said. But he fretted.

"Everything's okay," said McCauley.

He puffed contentedly. When the cigarette was half-smoked, somebody tapped on the door.

"You can get aboard, Lieutenant."

McCauley stood up. Randy opened the door for him and he went ambling clumsily through the blockhouse toward the exit. He heard a toneless voice say: "Crash wagon two"; then the man listened and made a checkmark. Somebody else snapped: "Tell the idiot that we're trying to keep him out of range of a few tons of hardware that'll be coming down out of the sky presently. Sit on his head!" That would be the official response to the civilian motorist's objection to being kept safely off the test site when a shoot was on.

McCauley went on out into the open air. He felt weighty and clumsy and cumbersome. He went around the blockhouse and into the blazing sunshine. The fueling crew was finished, but they hadn't left. They waited to watch him go aboard. There was a ladder leaning against the Aerobee. McCauley plodded heavily to the foot of it. He put his foot on the first rung and turned to Randy.

"Here I go."

"Yeah," said Randy. He didn't smile. He couldn't. But he did have a fine air of nonchalance as he said, "See you soon."

There was no handshake. It would have been too much like saying good-by. McCauley started up the ladder.

It was a long climb; and three-quarters of the way up, with all the assorted gimmicks and the clumsy chute-pack banging against his buttocks, he began to breathe fast. Once he stepped on a trailing cable. He looked down and was annoyed to find that the height bothered him—a man who would presently be up many miles higher than any man had ever been before. And this was only tens of feet, yet he felt giddy! He didn't look down again.

He reached the door in the nose-cone and climbed in. He'd practiced it. He felt easier when he was inside. Up here, on top of several tons of rocket fuel, he felt safer because there was a floor under him. He grimaced at the 

 Prev. P 12/123 next