The day was still no more than a ragged streak of red in the east; the
pre-dawn air was sharply cold, making Johnny Youngbear's face feel
slightly brittle as he dressed quietly in the gray bedroom.
He sat down on the bed, pulling on his boots, and felt his wife stir
sleepily beneath the covers. Suddenly she stiffened, sat upright in the
bed, startled into wakefulness. Johnny put one dark, bony hand on her
white shoulder, gently, reassuring. After a moment, finding herself, she
turned away and lit a cigarette. Johnny finished pulling on his boots
and stood, his hawk-like face unreadable in the cold gray light
streaming through the huge picture window.
"Johnny?" said his wife hesitantly.
He murmured an acknowledgement, watching the bright flare of color as
she drew on the cigarette. Her soft, dark hair was coiled loosely around
her shoulders, very black against the pale skin. Her eyes were invisible
in shadow, and Johnny could not read their expression. He turned away,
knowing she was watching him.
"Be careful," she said simply.
"Try," he said. Then he shrugged. "Not my day, anyway."
"I know," she said. "But--be careful."
He left the house and walked out into the chill desert dawn. He turned
his face to the brightness in the east, trying to catch a little warmth,
but could not.
He warmed up the jeep, listening to the engine grumble protest until it
settled to a flat, banging roar. He swerved out of the driveway with a
screaming of tires. Reaching the long ribbon of concrete that led out
into the desert, he settled down hard on the accelerator, indifferent to
the whining complaint of the jeep's motor.
It was eight miles from his sprawling house to the Mesa Dry Lake
launching site, due east, into the sun. He pulled to the top of Six Mile
Hill and stopped in the middle of the highway. Two miles ahead was
Launching Base I, throwing long, sharp shadows at him in the rosy dawn
light. A cluster of squat, gray blockhouses; a long runway tapering into
the distance with an Air Force B-52 motionless at the near end; that was
all.
Except the Ship.
The Ship towered high, dominating the desert like a pinnacle of bright
silver. Even silhouetted against the eastern sky, it sparkled and
glistened. Impassive it stood, graceful, seeming to strain into the sky,
anxious to be off and gone. The loading gantry was a dark, spidery
framework beside The Ship, leaning against it, drawing strength from its
sleek beauty.
Johnny watched it in silence for a moment, then turned his eyes up, to
the sky. Somewhere up there a tiny satellite spun wildly about the
earth, a little silver ball in some celestial roulette wheel. Gradually
it would spiral closer and closer, caught by the planet's implacable
grasp, until it flared brightly like a cigarette in the heavens before
dissolving into drops of molten metal.
But it would have served its purpose. In its short life it would have
given Man knowledge; knowledge of space, knowledge enough that he could
go himself, knowing what he would find in the emptiness between the
earth and the moon. Or knowing nearly.
_What's it like out there?_
The satellite answered partly; the Ship would answer more.
Johnny slammed the jeep into gear, hurtled down the other side of Six
Mile Hill. Through his mind ran the insistent repetition of an old song
he knew, and he hummed it tunelessly through closed teeth.
_I had a true wife but I left her ... oh, oh, oh._
The jeep skidded to a halt beside Control. Mitch Campbell's green
station wagon was already there, creaking and settling as the motor
cooled.
Control was full of people; Air Force brass, technicians, observers,
enlisted men of indiscernible purpose. The room hummed with the muted
buzz of low, serious conversation.
Mitch Campbell sat in one corner, apparently forgotten in the confusion.
He had nothing to do. Not yet. He was already in flight dress, holding
the massive helmet in his hands morosely, turning it over and over,
staring at it as though he thought he might find his head inside if he
looked carefully enough.
"Morning, Colonel," said Johnny, forcing his voice to be casual and
cheerful. "You're up early this morning."
"Morning, Colonel, yourself," said Mitch, looking up.
"Big date today?"
"Well--yeah, you might say so," Mitch said, smiling faintly and with
obvious effort. "Thought I might go once around lightly," he said,
hooking his thumb upwards. Upwards through the concrete ceiling, into
the air, through the air, up where there was no air for a man to
breathe. Once around lightly.
Around the world. Lightly.
"Tell you what, Mitch."
"O.K., tell me what," he said.
"You like the movies?" Johnny asked. "You like to get a little adventure
in your soul? You like a little vicarious thrill now and then?"
"Yeah, I like that."
"Tell you what. We'll go. No, don't thank me. We'll go. Tonight. Eight
o'clock, you come by."
"Wives and everybody?" Mitch asked.
"Why not?" Johnny said. "They're cooped up in the house all day."
They both knew the wives would be in Control in an hour, listening to
the radio chatter, waiting, eyes wide, shoulders stiff and tight.
"Fine," said Mitch. "Fine."
A crew-chief came up and touched Johnny's shoulder. "Colonel Youngbear,"
he said, "Observation is going up."
Johnny stood and looked out the tiny window at the red-painted B-52.
"See you tonight, Mitch. Eight o'clock? Don't forget. Westerns."
"See you," said Mitch. He looked back down at the helmet and was turning
it over and over again when Johnny left.
* * * * *
The Observation B-52 climbed, screaming.
Johnny lit a cigarette and watched out the port at the contrails rolling
straight and white behind the jets.
He sat by the radioman, a Sergeant, ignoring the rest of the officers in
the converted bomb-bay.
"Hope he makes it, Colonel," said the Sergeant.
"He'll make it," Johnny said flatly, irritated. Relenting, he added in a
gentler tone, "The pilot section breaks away. If he gets in serious
trouble, he can dump it and ride the nose down. Like a bird. He'll make
it."
There was a raucous buzz, and a squawk box said: "On my mark it will be
Zero minus four minutes ... mark!" The voice of Control, 35,000 feet
below.
The B-52 swung ponderously onto the base leg of its circle, and there
was a creaking of stretching metal inside.
"Minus two minutes." _Not my day, anyway_, Johnny thought. He lit
another cigarette.
"Control," said a new voice, "This is Red Leader. Red Leader. Red Flight
is in position."
"Rog, Red Leader," Control acknowledged. The Observation flight of jet
fighters was waiting, too.
"Minus five ... four ... three ... two ... one ... mark!"
Silence.
_I had a true wife but I left her ... oh, oh, oh._
There was another rattle of the speaker, and Mitch's voice came through,
grunting, heavy, as the acceleration of the Ship laid a heavy hand on
his chest.
"Acceleration ... eight gee ... controls respond."
Silence.
"There he is," someone said. A wavering trail of smoke was barely
visible below, a thread of white, coming up fast, blown erratically by
winds into a distorted tiny snake.
"Altitude ..." said Mitch's voice, "40,000.... Acceleration ...
dropping."
The white snake wriggled up to their level, rose above them. Johnny
could not see the silver head.
"Altitude ... 65,000.... I have a loud, very high buzz in my headphones.
I'm going to--there, it's gone now, went out of my range."
His voice sounded wrong to Johnny, but he couldn't pin it down.
"Altitude ... 105,000. Beginning orbital correction.
Beginning--beginning ... I can't--I'm--I'm--" The voice became
unintelligible. It was pitched very high, like a woman's, and it sounded
as if his teeth were chattering.
"Mitch," Johnny pleaded softly. "Mitch, baby. Dump it, boy, come on
home, now. Dump it."
There was no more from the speaker. A confused babble broke out in the
bomb-bay. The Sergeant fiddled with his dials frantically, spinning
across wavelengths, trying to find a word. The confusion ceased when the
speaker rattled again, seeming hours later.
"Uh, hello, Control, this is Red Three, do you read me?" One of the
fighter flight.
"Rog, Red Three, go ahead," came Control's voice from below.
"Uh, Control, I have a flash and smoke cloud on a bearing of three-seven
degrees."
"Red Three, what altitude? What altitude?"
"None," said the fighter pilot. "On the deck."
After a moment, Johnny climbed unsteadily to his feet in the midst of a
booming silence. He made his way back along the catwalk to the head,
where he retched violently until the tears came to his eyes.
* * * * *
Three weeks later, Johnny sat in Doctor Lambert's office. He watched the
lean, graying psychologist turn off the tape recorder, watched him
methodically tamp tobacco in his pipe.
"That's all she wrote, Johnny," said Lambert, finally. "That recording
of Mitch's voice is just about all we have. The Ship was under full
power when it hit. There wasn't much left."
Johnny looked absently out the window at the gleaming needle of Ship II
beside the flimsy-looking gantry. Full power was a lot of power.
The psychologist followed Johnny's eyes. "Beautiful," he said, and the
word brought to Johnny's mind the wide-eyed pale face of Mitch's wife,
staring at him.
"That Ship is the best we can make her," Lambert said. "Engineering is
as certain as they can be that there was no structural failure on Ship
I."
"So?" Johnny said, still staring at the Ship. Even at this distance, he
could almost believe he could see his own lean face reflected in the
shining metal.
"So we look somewhere else for the cause of failure," said Lambert.
"Where?" said Johnny. He turned back, saw that the psychologist was
putting a new reel on the tape recorder.
"The weak link in the control system," Lambert said.
"There weren't any."
"One."
"What?"
"Mitch Campbell."