It seemed to him that the lights were going out again, gradually, as the weight of his body built up to nearly a thousand pounds. But the lights "came on" again as the car dropped over the cliff; he realized dully that he had blacked out.
He had intended to count seconds on this fall to escape the feeling of endless time, but he was too dazed. Even the disquiet in his middle section seemed remote. Falling-falling-
Again the giant squeezed his chest, drained the blood from his brain, and shut the light from his eyes. The part that was Matt squeezed out entirely. ...
"How do you feel?" He opened his eyes, saw a double image, and realized dimly that the cadet was leaning over him. He tried to answer. The cadet passed from view; he felt someone grasping him; he was being lifted and carried.
Someone wiped his face with a wet, cold towel. He sat up and found himself facing a nurse. "You're all right now," she said cheerfully. "Keep this until your nose stops bleeding." She handed him the towel. "Want to get up?"
"Yes, I think so."
"Take my arm. We'll go out into the air."
Out on the loading platform Matt sat in the sunshine, dabbling at his nose and regaining his strength. He could hear sounds of excitement from the rail behind each time the car dropped. He sat there, soaking in the sun and wondering whether or not he really wanted to be a spaceman.
"Hey, Matt." It was Tex, looking pale and not too sure of himself. There was a blood stain down the front of his coverall.
"Hello, Tex. I see you've had it."
"Yeah."
"How many g's?"
"Seven."
"Same here. What do you think of it?"
"Well-" Tex seemed at a loss. "I wish my Uncle Bodie could have tried it. He wouldn't talk so much about the time he rassled the grizzly."
There were many vacant seats at lunch. Matt thought about those who had gone-did they mind being "bumped out," or were they relieved?
He was hungry but ate little, for he knew what was ahead that afternoon- rocket indoctrination. He had looked forward to this part of the schedule most eagerly. Space flight! Just a test jump, but the real thing nevertheless. He had been telling himself that, even if he failed, it would be worth it to get this first flight.
Now he was not sure; the "bumps" had changed his viewpoint. He had a new, grim respect for acceleration and he no longer thought drop-sickness funny; instead he was wondering whether or not he would ever get adjusted to free fall. Some never did, he knew.
His test group was due in Santa Barbara Field at fourteen-thirty. He had a long hour to kill with nothing to do but fret. Finally it was time to go underground, muster, and slidewalk out to the field.
The cadet in charge led them up to the surface into a concrete trench about four feet deep. Matt blinked at the sunlight. His depression was gone; he was anxious to start. On each side and about two hundred yards away were training rockets, lined up like giant birthday candles, poised on their fins with sharp snouts thrusting against the sky.
"If anything goes wrong," the cadet said, "throw yourself flat in the trench. Don't let that get your goat-I'm required to warn you.
"The jump lasts nine minutes, with the first minute and a half under power. You'll feel three gravities, but the acceleration is only two gravities, because you are still close to the Earth.
"After ninety seconds you'll be travelling a little faster than a mile a second and you will coast on up for the next three minutes for another hundred miles to an altitude of about one hundred fifty miles. You fall back toward the earth another three minutes, brake your fall with the jet and ground at the end of the ninth minute.
"A wingless landing on an atmosphere planet with gravity as strong as that of Earth is rather tricky. The landing will be radar-robot controlled, but a human pilot will stand by and check the approach against the flight plan. He can take over if necessary. Any questions?"
Someone asked, "Are these atomic-powered ships?"
The cadet snorted. "These jeeps? These are chemically powered, as you can see from the design. Monatomic hydrogen. They are much like the first big rockets ever built, except that they have variable thrust, so that the pilot and the passengers won't" be squashed into strawberry jam as the mass- ratio drops off."
A green signal flare arched up from the control tower. "Keep your eyes on the second rocket from the end, on the north," advised the cadet.
There was a splash of orange flame, sun bright, at the base of the ship. "There she goes!"
The ship lifted majestically, and poised for an instant, motionless as a hovering helicopter. The noise reached Matt, seemed to press against his chest. It was the roar of an impossibly huge blowtorch. A searchlight in the tower blinked, and the ship mounted, up and up, higher and faster, its speed increasing with such smoothness that it was hard to realize how fast it was going-except that the roar was gone. Matt found himself staring straight at the zenith, watching a dwindling artificial sun, almost as dazzling as Sol himself.
Then it was gone. Matt closed his mouth and started to look away, when his attention was seized by the ice trail left as the rocket sliced its way through the outer atmosphere. White and strange, it writhed like a snake with a broken back. Under the driving force of the many-hundred-miles-an-hour winds of that far altitude it twisted visibly as he watched.
"That's all!" the cadet shouted. "We can't wait for the landing."
They went underground, down a corridor, and entered an elevator. It went up right out of the ground and into the air, supported by a hydraulic piston. It mounted close by the side of a rocket ship; Matt was amazed to see how large it was close up.
The elevator stopped and its door let down drawbridge fashion into the open hatch in the rocket's side. They trooped across; the cadet raised the bridge and went down again.
They were in a conical room. Above them the pilot lay in his acceleration rest. Beside them, feet in and head out, were acceleration couches for passengers. "Get in the bunks!" shouted the pilot. "Strap down."
Ten boys jostled one another to reach the couches. One hesitated. "Uh, oh, Mister!" he called out.
"Yes? Get in your couch."
"I've changed my mind. I'm not going."
The pilot used language decidedly not officerlike and turned to his control board. 'Tower! Remove passenger from number nineteen." He listened, then said, "Too late to change the flight plan. Send up mass." He shouted to the waiting boy, "What do you weigh?"
"Uh, a hundred thirty-two pounds, sir."
"One hundred and thirty-two pounds and make it fast!" He turned back to the youngster. "You better get off this base fast, for if I have to skip my take- off I'll wring your neck."
The elevator climbed into place presently and three cadets poured across. Two were carrying sandbags, one had five lead weights. They strapped the sandbags to the' vacant couch, and clamped the weights to its sides. "One thirty-two mass," announced one of the cadets.
"Get going," snapped the pilot and turned back to the board.
"Don't blow your tubes, Harry," advised the cadet addressed. Matt was amazed, then decided the pilot must be a cadet, too. The three left, taking with them the boy; the hatch door shut with a whish.
"Stand by to raise!" the pilot called out, then looked down to check his passengers. "Passengers secure, nineteen," he called to the tower. "Is that confounded elevator clear?"
There was silence as the seconds trickled away.
The ship shivered. A low roar, muffled almost below audibility, throbbed in Mart's head. For a moment he felt slightly heavy, the feeling passed, then he was pressed strongly against the pads.
Matt was delighted to find that three gravities were not bad, flat on his back as he was. The minute and a half under power stretched out; there was nothing to hear but the muted blast of the reactor, nothing to see but the sky through the pilot's port above.
But the sky was growing darker. Already it was purple; as he watched it turned black. Fascinated, he watched the stars come out.