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When blastoff time came for the Valhalla, Steve had not reported back from the Starmen's Enclave where all Spacers lived during in-port stays. Alan's memories of the scene were still sharp. Captain Donnell had been conducting check-off, making sure all members of the Crew had reported back and were aboard.
"Eight minutes to blastoff," came the warning. Never had eight minutes passed so slowly. Alan snapped on his viewscreen and looked down at the field; the ground crew men were busily clearing the area as blastoff time approached. "One minute to blastoff, Pilot Donnell." Then the count-down began, second by second.
Mars and stars!" "Space and race, nuts and guts!" Lester put in, trying to belong, and be light-minded, like he thought the others were, instead of a scared, pedantic kid. He slapped the blastoff drum under him, familiarly, as if to draw confidence from its grim, cool lines.
Charlie Reynolds growled. Frank Nelsen looked at the Kuzaks, floating near. "Well what could we do?" Joe Kuzak, the gentler twin, whispered. "He came back to Jarviston, to our rooming house, one night. We promised to help him a little. What are you going to do with a character nuts enough about space to armor up and stuff himself inside a blastoff drum? Of course he didn't come that way from home.
So I doubled back, and located what is left of Rodan's camp, and yours and Les' initialed blastoff drums, which I've brought along in my trailer. Lucky a trader needs an atom-powered tractor that can move at night. I followed your tracks, though going through rough country, you were screened from my radio calls until I was almost on you.
During blastoff and accelleration they had watched Mars dwindle to a tiny red dot; then time seemed to stop altogether, and there was nothing to do but wait. For the first eight hours of free fall, after the engines had cut out, Tom was violently ill. He fought it desperately, gulping the pills Johnny offered and trying to keep them down.
It was only one experiment, one tiny step in the work that could someday give men the stars, but to Gregory Hunter at this moment it was everything. "Good luck, then." The captain cut off, and the blastoff buzzer sounded. He was off. His heart hammered in his throat, and his eyes ached fiercely, but he paid no attention. His finger crept to the air-speed indicator, then to the cut-off switch.
He checked with the central tower, was told how long till his blastoff clearance, and rapidly surveyed the fuel meters, the steering-jet response valves, the automatic pilot. He worked out a tape with his orbit on it. Now he inserted it into the receiving tray of the autopilot and tripped a lever. The tape slid into the computer, clicking softly and emitting a pleasant hum.
Dehydrated food, flasks of oxygen and water, and blastoff drums to contain our gear, are all relatively simple. Worst, of course, is the blastoff price, from one of the spaceports. Who could be rich enough to have a ground-to-orbit nuclear rocket of his own? Fifteen hundred bucks a subsidized rate at that just to lift a man and a thousand pounds of equipment into orbit.
I had a twin, but he got restless and jumped ship last time we were down. He got left behind at blastoff time." Quantrell nodded understandingly. "Too bad. But I know what he was up against and I envy the lucky so-and-so. I wish I had the guts to just walk out like that. Every day that goes by in this place, I say I'm going over the hill next day. But I never do, somehow.
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