Evans glanced hastily at Jarvis and nodded. "That's it, I guess--until
tomorrow at noon."
"Right," Cantrell said. "See you." And he went out.
Once outside in the warm afternoon sun he mentally damned Jarvis and
Evans, classifying them both as incompetents who drew military salary
for putting red-taped impediments in the way of progress; the rocket
should have taken off months ago.
He shrugged, trying to content himself with the thought that tomorrow
he'd be away from them, away floating in the pure emptiness of space.
Even so, the mere thought of Jarvis irritated him, made his fingers
itch for the man's throat; him and his talk of animal fears!
Okay, so he hated animals, well he had good reason to. Ever since that
dog had attacked him when he was a child, he'd hated dogs; and then the
hatred spread to other animals--why not, for they all were potentially
dangerous--and sometimes it even made him sick to think of them. It
made sense when you stopped to consider it carefully. He'd moved to
the city, to the great steel canyons that imprisoned only specimens of
humanity, and for years never saw an animal. Now, he was in the open
again, in the great desert and the plains. But there were no animals,
only the dogs Captain Jarvis insisted on keeping.
"Nuts to Captain Jarvis," he said.
The next morning he felt the same way. He was called into HQ for last
minute instructions that were the same as those laid out months ago.
Cantrell knew them by memory, but the excitement of the impending
blastoff prevented his being bored or even from being annoyed by the
psychiatrist's inevitable presence. Now there was nothing to prevent
the leap of the Earthbound into space; not even Jarvis could delay it
now.
The jeep drove Jarvis, Evans and Cantrell to the waiting rocket. They
got out.