The personnel space was built to carry five men instead of one man. We watched it develop, a Spartan simplicity in the middle of the great complex, and it was as if we ourselves would live there, would watch those dials and instruments, would grip those chair-arm controls for the infinitesimal sign that the automatic pilot had faltered, would feel the soft flesh and the softer internal organs being wrenched away from the unyielding bone, and would hurtle upward into the cave of night.
We watched the plating wrap itself protectively around the vitals of the nose section. The wings were attached; they would make the ship a huge, metal glider in its un-powered descent to Earth after the job was done.
We met the men who would man the ship. We grew to know them as we watched them train, saw them fighting artificial gravities, testing spacesuits in simulated vacuums, practicing maneuvers in the weightless condition of free fall.
That was what we lived for.
And we listened to the voice that came to us out of the night:
“Twenty-one days. Three weeks. Seems like more. Feel a little sluggish, but there’s no room for exercise in a coffin. The concentrated foods I’ve been eating are fine, but not for a steady diet. Oh, what I’d give for a piece of home-baked apple pie!
“The weightlessness got me at first. Felt I was sitting on a ball that was spinning in all directions at once. Lost my breakfast a couple of times before I learned to stare at one thing. As long as you don’t let your eyes roam, you’re okay.
“There’s Lake Michigan! My God, but it’s blue today! Dazzles the eyes! There’s Milwaukee, and how are the Braves doing? It must be a hot day in Chicago. It’s a little muggy up here, too. The water absorbers must be over-loaded.
“The air smells funny, but I’m not surprised. I must smell funny, too, after twenty-one days without a bath. Wish I could have one. There are an awful lot of things I used to take for granted and suddenly want more than—
“Forget that, will you? Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I know you’re working to get me down. If you don’t succeed, that’s okay with me. My life wouldn’t just be wasted. I’ve done what I’ve always wanted to do. I’d do it again.
“Too bad, though, that we only had the money for one ship.”
And again: “An hour ago, I saw the Sun rise over Russia. It looks like any other land from here, green where it should be green, farther north a sort of mud color, and then white where the snow is still deep.
“Up here, you wonder why we’re so different when the land is the same. You think: we’re all children of the same mother planet. Who says we’re different?
“Think I’m crazy? Maybe you’re right. It doesn’t matter much what I say as long as I say something. This is one time I won’t be interrupted. Did any man ever have such an audience?”
No, Rev. Never.
The voice from above, historical now, preserved:
“I guess the gadgets are all right. You slide-rule mechanics! You test-tube artists! You finding what you want? Getting the dope on cosmic rays, meteoric dust, those islands you could never map, the cloud formations, wind movements, all the weather data? Hope the telemetering gauges are working. They’re more important than my voice.”
I don’t think so, Rev. But we got the data. We built some of it into the new ships. Ships, not ship, for we didn’t stop with one. Before we were finished, we had two complete three-stages and a dozen nose sections.
The voice: “Air’s bad tonight. Can’t seem to get a full breath. Sticks in the lungs. Doesn’t matter, though. I wish you could all see what I have seen, the vast-spreading uni-verse around Earth, like a bride in a soft veil. You’d know, then, that we belong out here.”
We know, Rev. You led us out. You showed us the way.
We listened and we watched. It seems to me now that we held our breath for thirty days.
At last we watched the fuel pumping into the ship-nitric acid and hydrazine. A month ago, we did not know their names; now we recognize them as the very substances of life itself. It flowed through the long special hoses, dangerous, cautiously grounded, over half a million dollars’ worth of rocket fuel.
Statisticians estimate that more than a hundred million Americans were watching their television sets that day. Watching and praying.
Suddenly the view switched to the ship fleeing south above us. The technicians were expert now. The telescopes picked it up instantly, the focus perfect the first time, and tracked it across the sky until it dropped beyond the horizon. It looked no different now than when we had seen it first.
But the voice that came from our speakers was different. It was weak. It coughed frequently and paused for breath.
“Air very bad. Better hurry. Can’t last much longer… Silly!… Of course you’ll hurry.
“Don’t want anyone feeling sorry for me… I’ve been living fast… Thirty days? I’ve seen 360 sunrises, 360 sunsets… I’ve seen what no man has ever seen before… I was the first. That’s something… worth dying for…
“I’ve seen the stars, clear and undiminished. They look cold, but there’s warmth to them and life. They have families of planets like our own sun, some of them… They must. God wouldn’t put them there for no purpose… They can be homes to our future generations. Or, if they have inhabitants, we can trade with them: goods, ideas, the love of creation…
“But—more than this—I have seen the Earth. I have seen it—as no man has ever seen it—turning below me like a fantastic ball, the seas like blue glass in the Sun… or lashed into gray storm-peaks… and the land green with life… the cities of the world in the night, sparkling… and the people…
“I have seen the Earth—there where I have lived and loved… I have known it better than any man and loved it better and known its children better… It has been good…
“Good-bye… I have a better tomb than the greatest conqueror Earth ever bore… Do not disturb…”
We wept. How could we help it?
Rescue was so close and we could not hurry it. We watched impotently. The crew were hoisted far up into the nose section of the three-stage rocket. It stood as tall as a 24-story building. Hurry! we urged. But they could not hurry. The interception of a swiftly moving target is precision business. The takeoff was all calculated and impressed on the metal and glass and free electrons of an electronic computer.
The ship was tightened down methodically. The spectators scurried back from the base of the ship. We waited. The ship waited. Tall and slim as it was, it seemed to crouch. Someone counted off the seconds to a breathless world: ten—nine—eight… five, four, three… one—fire!
There was no flame, and then we saw it spurting into the air from the exhaust tunnel several hundred feet away. The ship balanced, unmoving, on a squat column of incandescence; the column stretched itself, grew tall; the huge ship picked up speed and dwindled into a point of brightness.
The telescopic lenses found it, lost it, found it again. It arched over on its side and thrust itself seaward. At the end of 84 seconds, the rear jets faltered, and our hearts faltered with them. Then we saw that the first stage had been dropped. The rest of the ship moved off on a new fiery trail. A ring-shaped ribbon parachute blossomed out of the third stage and slowed it rapidly.
The second stage dropped away 124 seconds later. The nose section, with its human cargo, its rescue equipment, went on alone. At 63 miles altitude, the flaring exhaust cut out. The third stage would coast up the gravitational hill more than a thousand miles.
Our stomachs were knotted with dread as the rescue ship disappeared beyond the horizon of the farthest television camera. By this time, it was on the other side of the world, speeding toward a carefully planned rendezvous with its sister.