everyone would pop out of sight. Over by the mountains they'd be working the trackers there to make sure they were all right. There'd be the warning blast. It ought to be about now. Ten—nine—eight— A voice came into the helmet phones. "Forty seconds more, Lieutenant. Everything's going fine so far!" McCauley had a momentary impulse to try to make some crack or other that would be appropriate, express how he felt, and so on. But he didn't feel as he'd expected to. And anything like that would sound like showing off. So he just answered matter-of-factly: "That's good." He waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. The voice in his helmet phones said abruptly: "Ten seconds ... Nine ... Eight ... Seven ... Six ... Five ... Four ... Three ... Two ... One...." During the last second McCauley remembered to put his arms in the armrests, because the acceleration was going to be all he could take. All. If his arms hung down, the blood would engorge his fingers and swell them to uselessness. He was already scrounged down in place, and he had his chin in the chinrest of the helmet—the whole helmet had a fitting to support it—so if he blacked out his tongue wouldn't slide back down his throat and strangle him. Something hit him. It hit him all over at the same instant, as if he were being slammed in a million places by a million six-ounce gloves all at once. Something grabbed his legs and squeezed his belly and blew air in his face, and the roar was numbing, but he didn't remember hearing it begin. He'd expected all of it but he reacted by quite automatically getting raging mad. He knew he was on the way up and he felt thrilled and furious and he hurt all over, simultaneously. It was agony, but if he could have grinned he'd have done it. Everything had gone off all right! Nothing was wrong! It was too late for anything to stop the shoot now! It was happening! His stomach felt terrifically tight against the corset-like front of the grav-suit. The legs squeezed—hard! That puff of wind was extra air
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