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Provision had been made for feeding and watering the animals under free-fall conditions, but keeping them sanitary was proving a near-impossible task; and though the cages were sealed to confine the inevitable upset away from the remainder of the lab, it was good to hear that the problem was nearly over as the news of the imminent countdown came over the loud-speaker. Meantime, Dr.
Sabotage is a frailty of statesmanship, that the world is still divided as it reaches for the stars. Yet each is possible. "Is there a mechanical error built in by human frailty in tonight's shot? Is there a saboteur at work? "Or, as the countdown reaches zero, one hour from now, will the dome tear through the atmosphere of Earth in man's first real step to the stars successfully?
I might not know when it was breaking." The CIA chief grinned sourly at his own allusion. The next night, the big news was the countdown in process at Canaveral to put a functioning "dome" on the moon. If the dome could be landed successfully, complete with live animals, a man would follow shortly. That was foregone.
Corina lost contact as the lander lurched, making its firing pass over Prowler, and then made a fast landing. She was out of her seat almost as quickly as Nevan, though he beat her to the door. As soon as all were outside, she said, "Our countdown starts now. Go!" She was badly disturbed by the bodies littering the landing pad.
The light rocket hull would pop a separate chute and also drift down for recovery and analysis. Inside the ship, Quartermain sniffed the air and curled his nose. "Let's get this thing on the road," he spoke into his throat mike. "Some of that Florida air must have seeped in here." "Four minutes to final countdown," blockhouse control replied. "Turn on your blowers for a second."
There's one that just an hour before zero a man suddenly died of a heart attack. The technician who took his place you don't stop a countdown like that for a heart attack checked his work and found an error that would have misfired the thing. There was also one circuit that had been changed, but they left that because it was changed to be more accurate. They figured the dead guy had done it."
"The man who dreamed up the countdown was a Brain," Bessie could hear Mike muttering over his open intercom, "but the man who thought up the hold was a pure genius." "Holding the countdown." It was Bessie's official voice. "It is T minus thirty and holding. Why are you goons moving that stuff ahead of schedule and without notifying balance control? What do you think this is, a rock-bound coast?
Although attentive, he was not tense, even during the countdown. The only change was that at the word "Two" his right forefinger came to rest upon a red button and his eyes doubled their rate of scan. If anything in his department had gone wrong, the Procyon's departure would have been delayed.
"To the statesmen, this is a question of who is first and who is second, and perhaps who will control the spaceways," he said after describing the countdown in process. "But to the peoples of the world, this is mankind, reaching for the stars. "It is not known," he said solemnly, "whether the failure of many of our shots has been human error or sabotage. Human error is a frailty of the race.
Almost immediately on the announcement came another voice over the com line. "Hold, hold, hold. We've got eighteen hundred pounds of milling equipment going down Number Two shaft to the machine shop, and we can't get it mounted in less than twenty minutes. Repeat, hold the countdown."
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