The Open Hatchway
Pegasus was ready.
The dry run was over and only the final checkout remained.
At zero minus sixteen hours Rick stood at the base of the huge rocket
and looked up, studying every inch of it. He knew he would never have
the opportunity again.
About fifty feet up he could make out the smooth, stainless-steel
connecting ring where the second stage joined the first. Explosive
bolts, set off by one of the electronic circuits, would blow the stages
apart. The second stage, still carrying the final stage, would
accelerate away on its own motors until they, too, had consumed all
available fuel. Again, explosive bolts would destroy the connection and
the final stage would be on its own. The motors would flare briefly,
providing less than a minute's acceleration, then the final stage would
coast on its momentum to maximum altitude nearly three hundred miles
above the earth.
Not until the final stage started its downward plunge would Jerry Lipton
take over. His job, then, would be to control the plunging flight, to
use up the excess of energy by maneuvering the rocket into the
atmosphere and out, to prevent its burning up like a meteor. In slow,
careful stages, he would let it come lower and lower, until most of its
energy was used up. Then he would try to land it. The landing speed
would be terrific--nearly a thousand miles an hour.
Gee-Gee Gould came up and stood beside him. "It's a beautiful thing,
Rick. And it's ours. Yours, mine, Dick's, Frank's, Charlie's--it belongs
to every one of the crew."
Rick knew. It was _his_ rocket. If it worked, it would be because of the
care and devotion with which he had done his job. He knew others felt
the same, and they were equally right. All of them had built part of
themselves into Pegasus.
If it worked . . . Of course it would work! He sought reassurance from
Gee-Gee.
"It's going to be okay, isn't it?"
"Yes." Gee-Gee had no doubt. "Every piece of it has been checked and
double-checked. Even the inner workings of the critical parts have been
run and rerun. This is one rocket the Earthman never had a chance to
sabotage."
Rick nodded. He felt that way, too. The entire rocket had been checked
out by teams of never less than two. Each man checked the other's work
and both had to agree that all was in perfect order before the piece was
accepted and checked off. Each man had to account to a guard before he
could go to work. The system was foolproof. Now only the ultimate steps
remained, the final checks, the fueling, and at the very last, the
placement of the tiny spacemonk in his specially designed carrier.
"Let's go," Gee-Gee said.
They mounted the elevator and were whisked upward to the final stage.
Gee-Gee picked up his walkie-talkie from the rack. "Do you read me,
Dick?"
"Go ahead, Gee-Gee."
"Tell Jerry to go through checkoff."
Rick and Gee-Gee stood on the ramp and looked down at the ridiculously
tiny wings and watched the control surfaces move in response to Jerry's
gentle touch on the controls within the blockhouse. The drone control
was working perfectly. Rick felt a surge of pride. This particular part
of Pegasus was his.
The two went into the confined space in the nose. It was circular, the
structural members rising to a near-peak overhead. A radar unit blocked
out the tip of the nose cone. Under the unit a heavy steel channel ran
down to the side of the drone control. Fixed to the channel by heavy
springs was a tiny chair, complete with straps. The chair was festooned
with wires, unconnected for the moment. The wires terminated in
instruments that would sense every action, every response of the
spacemonk's body. The chair channel was pivoted, so the monk would
always be upright.
At Gee-Gee's order, Jerry Lipton ran through the check procedures again.
This time Rick and Gee-Gee carefully watched the functioning of each
servomotor. Finally Gee-Gee announced that he was satisfied. Next step
was to check the spacemonk's instruments' circuits.
Rick picked up a tiny stethoscope. It would be taped to the monk's body,
held tightly to his heart. He traced the circuit to where it disappeared
into the oscillator switch, then took the walkie-talkie. "Display on?
Checking the stethoscope."
"Go ahead," Earle replied.
Rick held it to his own heart for a few minutes, then tapped on the bell
with his forefinger.
"Looks good on the display," Dick's voice came back. "What did you hit
it with--a hammer?"
"Finger," Rick said. "Let's take a temperature next." He found the
thermocouple that would be attached to the marmoset's body, traced the
circuit to the oscillator, then called, "Watch my own body heat." He
tucked the sensing element under his armpit.
"Hotter than a pistol," Dick said.
"Why? Do I have a fever?"
"Not unless you're a monkey. Next?"
"Sphygmomanometer. And don't worry about the pronunciation. The
blood-pressure cuff." He traced the circuit, then inflated the rubber
and fabric cuff.
"You just had heart failure," Dick reported.
They continued work, checking the radar equipment, the photon counters,
cameras, the temperature-sensing devices, and myriad other instruments.
Each instrument would feed its information to the oscillator, through
the measurand transmitter and into the telemetering circuit, traveling
by radio circuit back to the blockhouse. In the blockhouse it would
appear in several forms. The information from the marmoset's instruments
would appear as a series of waves on continually moving strips of
special paper, in a machine called the display.
Finally Rick and Gee-Gee left the nose section and started to work down.
It was already dark outside. The nose section was finished. The
cameraman had arrived and loaded the cameras and departed. Now it
remained only to place Prince Machiavelli, which was among the very last
things to be done. Rick had hoped to carry the little monk to his seat,
but Frank Miller and Dr. Bond had been given that job. He and Gee-Gee
would be too busy with last-minute checks.
Gee-Gee was hard to satisfy. He told a guard, "Watch the nose section.
No one is authorized to enter now until the monk is placed at zero minus
thirty minutes." Then he led Rick across the desert to the blockhouse.
There were sandwiches and coffee on a table near the door. They helped
themselves, then went and stood behind Dick Earle, who was paired off
with Charlie Kassick.
"Punch up the nose section," Gee-Gee requested.
Dick ticked off the circuits as he pressed the buttons. One by one the
red lights switched to green. All were operating. Only then did Gee-Gee
nod his satisfaction. "Okay, Rick. Let's get back to work. Most of it's
done, but we still have some checking to do in the first and second
stages."
As they mounted the crane again Rick looked up at the festooned cables
that terminated in the nose cone. At the moment of firing, the cables
would drop off. After that, Pegasus would be on its own.
It was after dawn when the two emerged from the final check. The fueling
crews were already at work. The loud-speaker on the crane emitted, "The
time is zero minus twenty-five."
Gee-Gee departed for the blockhouse. Rick started after him, then as he
cleared the gate he saw Scotty. His pal was waiting patiently in the
jeep.
"Just wanted you to know I'm standing by," Scotty said. "You'll be in
the blockhouse, I suppose?"
"That's right. Where will you be?"
"Watching the warehouse. Luis is watching it now. I suppose some of the
security boys are, too, but I haven't seen them." Scotty's eyes traveled
up the great rocket. "It's a honey. Suppose the Earthman has got in his
licks?"
Rick shook his head. "Positively not. It's been checked out from nose to
fins, and guarded every minute."
Scotty started the jeep motor. "I'd better get out of here. Good luck."
The jeep roared off.
Rick turned for a last look at close range, and his eyes traveled up and
up, from the stabilizing fins past the wings to the nose cone. Pegasus
was ready. Then, he suddenly realized, the nose hatchway was still ajar.
That was strange. Prince Machiavelli should be installed in his seat by
now and the hatchway buttoned for take-off. Rick ran to the gate,
exchanged his badge for the special badge, and hurried to the crane. He
half expected Dr. Bond and Frank to appear in the hatchway, but neither
did.
"I'd better see," he muttered.
"The time is zero minus fifteen," the speaker stated.
Rick went up the elevator, hurried up the last few steps, and swung the
hatch open. He took the flashlight from his belt kit and swung it around
the interior. Prince Machiavelli blinked at him from a cocoon of tapes
and straps. The light hurt the monk's eyes. Rick clicked it off and
moved to the little marmoset's side. He stroked the tiny head. Why
wasn't the hatch locked? Someone must have forgotten something. He
walked over and peered through one of the two thick glass ports,
expecting to see someone coming up the crane, but there was no sign of
Dr. Bond or Frank.
Then, as he turned, the hatchway swung shut. For an instant Rick thought
it had closed of its own weight, then he heard the scrape of metal as it
was dogged down. Suddenly frightened he crossed the little room and
banged on it, but the thick metal gave no sound under his fists. He had
to make more noise! He lifted the flashlight to bang it on the door, and
in that moment there was a scream of metal from outside as the crane was
pulled away. He was locked in! Locked in the rocket! And it was ready to
fire!