planes they used to use for teaching fledgling pilots. The mock-up supplied not only the instrument readings of actual flight, but the feel of it. And not only that, it convincingly presented hair-raising emergencies. A man could experience all the griefs of a lifetime of flying in a few hours in such a mock-up. McCauley'd had them.

In the nature of things, the X-21 couldn't be given a test flight. It couldn't be tucked under a bomber's wing and lifted aloft to see how it behaved. Nothing could be done with it but take off and try to ride it where no other pilot-controlled ship had ever been, and then try to get it back down again.... If possible! If everything went well, it would be a very good job to have done. If anything went wrong, it would be too bad. Period.

McCauley smoked a second cigarette to kill time. Then he went out of his room and found his way outdoors. Squinting in the glaring sunshine, he located Hangar Seven.

Ten minutes later he was inside, taking a look at his ship. He'd hardly seen a soul along the line of hangars. Inside one he'd heard a tapping where some flight mechanic was working at something or other. From another he'd heard voices—tranquil lazy tones indicating that whoever was within had no very urgent work on hand. It appeared that practically all the base had been given a pass on the day before the shoot. Which bespoke a way of running things that meant either absolutely top management or something he'd rather not imagine.

He looked at the ship, the X-21. It was huge. It was sleek. It was impressive. It looked slightly insane, because it was built to accomplish something that most people weren't even thinking about yet. Naturally it looked improbable, like the generality of things designed to achieve the preposterous.

For one thing, the pilot's cabin was in the nose, and it hung down so the pilot could look directly behind him underneath the belly of the ship. That meant an imbalance in the wind resistance when the ship was in flight. But the balance was restored by wings above the fuselage top. Then there were enormous ramjets built into the wings well away from the body; they threw the balance off again until it was restored a second time by the wind resistance of the wheels, which did not retract. And near the tail with its triple fins there were brackets for Mark Twenty jatos, and behind them a very familiar conical bore, the exhaust nozzle of the rocket engine.

McCauley recognized everything from his preparations for flying 

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