foolishness of it. Rocket fuel is highly explosive; a rocket works because a continuous explosion is taking place in its engine. But McCauley felt safer sitting on enough hydrazine and nitric to blow him to atoms than coming up a narrow, springy ladder.

Laboriously he settled himself. The acceleration chair had been tailored to fit him in this suit. He got the trailing cables clear and made himself comfortable. Then he waited. He could stir a little, but not much. It was, of course, extremely comforting to be able to move his feet in even limited swings.

The nose-cone door darkened. Somebody reached in and plugged the cables into their proper sockets. He hauled straps from nowhere and buckled them.

"Here's your helmet, Lieutenant," he said.

"Thanks," said McCauley.

He put it on. Air began to flow past his face and he knew that all the gadgets in his suit were hooked in, and that back in the blockhouse they could count his breaths and tell how deep they were, they were getting a continuous cardiogram to tell how his heart was working, and they had a running record of his blood pressure. If he panicked now they'd know it. The man outside the nose-cone door poked around like a hen fussing over a solitary chick. McCauley wished he'd go away. A voice sounded in the helmet earphones.

"Checking phones. Do you hear me?"

"Sure," said McCauley. "I hear all right."

The phones clicked and were silent. The nose-cone door closed and McCauley was alone. Somehow he felt naked, because he knew that everything he felt and almost everything he thought was going on record via telemeter in the blockhouse. It was dark here.... No, two small electric bulbs were glowing. One was a spare. He saw the stuff laid out for later.

He knew what went on outside, but it was what was going on inside him that disturbed him. He didn't want the instruments in his suit to report anything wrong. He wanted to do this job right! For that reason he was consciously patient while he knew that men clinging to the launching tower were pulling away the last-minute cords that had been reporting everything functioning just right. Then everybody'd be getting out of the way. The Aerobee stood silent and still above a concrete pit filled with water. Somebody would use a last few seconds to coil up a cable that should have been put away before. In seconds now, though, 

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