Weight, One Ton
Rick had no time to think. He reacted. He pulled off the jacket he had
worn against the chill of the desert night, and rolled it tightly. He
dropped to the deck and stretched flat on his back, the jacket tucked
under the back of his head and neck.
He put his hands flat on the deck and sensed the increasing shudder of
the great rocket. It was building thrust! Fuel poured into the
combustion chamber and fantastically hot exhaust gases flared from the
motor exhaust. And with each passing second thrust built up inside the
motor chamber.
When the thrust exceeded the rocket's weight, Pegasus would take off!
He knew it wouldn't be long. Seconds more.
The entire rocket screamed as vibration ran in torturing waves through
its metal skeleton and skin. It passed the point of discomfort and
became unbearable. Rick rocked his head from side to side, as though to
get rid of the shattering howl, but it tore at his head, at his stomach,
at his very skin.
He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again he saw
that Prince Machiavelli had moved, downward. The powerful springs that
held his little chair were lengthening.
Air-borne!
Rick became conscious of weight. He was being pressed into the metal
deck by a mighty hand. It was hard to breathe.
Pegasus was not designed to accommodate humans. No attention had been
paid to limits of human endurance. It was all right for the marmoset;
his spring chair would take up much of the G forces. But Rick had no
padding at all, except for the thin jacket under his head. He had no
support but the metal deck, and before this was over his body would be
terribly distorted as forces many times gravity rammed him relentlessly
into the metal.
In spite of the horrifying scream of the rocket and the increasing
pressure, his mind was clear. The rocket was programmed to reach twelve
G during first-stage flight--twelve times the force of gravity!
First-stage flight would last slightly over three minutes. By then,
Pegasus would be nearly thirty miles up.
The pain began, the pain of tortured muscles and organs pressed slowly,
inexorably toward the deck as acceleration built up. Rick wanted to turn
over, at least to change the direction of pain, but he couldn't even do
that. He was spread-eagled on the deck now, his muscles unable to move
his increased weight.
Consciousness began to slip from him, and he fought against it. He had
to remain alive! He was going to!
For a brief moment he succeeded, then the grayness moved in like an
all-encompassing curtain.
Pegasus climbed into the blue sky, arrow-straight, still accelerating.
The seconds ticked away. For an instant, the accelerometer hovered at
twelve G, and slipped toward thirteen.
Rick was five feet, ten inches tall, and his weight was a constant
hundred and sixty pounds. The rocket reached maximum acceleration,
12.6g, and for that instant Rick weighed 2,016 pounds--slightly over one
ton!
Then . . . all burnt, fuel exhausted, the first-stage motor stopped.
The explosive bolts went into action. There was an explosion that made
itself felt in the skin of the rocket, and the grinding of metal as the
first stage detached.
Rick's battered brains swam back to consciousness. For an instant he
couldn't recall what had happened, then he realized he had survived the
first-stage acceleration. He was in bad shape, he knew. The salt taste
in his mouth was blood, and he was breathing bubbles of blood through
internal damage in his nose or lungs. But there wasn't time for
inventory. The aching silence was lost as the second stage fired.
Acceleration built again. This time Rick slipped into the enveloping
grayness almost at once. The acceleration was less, and the time of
burning was less. Had he not been put through the torture of first-stage
acceleration he could have taken the second stage without more than
great discomfort. But now he had little resistance left.
He came back to consciousness again as the second stage cut off. In the
welcome silence he found time to be thankful he was still alive, even
though it might be a temporary thing. He looked up at Prince Machiavelli
through bloodshot eyes and couldn't see the little monk. For a terrible
instant he thought he was blind, then he saw a glimmer of light through
the port. It was the sun. The rocket was in the wrong position to catch
it directly, however, and the atmosphere was far too thin to scatter
light.
He heard the second stage explode off and tried to brace himself for the
final acceleration. He made himself think. He was in a spot, a very bad
spot. The Earthman had sabotaged the flight. But how? The first two
stages had worked. Even if the third-stage motor never fired, the rocket
was high enough to prove out the project objective.
There was only one answer. Even to his fogged brain it was clear that
the drone control had been sabotaged by the Earthman. Otherwise cutting
the signal wire would have kept the board from showing green. Somehow,
the signal wire had been bypassed, to keep the operators from knowing
the drone control was inoperative.
The final stage fired and acceleration began once more. Rick fought it.
He tried to ignore the pain of the crushing, distorting weight and tried
to keep his mind on the problem. He failed.
Pegasus was no longer traveling straight out from earth now. The
gimbaled rocket motor swung slightly to one side and the rocket's
trajectory flattened. As it swung on the new course, sunlight glanced in
through the open port and into Rick's open, sightless eyes.
It was raw sunlight, unfiltered by the atmosphere. It was sunlight no
human had ever seen before. Even in his semiconscious state Rick
realized the danger and managed to shut his eyes. The sunlight seemed to
burn through the lids, to scorch the insides of his head. Then the
rocket moved along its new trajectory slightly and the merciless beam
shifted, blazed on the sketch of a knight in armor impaling Pegasus with
his lance.
Rick realized dimly that the terrible light was gone. He opened his eyes
and saw the spacemonk. It was as though someone had drawn layer after
layer of gauze between the boy and the marmoset, but he understood that
Prince Machiavelli was still alive, and in far better shape than he was.
The vibrating, paralyzing scream of the rocket suddenly cut off. Silence
flooded in.
End of burning for stage three!
Pegasus had altered course slightly, in response to its pre-set
mechanisms. Now it was on a course that would take it to the maximum
point into space, but at the same time would keep it over Scarlet Lake.
For a few minutes more it would coast on its momentum, slowing
constantly until it reached maximum altitude. Then, briefly, it would
hesitate.
Momentum used up, earth's gravity would again assume control. The rocket
would slip back, tail first, slowly, slowly, then faster and faster,
beginning the long, final plunge to the ground.