“Sky’s clear!” came the report.
“Has the launching area been evacuated?” Tom asked.
“All clear below!”
“Here goes!” said Tom.
He set the flight tape in action, then quickly the boys flattened themselves on the slanting takeoff racks and buckled the safety straps.
The tape set off the time clock and the loudspeakers in the cabin, and on the launching platform a voice boomed out:
“X minus ten!”
“Sure your straps are tight?” Tom asked Bud tensely.
SEALED INSTRUMENTS 167
Across the cabin his friend gave a tug and nodded.
“Won’t be long now,” Bud said. “Good luck, pal!”
“-coming X minus five-minus four-minus three—
The boys held their breaths. Tom kept his eyes glued on the tape.
“Minus one!”
Down below, the forefinger of Mrs. Swift’s right hand pushed a small button.
At once the name and the symbol on the rocket were revealed. Between the two words a bright red spear was piercing a seven-pointed white star. Alongside the lowest triangle on the right were the initials U.S.A. lighted up in red, white, and blue.
The watchers saw all this in a split second. Then there was a gigantic puff of billowing gases and the Star Spear began to lift.
A few seconds later Tom Swift’s rocket ship was on its journey into space!
CHAPTER 20
GHOST WINDS
THE ROCKET SHIP shivered as the blast hurtled it off the ground. Tom and Bud felt their bodies flatten against the racks as the enormous acceleration forces caught them in a viselike grip.
“What power!” Bud murmured, as he slid his rack over to a porthole window and glanced down at the receding ground.
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