“Shut that thing off!” ordered Coster, then to the visitors on the observation platform, “And pipe down up there! Quiet!”
The Vice-President of the United States jerked his head around, closed his mouth. He remembered to smile. The other V.I.P.’s shut up, then resumed again in muted whispers. A girl’s voice cut through the silence, “Track One to Blockhouse—step five tracking high, plus two.” There was a stir in the corner. There a large canvas hood shielded a heavy sheet of Plexiglass from direct light. The sheet was mounted vertically and was edge-lighted; it displayed a coordinate map of Colorado and Kansas in fine white lines; the cities and towns glowed red. Unevacuated farms were tiny warning dots of red light.
A man behind the transparent map touched it with a grease pencil; the reported location of step five shone out. In front of the map screen a youngish man sat quietly in a chair, a pear-shaped switch in his hand, his thumb lightly resting on the button. He was a bombardier, borrowed from the Air Forces; when he pressed the switch, a radio-controlled circuit in step five should cause the shrouds of step five’s landing ‘chute to be cut and let it plummet to Earth. He was working from radar reports aloi~e with no fancy computing bombsight to think for him. He was working almost by instinct— or, rather, by the accumulated subconscious knowledge of his trade, integrating in his brain the meager data spread before him, deciding where the tons of step five would land if he were to press his switch at any particular instant. He seemed unworried.
“Spot One to Blockhouse!” came a man’s voice again. “Step four free on schedule,” and almost immediately following, a deeper voice echoed, “Track Two, tracking step four, instantaneous altitude nine-five-one miles, predicted vector.”
No one paid any attention to Harriman.
Under the hood the observed trajectory of step five grew in shining dots of grease, near to, but not on, the dotted line of its predicted path. Reaching out from each location dot was drawn a line at right angles, the reported altitude for that location.
The quiet man watching the display suddenly pressed down hard on his switch. He then stood up, stretched, and said, “Anybody got a cigaret?” “Track Two!” he was answered. “Step four—first impact prediction—forty miles west of Charleston, South Carolina.”
“Repeat!” yelled Coster.
The speaker blared out again without pause, “Correction, correction— forty miles east, repeat east.”
Coster sighed. The sigh was cut short by a report. “Spot One to Blockhouse—step three free, minus five seconds,” and a talker at Coster’s control desk called out, “Mr. Coster, Mister Coster—Palomar Observatory wants to talk to you.”
“Tell ‘em to go—no, tell ‘em to wait.” Immediately another voice cut in with, “Track One, auxiliary range Fox—Step one about to strike near Dodge City, Kansas~”
“How near?”
There was no answer. Presently the voice of Track One proper said, “Impact reported approximately fifteen miles southwest of Dodge City.”
“Casualties?”
Spot One broke in before Track One could answer, “Step two free, step two free-the ship is now on its own.”
“Mr. Coster—please, Mr. Coster—”
And a totally new voice: “Spot Two to Blockhouse-we are now tracking the ship. Stand by for reported distances and bearings. Stand by—”
“Track Two to Blockhouse-step four will definitely land in Atlantic, estimated point of impact oh-five-seven miles east of Charleston bearing ohnine-three. I will repeat—”
Coster looked around irritably. “Isn’t there any drinking water anywhere in this dump?”
“Mr. Coster, please-Palomar says they’ve just got to talk to you.”
Harriman eased over to the door and stepped out. He suddenly felt very much let down, utterly weary, and depressed.
The field looked strange without the ship. He had watched it grow; now suddenly it was gone. The Moon, still rising, seemed oblivious—and space travel was as remote a dream as it had been in his boyhood.
There were several tiny figures prowling around, the flash apron where the ship had stood—souvenir hunters, he thought contemptuously. Someone came up to him in the gloom. “Mr. Harriman?”
“Eh?”
“Hopkins—with the A.P. How about a statement?”
“Uh? No, no comment. I’m bushed.”
“Oh, now, just a word. How does it feel to have backed the first successful Moon flight—if it is successful.”