Cadet Marshall Farnsworth woke from a nightmare of exploding novae and
fouling rockets. After recovering from his fright, he laughed
contemptuously at himself. “Here I was picked as the most stable of a
group of two hundred cadets,” he thought, “and chosen to make man’s
first trip into space, yet I’m shaking like a leaf.”
He got out of bed and went over to the window. From his father’s
temporary apartment, he could see distant Skyharbor, the scene of the
plunge into space tomorrow night. He had been awarded the frightening
honor of making that trip.
As he watched teardrop cars whip along Phoenix, Arizona’s, double-decked
streets, elevated over one another to avoid dangerous intersections and
delaying stop lights, he thought back over the years; to the 1950’s,
when mice and monkeys were sent up in Vikings to launch mankind’s first
probing of the mysterious space beyond Earth, and the first satellites
were launched; to the 1960’s, when huger, multiple-stage rockets finally
conquered the problem of escape velocity; to 1975—today—when man was
finally ready to send one of his own kind into the uninhabited deeps.
Marsh climbed back into bed, but sleep would not come.
In the adjoining room, he could hear the footsteps of mother and father.
By their sound he knew they were the footsteps of worried people. This
hurt Marsh more than his own uneasiness.
The anxiety had begun for them, he knew, when he had first signed up for
space-cadet training. They had known there was an extremely high
percentage of washouts, and after each test he passed, they had
pretended to be glad. But Marsh knew that inwardly they had hoped he
would fail, for they were aware of the ultimate goal that the space
scientists were working for—the goal that had just now been reached.
Marsh finally fell into a troubled sleep that lasted until morning.
He woke early, before the alarm rang. He got up, showered, pulled on his
blue-corded cadet uniform, and tugged on the polished gray boots. He
took one final look around his room as though in farewell, then went out
to the kitchen.
His folks were up ahead of time too, trying to act as though it were
just another day. Dad was pretending to enjoy his morning paper, nodding
only casually to Marsh as he came in. Mom was stirring scrambled eggs in
the skillet, but she wasn’t a very good actor, Marsh noticed, for she
furtively wiped her eyes with her free hand.
The eggs were cooked too hard and the toast had to be scraped, but no
one seemed to care. The three of them sat down at the table, still
speaking in monosyllables and of unimportant things. They made a
pretense of eating.
“Well, Mom,” Dad suddenly said with a forced jollity that was intended
to break the tension, “the Farnsworth family has finally got a celebrity
in it.”
“I don’t see why they don’t send an older man!” Mom burst out, as though
she had been holding it in as long as she could. “Sending a boy who
isn’t even twenty-two—”
“Things are different nowadays, Mom,” Dad explained, still with the
assumed calmness that masked his real feelings. “These days, men grow up
faster and mature quicker. They’re stronger and more alert than older
men—” His voice trailed off as if he were unable to convince himself.
“_Some_body has to go,” Marsh said. “Why not a younger man without
family and responsibility? That’s why they’re giving younger men more
opportunities today than they used to.”
“It’s not younger men I’m talking about!” Mom blurted. “It’s you,
Marsh!”
Dad leaned over and patted Mom on the shoulder. “Now, Ruth, we promised
not to get excited this morning.”
“I’m sorry,” Mom said weakly. “But Marsh is too young to—” She caught
herself and put her hand over her mouth.
“Stop talking like that!” Dad said. “Marsh is coming back. There’ve been
thousands of rockets sent aloft. The space engineers have made sure that
every bug has been ironed out before risking a man’s life. Why, that
rocket which Marsh is going up in is as safe as our auto in the garage,
isn’t it, Marsh?”
“I hope so, Dad,” Marsh murmured.
Later, as Dad drove Marsh to the field, each brooded silently. Every
scene along the way seemed to take on a new look for Marsh. He saw
things that he had never noticed before. It was an uncomfortable
feeling, almost as if he were seeing these things for the last as well
as the first time.
Finally the airport came into view. The guards at the gate recognized
Marsh and ushered the Farnsworth car through ahead of scores of others
that crowded the entrance. Some eager news photographers slipped up
close and shot off flash bulbs in Marsh’s eyes.
Skyharbor, once a small commercial field, had been taken over by the Air
Force in recent years and converted into the largest rocket experimental
center in the United States.
Dad drove up to the building that would be the scene of Marsh’s first
exhaustive tests and briefings. He stopped the car, and Marsh jumped
out. Their good-by was brief. Marsh saw his father’s mouth quiver. There
was a tightness in his own throat. He had gone through any number of
grueling tests to prove that he could take the rigors of space, but not
one of them had prepared him for the hardest moments of parting.
When Dad had driven off, Marsh reported first to the psychiatrist who
checked his condition.
“Pulse fast, a rise in blood pressure,” he said. “You’re excited, aren’t
you, son?”
“Yes, sir,” Marsh admitted. “Maybe they’ve got the wrong man, sir. I
might fail them.”
The doctor grinned. “They don’t have the wrong man,” he said. “They
might have, with a so-called iron-nerved fellow. He could contain his
tension and fears until later, until maybe the moment of blast-off. Then
he’d let go, and when he needed his calmest judgment he wouldn’t have
it. No, Marshall, there isn’t a man alive who could make this
history-making flight without some anxiety. Forget it. You’ll feel
better as the day goes on. I’ll see you once more before the blast-off.”
Marsh felt more at ease already. He went on to the space surgeon, was
given a complete physical examination, and was pronounced in perfect
condition. Then began his review briefing on everything he would
encounter during the flight.
Blast-off time was for 2230, an hour and a half before midnight. Since
at night, in the Western Hemisphere, Earth was masking the sun, the
complications of excessive temperatures in the outer reaches were
avoided during the time Marsh would be outside the ship. Marsh would
occupy the small upper third section of a three-stage rocket. The first
two parts would be jettisoned after reaching their peak velocities. Top
speed of the third stage would carry Marsh into a perpetual-flight orbit
around Earth, along the route that a permanent space station was to be
built after the results of the flight were studied. After spending a
little while in this orbit, Marsh would begin the precarious journey
back to Earth, in gliding flight.
He got a few hours of sleep after sunset. When an officer shook him, he
rose from the cot he had been lying on in a private room of General
Forsythe, Chief of Space Operations.
“It’s almost time, son,” the officer said. “Your CO wants to see you in
the outside office.”
Marsh went into the adjoining room and found his cadet chief awaiting
him. The youth detected an unusual warmth about the severe gentleman who
previously had shown only a firm, uncompromising attitude. Colonel
Tregasker was past middle age, and his white, sparse hair was smoothed
down close to his head in regulation neatness.
“Well, this is it, Marshall,” the colonel said. “How I envy you this
honor of being the first human to enter space. However, I do feel that a
part of me is going along too, since I had a small share in preparing
you for the trip. If the training was harsh at times, I believe that
shortly you will understand the reason for it.”
“I didn’t feel that the Colonel was either too soft or strict, sir,”
Marsh said diplomatically.
A speaker out on the brilliantly lit field blared loudly in the cool
desert night: “X minus forty minutes.”
“We can’t talk all night, Marshall,” the colonel said briskly. “You’ve
got a job to do. But first, a few of your friends want to wish you
luck.” He called into the anteroom, “You may come in, gentlemen!”
There filed smartly into the room ten youths who had survived the hard
prespace course with Marsh and would be his successors in case he failed
tonight. They formed a line and shook hands with Marsh. The first was
Armen Norton who had gotten sick in the rugged centrifuge at a force of
9 G’s, then had rallied to pass the test.
“Good luck, Marsh,” he said.
Next was lanky Lawrence Egan who had been certain he would wash out
during navigation phase in the planetarium. “All the luck in the world,
Marsh,” he added.
Each cadet brought back a special memory of his training as they passed
before him, wishing him success.
When they had gone and the speaker outside had announced: “X minus
thirty minutes,” the colonel said that he and Marsh had better be
leaving. Colonel Tregasker was to be Marsh’s escort to the ship.
Photographers and newspapermen swarmed about them as they climbed into
the jeep that was to take them to the launching site farther out on the
field. Questions were flung at the two from all sides, but the colonel
deftly maneuvered the jeep through the mob and sped off over the
asphalt.
At the blast-off site, Marsh could see that the police had their hands
full keeping out thousands of spectators who were trying to get into the
closed-off area. The field was choked with a tide of humanity milling
about in wild confusion. Giant searchlights, both at the airport and in
other parts of Phoenix, directed spears of light on the towering rocket
that held the interest of all the world tonight. There was one light,
far larger than the rest, with powerful condensing lenses and connected
to a giant radar screen, which would guide Marsh home from his trip
among the stars.
A high wire fence surrounded the launching ramp and blockhouses.
International scientists and dignitaries with priorities formed a ring
around the fence, but even they were not allowed inside the small circle
of important activity. The guards waved the colonel and Marsh through
the gate.
Marsh had spent many weeks in a mock-up of the tiny third stage in which
he was to spend his time aloft, but he had never been close to the
completely assembled ship until this moment. The three stages had been
nicknamed, “Tom,” “Dick,” and “Harry.” Marsh swallowed as his eyes roved
up the side of the great vessel, part of a project that had cost
millions to perfect and was as high as a four-story building.
The gigantic base, “Big Tom,” was the section that would have the
hardest job to do, that of thrusting the rocket through the densest part
of the atmosphere, and this was a great deal larger than the other
sections. Marsh knew that most of the ship’s bulk was made up of the
propellant fuel of hydrazine hydrate and its oxidizer, nitric acid.
“We’re going into that blockhouse over there,” Colonel Tregasker said.
“You’ll don your space gear in there.”
First a multitude of gadgets with wires were fastened to the cadet’s
wrists, ankles, nose, and head. Marsh knew this to be one of the most
important phases of the flight—to find out a man’s reaction to space
flight under actual rocketing conditions. Each wire would telemeter
certain information by radio back to the airport. After a tight inner G
suit had been put on to prevent blackout, the plastic and rubber outer
garment was zipped up around Marsh, and then he was ready except for his
helmet, which would not be donned until later.
Marsh and the colonel went back outside. The open-cage elevator was
lowered from the top of the big latticed platform that surrounded the
rocket. The two got into the cage, and it rose with them. Marsh had lost
most of his anxiety and tension during the activities of the day, but
his knees felt rubbery in these final moments as the elevator carried
him high above the noisy confusion of the airport. _This was it._
As they stepped from the cage onto the platform of the third stage,
Marsh heard the speaker below call out: “X minus twenty minutes.”
There were eleven engineers and workmen on the platform readying the
compartment that Marsh would occupy. Marsh suddenly felt helpless and
alone as he faced the small chamber that might very well be his death
cell. Its intricate dials and wires were staggering in their complexity.
Marsh turned and shook hands with Colonel Tregasker. “Good-by, sir,” he
said in a quavering voice. “I hope I remember everything the Corps
taught me.” He tried to smile, but his facial muscles twitched
uncontrollably.
“Good luck, son—lots of it,” the officer said huskily. Suddenly he
leaned forward and embraced the youth with a firm, fatherly hug. “This
is not regulations,” he mumbled gruffly, “but hang regulations!” He
turned quickly and asked to be carried down to the ground.
A man brought Marsh’s helmet and placed it over his head, then clamped
it to the suit. Knobs on the suit were twisted, and Marsh felt a warm,
pressurized helium-oxygen mixture fill his suit and headpiece.
Marsh stepped through the hatch into the small compartment. He reclined
in the soft contour chair, and the straps were fastened by one of the
engineers over his chest, waist, and legs. The wires connected to
various parts of his body had been brought together into a single unit
in the helmet. A wire cable leading from the panel was plugged into the
outside of the helmet to complete the circuit.
Final tests were run off to make sure everything was in proper working
order, including the two-way short-wave radio that would have to
penetrate the electrical ocean of the ionosphere. Then the double-hatch
air lock was closed. Through his helmet receiver, Marsh could hear the
final minutes and seconds being called off from inside the blockhouse.
“Everything O.K.?” Marsh was asked by someone on the platform.
“Yes, sir,” Marsh replied.
“Then you’re on your own,” were the final ominous words.
“X minus five minutes,” called the speaker.
It was the longest five minutes that Marsh could remember. He was
painfully aware of his cramped quarters. He thought of the tons of
explosive beneath him that presently would literally blow him sky-high.
And he thought of the millions of people the world over who, at this
moment, were hovering at radios and TV’s anxiously awaiting the dawn of
the space age. Finally he thought of Dad and Mom, lost in that multitude
of night watchers, and among the few who were not primarily concerned
with the scientific aspect of the experiment. He wondered if he would
ever see them again.
“X minus sixty seconds!”
Marsh knew that a warning flare was being sent up, to be followed by a
whistle and a cloud of smoke from one of the blockhouses. As he felt
fear trying to master him, he began reviewing all the things he must
remember and, above all, what to do in an emergency.
“X minus ten seconds—five—four—three—two—one—FIRE!”
There was a mighty explosion at Skyharbor.
The initial jolt which Marsh felt was much fiercer than the gradually
built up speed of the whirling centrifuge in training. He was crushed
deeply into his contour chair. It felt as though someone were pressing
on his eyeballs; indeed, as if every organ in his body were clinging to
his backbone. But these first moments would be the worst. A gauge showed
a force of 7 G’s on him—equal to half a ton.
He watched the Mach numbers rise on the dial in front of his eyes on an
overhead panel. Each Mach number represented that much times the speed
of sound, 1,090 feet per second, 740 miles an hour.
Marsh knew “Big Tom” would blast for about a minute and a half under
control of the automatic pilot, at which time it would drop free at an
altitude of twenty-five miles and sink Earthward in a metal mesh ’chute.
Marsh’s hurting eyes flicked to the outside temperature gauge. It was on
a steady 67 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, and would be until he reached
twenty miles. A reflecting prism gave him a square of view of the sky
outside. The clear deep blue of the cloud-free stratosphere met his
eyes.
Mach 5, Mach 6, Mach 7 passed very quickly. He heard a rumble and felt a
jerk. “Big Tom” was breaking free. The first hurdle had been
successfully overcome, and the ship had already begun tilting into its
trajectory.
There was a new surge of agony on his body as the second stage picked up
the acceleration at a force of 7 G’s again. Marsh clamped his jaws as
the force pulled his lips back from his teeth and dragged his cheek
muscles down. The Mach numbers continued to rise—11, 12, 13—to altitude
200 miles, the outer fringe of the earth’s atmosphere. There was a
slight lifting of the pressure on his body. The rocket was still in the
stratosphere, but the sky was getting purple.
Mach 14—10,000 miles an hour.
“Dick” would jettison any moment. Marsh had been aloft only about four
minutes, but it had seemed an age, every tortured second of it.
There was another rumble as the second stage broke free. Marsh felt a
new surge directly beneath him as his own occupied section, “Harry,”
began blasting. It was comforting to realize he had successfully
weathered those tons of exploding hydrazine and acid that could have
reduced him to nothing if something had gone wrong. Although his speed
was still building up, the weight on him began to ease steadily as his
body’s inertia finally yielded to the sickeningly swift acceleration.
The speedometer needle climbed to Mach 21, the peak velocity of the
rocket, 16,000 miles per hour. His altitude was 350 miles—man’s highest
ascent. Slowly then, the speedometer began to drop back. Marsh heard the
turbo pumps and jets go silent as the “lift” fuel was spent and rocket
“Harry” began its free-flight orbit around Earth.
The ship had reached a speed which exactly counterbalanced the pull of
gravity, and it could, theoretically, travel this way forever, provided
no other outside force acted upon it. The effect on Marsh now was as if
he had stopped moving. Relieved of the viselike pressure, his stomach
and chest for a few seconds felt like inflated balloons.
“Cadet Farnsworth,” the voice of General Forsythe spoke into his helmet
receiver, “are you all right?”
“Yes, sir,” Marsh replied. “That is, I think so.”
It was good to hear a human voice again, something to hold onto in this
crazy unreal world into which he had been hurtled.
“We’re getting the electronic readings from your gauges O.K.,” the voice
went on. “The doctor says your pulse is satisfactory under the
circumstances.”
It was queer having your pulse read from 350 miles up in the air.
Marsh realized, of course, that he was not truly in the “air.” A glance
at his air-pressure gauge confirmed this. He was virtually in a vacuum.
The temperature and wind velocity outside might have astounded him if he
were not prepared for the readings. The heat was over 2000 degrees
Fahrenheit, and the wind velocity was of hurricane force! But these
figures meant nothing because of the sparseness of air molecules.
Temperature and wind applied only to the individual particles, which
were thousands of feet apart.
“How is your cosmic-ray count?” asked the general.
Marsh checked the C-ray counter on the panel from which clicking sounds
were coming. “It’s low, sir. Nothing to worry about.”
Cosmic rays, the most powerful emanations known, were the only radiation
in space that could not be protected against. But in small doses they
had been found not to be dangerous.
“As soon as our recorders get more of the figures your telemeter is
giving us,” the operations chief said, “you can leave the rocket.”
When Marsh got the O.K. a few minutes later, he eagerly unstrapped the
belts around his body. He could hardly contain his excitement at being
the first person to view the globe of Earth from space. As he struggled
to his feet, the lightness of zero gravity made him momentarily giddy,
and it took some minutes for him to adjust to the terribly strange
sensation.
He had disconnected the cable leading from his helmet to the ship’s
transmitter and switched on the ship’s fast-lens movie camera that would
photograph the area covered by “Harry.” Then he was ready to go outside.
He pressed a button on the wall, and the first air-lock hatch opened. He
floated into the narrow alcove and closed the door in the cramped
chamber behind him. He watched a gauge, and when it showed normal
pressure and temperature again, he opened the outside hatch, closing it
behind him. Had Marsh permitted the vacuum of space to contact the
interior of the ship’s quarters, delicate instruments would have been
ruined by the sudden decompression and loss of heat. Marsh fastened his
safety line to the ship so that there was no chance of his becoming
separated from it.
Then he looked “downward,” to experience the thrill of his life. Like a
gigantic relief map, the panorama of Earth stretched across his vision.
A downy blanket of gray atmosphere spread over the whole of it, and
patches of clouds were seen floating like phantom shapes beneath the
clear vastness of the stratosphere. It was a stunning sight for Marsh,
seeing the pinpoint lights of the night cities extending from horizon to
horizon. It gave him an exhilarating feeling of being a king over it
all.
Earth appeared to be rotating, but Marsh knew it was largely his own and
the rocket’s fast speed that was responsible for the illusion. As he
hung in this region of the exosphere, he was thankful for his cadet
training in zero gravity. A special machine, developed only in recent
years, simulated the weightlessness of space and trained the cadets for
endurance in such artificial conditions.
“Describe some of the things you see, Marshall,” General Forsythe said
over Marsh’s helmet receiver. “I’ve just cut in a recorder.”
“It’s a scene almost beyond description, sir,” Marsh said into the
helmet mike. “The sky is thickly powdered with stars. The Milky Way is
very distinct, and I can make out lots of fuzzy spots that must be star
clusters and nebulae and comets. Mars is like an extremely bright
taillight, and the moon is so strong it hurts my eyes as much as the
direct sun does on earth.”
Marsh saw a faintly luminous blur pass beyond the ship. It had been
almost too sudden to catch. He believed it to be a meteor diving
Earthward at a speed around forty-five miles a second. He reported this
to the general.
As he brought his eyes down from the more distant fixtures of space to
those closer by on Earth, a strange thing happened. He was suddenly
seized with a fear of falling, although his zero-gravity training had
been intended to prepare him against this very thing. A cold sweat come
out over his body, and an uncontrollable panic threatened to take hold
of him.
He made a sudden movement as though to catch himself. Forgetting the
magnification of motion in frictionless space and his own
weightlessness, he was shot quickly to the end of his safety line like a
cracked whip. His body jerked at the taut end and then sped swiftly back
in reaction toward the ship, head foremost. A collision could crack his
helmet, exposing his body to decompression, causing him to swell like a
balloon and finally explode.
In the grip of numbing fear, only at the last moment did he have the
presence of mind to flip his body in a half-cartwheel and bring his
boots up in front of him for protection. His feet bumped against the
rocket’s side, and the motion sent him hurtling back out to the end of
the safety line again. This back-and-forth action occurred several times
before he could stop completely.
“I’ve got to be careful,” he panted to himself, as he thought of how
close his space career had come to being ended scarcely before it had
begun.
General Forsythe cut in with great concern, wondering what had happened.
When Marsh had explained and the general seemed satisfied that Marsh had
recovered himself, he had Marsh go on with his description.
His senseless fear having gone now, Marsh looked down calmly, entranced
as the features of the United States passed below his gaze. He named the
cities he could identify, also the mountain ranges, lakes, and rivers,
explaining just how they looked from 350 miles up. In only a fraction of
an hour’s time, the rocket had traversed the entire country and was
approaching the twinkling phosphorescence of the Atlantic.
Marsh asked if “Tom” and “Dick” had landed safely.
“‘Tom’ landed near Roswell, New Mexico,” General Forsythe told him, “and
the ’chute of the second section has been reported seen north of Dallas.
I think you’d better start back now, Marshall. It’ll take us many months
to analyze all the information we’ve gotten. We can’t contact you very
well on the other side of the world either, and thirdly, I don’t want
you exposed to the sun’s rays outside the atmosphere in the Eastern
Hemisphere any longer than can be helped.”
Marsh tugged carefully on his safety line and floated slowly back toward
the ship. He entered the air lock. Then, inside, he raised the angle of
his contour chair to upright position, facing the console of the ship’s
manual controls for the glide Earthward. He plugged in his telemeter
helmet cable and buckled one of the straps across his waist.
Since he was still moving at many thousands of miles an hour, it would
be suicide to plunge straight downward. He and the glider would be
turned into a meteoric torch. Rather, he would have to spend
considerable time soaring in and out of the atmosphere in braking
ellipses until he reached much lower speed. Then the Earth’s
gravitational pull would do the rest.
This was going to be the trickiest part of the operation, and the most
dangerous. Where before, Marsh had depended on automatic controls to
guide him, now much of the responsibility was on his own judgment. He
remembered the many hours he had sweated through to log his flying time.
Now he could look back on that period in his training and thank his
lucky stars for it.
He took the manual controls and angled into the atmosphere. He carefully
watched the AHF dial—the atmospheric heat friction gauge. When he had
neared the dangerous incendiary point, with the ship having literally
become red-hot, he soared into the frictionless vacuum again. He had to
keep this up a long time in order to reduce his devastating speed.
It was something of a shock to him to leave the black midnight of
Earth’s slumbering side for the brilliant hemisphere where the people of
Europe and Asia were going about their daytime tasks. He would have
liked to study this other half of the world which he had glimpsed only a
few times before in his supersonic test flights, but he knew this would
have to wait for future flights.
Finally, after a long time, his velocity was slowed enough so that the
tug of gravity was stronger than the rocket’s ability to pull up out of
the atmosphere. At this point, Marsh cut in “Harry’s” forward braking
jets to check his falling speed.
“There’s something else to worry about,” he thought to himself. “Will
old Harry hold together or will he fly apart in the crushing
atmosphere?”
The directional radio signals from the powerful Skyharbor transmitter
were growing stronger as Marsh neared the shores of California. He could
see the winking lights of San Diego and Los Angeles, and farther inland
the swinging thread that was the beacon at Skyharbor. All planes in his
path of flight had been grounded for the past few hours because of the
space flight. The only ground light scanning the skies was the gigantic
space beacon in Phoenix.
When Marsh reached Arizona, he began spiraling downward over the state
to kill the rest of his altitude and air speed. Even now the plane was a
hurtling supersonic metal sliver streaking through the night skies like
a comet. He topped the snow-capped summits of the towering San Francisco
Peaks on the drive southward, and he recognized the sprawling serpent of
the Grand Canyon. Then he was in the lower desert regions of
moon-splashed sand and cactus. Although the fire-hot temperature of the
outer skin had subsided, there had been damage done to the walls and
instruments, and possibly to other parts, too. Marsh was worried lest
his outside controls might be too warped to give him a good touchdown,
if indeed he could get down safely at all.
A few thousand feet up, Marsh lowered his landing gear. Now the only
problem left was to land himself and the valuable ship safely inside the
narrow parallels of the airstrip. He circled the airport several times
as his altitude continued to plummet.
The meter fell rapidly. His braking rocket fuel was gone now. From here
on in, he would be on gliding power alone.
“Easy does it, Marshall,” the general said quietly into his ear. “You’re
lining up fine. Level it out a little and keep straight with the
approach lights. That’s fine. You’re just about in.”
The lights of the airport seeming to rush up at him, Marsh felt a jolt
as the wheels touched ground on the west end of the runway. He kept the
ship steady as it scurried along the smooth asphalt, losing the last of
its once tremendous velocity. The plane hit the restraining wire across
the strip and came to a sudden stop, shoving Marsh hard against the
single safety belt he wore. Finally, incredibly, the ship was still and
he was safe.
He unfastened his strap and removed his space helmet. The heat of the
compartment brought the sweat out on his face. He rose on wobbly legs
and pressed the buttons to the hatches. The last door flew open to admit
the cool, bracing air of Earth which he had wondered if he would ever
inhale again.
His aloneness was over then, suddenly and boisterously, as men swarmed
over him with congratulations, eager questions, and looks of respect.
Reporters’ flash bulbs popped, and he felt like a new Lindbergh as he
was pulled down to the ground and mobbed. Finally the police came to his
rescue and pushed back the curiosity seekers and newspapermen. Then only
three men were allowed through the cordon.
The first to reach him was General Forsythe, who almost seemed to have
ridden with him the whole way. He grabbed Marsh’s hand and clapped him
on the shoulder. He said briefly, “You’ve launched the age of space
travel, Marshall. Congratulations, son. Now go home with your father and
get a good night’s rest. We’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Thank you, sir,” Marsh replied.
Colonel Tregasker came forward, and there was moisture visible in the
eyes of the cadet officer. “Now that one of my boys has made the first
trip into space and fulfilled a career-long dream, I can retire in
peace,” he murmured. “I’m proud to have been associated with you,
Marshall Farnsworth. Congratulations, my boy.”
Then Dad had his turn. He stood for a moment in front of his son as
though undecided what to do, hat in hand, the night breeze ruffling his
hair. Mr. Farnsworth seemed embarrassed by the grandeur of the moment
and reluctant to accept a part in one of the greatest accomplishments of
modern times.
Marsh moved forward and clasped his shoulders. “I did it, Dad,” he said.
“Thank God for bringing you back safely,” his father murmured huskily.
“Are you ready to go home, son?”
Suddenly Marsh was terribly weary, and he felt as if he could sleep for
days. “I am kind of tired,” he said. “Let’s go home and see Mom.”
The people around seemed to realize that this was not their moment. They
parted ranks quietly as the father and his son walked through them and
got into their car. As they drove off, even the stars and planets seemed
to be standing silent and watchful, in respect for the dawn of space
travel on the tiny pebble that was Earth.