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through a tiny slit; he had to be outside, take part in it himself he had to. He climbed down, hurried to
the exit of the blockhouse. Coster glanced around, looked startled, but did not try to stop him; Coster
could not leave his post no matter what happened. Harriman elbowed the guard aside and went
outdoors.
To the east the ship towered skyward, her slender pyramid sharp black against the full Moon. He
waited.
And waited.
What had gone wrong? There had remained less than two minutes when he had come out; he was
sure of that yet there she stood, silent, dark, unmoving. There was not a sound, save the distant
ululation of sirens warning the spectators behind the distant fence. Harriman felt his own heart stop, his
breath dry up in his throat. Something had failed. Failure.
A single flare rocket burst from the top of the blockhouse; a flame licked at the base of the ship.
It spread, there was a pad of white fire around the base. Slowly, almost lumberingly, the Pioneer
lifted, seemed to hover for a moment, balanced on a pillar of fire-then reached for the sky with
acceleration so great that she was above him almost at once, overhead at the zenith, a dazzling circle of
flame. So quickly was she above, rather than out in front, that it seemed as if she were arching back over
him and must surely fall on him. Instinctively and futilely he threw a hand in front of his face.
The sound reached him.
Not as sound it was a white noise, a roar in all frequencies, sonic, subsonic, supersonic, so
incredibly loaded with energy that it struck him in the chest. He heard it with his teeth and with his bones
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as well as with his ears. He crouched his knees, bracing against it.
Following the sound at the snail s pace of a hurricane came the backwash of the splash. It ripped at
his clothing, tore his breath from his lips. He stumbled blindly back, trying to reach the lee of the concrete
building, was knocked down.
He picked himself up coughing and strangling and remembered to look at the sky. Straight overhead
was a dwindling star. Then it was gone.
He went into the blockhouse.
The room was a babble of high-tension, purposeful confusion. Harriman s ears, still ringing, heard a
speaker blare,  Spot One! Spot One to blockhouse! Step five loose on schedule ship and step five
showing separate blips  and Coster s voice, high and angry, cutting in with,  Get Track One! Have
they picked up step five yet? Are they tracking it?
In the background the news commentator was still blowing his top.  A great day, folks, a great day!
The mighty Pioneer, climbing like an angel of the Lord, flaming sword at hand, is even now on her
glorious way to our sister planet. Most of you have seen her departure on your screens; I wish you could
have seen it as I did, arching up into the evening sky, bearing her precious load of 
 Shut that thing off! ordered Coster, then to the visitors on the observation platform,  And pipe
down up there! Quiet!
The Vice-President of the United States jerked his head around, closed his mouth. He remembered
to smile. The other V.I.P. s shut up, then resumed again in muted whispers. A girl s voice cut through the
silence,  Track One to Blockhouse step five tracking high, plus two. There was a stir in the corner.
There a large canvas hood shielded a heavy sheet of Plexiglass from direct light. The sheet was mounted
vertically and was edge-lighted; it displayed a coordinate map of Colorado and Kansas in fine white
lines; the cities and towns glowed red. Unevacuated farms were tiny warning dots of red light.
A man behind the transparent map touched it with a grease pencil; the reported location of step five
shone out. In front of the map screen a youngish man sat quietly in a chair, a pear-shaped switch in his
hand, his thumb lightly resting on the button. He was a bombardier, borrowed from the Air Forces; when
he pressed the switch, a radio-controlled circuit in step five should cause the shrouds of step five s
landing  chute to be cut and let it plummet to Earth. He was working from radar reports aloi~e with no
fancy computing bombsight to think for him. He was working almost by instinct or, rather, by the
accumulated subconscious knowledge of his trade, integrating in his brain the meager data spread before
him, deciding where the tons of step five would land if he were to press his switch at any particular
instant. He seemed unworried.
 Spot One to Blockhouse! came a man s voice again.  Step four free on schedule, and almost
immediately following, a deeper voice echoed,  Track Two, tracking step four, instantaneous altitude
nine-five-one miles, predicted vector.
No one paid any attention to Harriman.
Under the hood the observed trajectory of step five grew in shining dots of grease, near to, but not
on, the dotted line of its predicted path. Reaching out from each location dot was drawn a line at right
angles, the reported altitude for that location.
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The quiet man watching the display suddenly pressed down hard on his switch. He then stood up,
stretched, and said,  Anybody got a cigaret?  Track Two! he was answered.  Step four first impact
prediction forty miles west of Charleston, South Carolina.
 Repeat! yelled Coster.
The speaker blared out again without pause,  Correction, correction forty miles east, repeat east.
Coster sighed. The sigh was cut short by a report.  Spot One to Blockhouse step three free, minus [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]