King of the Hill
IT DID Col. Hal Gascoigne no good whatsoever to know that he was the only man aboard Satellite Vehicle 1. No good at all. He had stopped reminding himself of the fact some time back.
And now, as he sat sweating in the perfectly balanced air in front of the bombardier board, one of the men spoke to him again:
“Colonel, sir”
Gascoigne swung around in the seat, and the sergeant Gascoigne could almost remember the man’s nameUirew him a snappy Air Force salute.
“Well?”
“Bomb one is primed, sir. Your orders?”
“My orders?” Gascoigne said wonderingly. But the man was already gone. Gascoigne couldn’t actually see the sergeant leave the control cabin, but he was no longer in it.
While he tried to remember, another voice rang in the cabin, as flat and razzy as all voices sound on an intercom.
“Radar room. On target.”
A regular, meaningless peeping. The timing circuit had cut in.
Or had it? There was nobody in the radar room. There was nobody in the bomb hold, either. There had never been anybody on board SV-I but Gascoigne, not since he had relieved Grinnelland Grinnell had flown the station up here in the first place.
Then who had that sergeant been? His name was …
It was …
The hammering of the teletype blanked it out. The noise was as loud as a pom-pom in the echoing metal cave. He got up and coasted across the deck to the machine, gliding in the gravity-free cabin with the ease of a man to whom free fall is almost second nature.
The teletype was silent by the time he reached it, and at first the tape looked blank. He wiped the sweat out of his eyes. There was the message.