LeCroix was puzzled. “Do I hear you straight? I let it be found—then I tell the exact truth about what happened?”
“That’s right.”
“Okay.” LeCroix zipped the little bag into a pocket of his coveralls. “Let’s get out to the field. H-hour minus twenty-one minutes already.”
Strong joined Harriman in the control blockhouse after LeCroix had gone up inside the ship. “Did they get aboard?” he demanded anxiously. “LeCroix wasn’t carrying anything.”
“Oh, sure,” said Harriman. “I sent them ahead. Better take your place. The ready flare has already gone up.”
Dixon, Entenza, the Governor of Colorado, the Vice-President of the United States, and a round dozen of V.I.P.’s were already seated at periscopes, mounted in slits, on a balcony above the control level. Strong and Harriman climbed a ladder and took the two remaining chairs.
Harriman began to sweat and realized he was trembling. Through his periscope out in front he could see the ship; from below he could hear Coster’s voice, nervously checking departure station reports. Muted through a speaker by him was a running commentary of one of the newscasters reporting the show. Harriman himself was the—well, the admiral, he decided—of the operation, but there was nothing more he could do, but wait, watch, and try to pray.
A second flare arched up in the sky, burst into red and green. Five minutes.
The seconds oozed away. At minus two minutes Harriman realized that he could not stand to watch 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 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—”