bunker. I glanced into the room filled with the Operations staff which was keeping track of Willy—communicating with him, tabulating his heartbeats, respiration and maybe his thoughts—and checking the behavior of his capsule. I wasn't interested in them. I went to the end of the hall, flashed my badge again, and entered the room reserved for the panel that was going to pass or flunk Willy Zinder.

Doc Spartan was the man in charge. He was the leader of our little group, but that was no break for Willy Zinder. Doc Spartan was an old space hand. He'd been to the moon and he had conducted the trial flight of the plasma engine. First, last and middle, he was a perfectionist. I hated him, so did everyone else, but there was one thing that we all could say: if Doc stamped you okay, you were as good as he expected to find. And there was another thing that could be said: Doc Spartan made a top sergeant of the Marine Corps look like Peter Pan.

He was there, along with three other men who looked as if they'd been without sleep for a week. Maybe they'd taken a few naps during the twenty-four hours, but it didn't show. They were red-eyed, their hair was uncombed and they each showed a day's growth of beard. Although the room was air-conditioned, they looked sweaty and hot. Mugs full of black coffee were on their desks and there were bread crusts and half-eaten sandwiches on trays nearby.

Axel Ludson stood back against the rear wall. Like me, he had nothing to do but watch and he had probably hurried over after eating breakfast, just as I had, in order to be on hand when Willy made his re-entry.

Axel was a big, raw-boned Swede, which is a description you could give of a large portion of the male population of his home town in Minnesota. He had light brown hair, blue eyes and a long straight nose. His jaw looked big and solid enough to crush concrete. He winked at me and I walked over to him.

"Willy is doing fine," he said, which was an accolade. Axel made his words count. "Doc has thrown everything at him but a flock of asteroids and Willy hasn't missed a pitch."

"Good!" I said. "Where is Willy now?"

Axel nodded toward a screen on the left wall. On it was projected a portion of a globe showing Northern Siberia. A little spot of light showed up in the middle of it.

"In thirty minutes he'll begin his last orbit."

 Prev. P 4/129 next