Fox B. Holden

“ If you threw a satellite away from its path around Earth and directly into Earth's wake, but at a speed less than Earth's forward speed in its orbit, the satellite would break free, but would continue in Earth's orbital direction. And then with a brief side-blast, you could warp into an orbit around the Sun all your own, or—into that of the planet Venus, if you chose....
And beneath that eternal shell of cloud—who knew?
He had his computers. He had his reference-tapes. He had his refractor and his scanners, and his star-charts and his precious store of fuel. ”

“ He drew schedules: four hours of work, one for eating and relaxation; five hours more of work, and another for food and rest; six hours more of work, then seven for sleep, and then the cycle began again. By making a rhythm of it, he thought, rather than a program of perfectly equal work-periods, he would avoid monotony. With monotony would come despair, and with despair.... Despair of course would kill him. ”

“ It will be Our Side, or Theirs. Gentlemen, it must be Ours! So if there is war, I repeat, all the Enemy must die!
"That's all I have, except to say good luck and God-speed."
Very firm hand-shake for each of them, and Final Briefing was over.
Even yet Joshua Thorn could remember that first emotion shared by himself and Streeter after the effects of the four-G blast-off had worn away, after the tension of establishing orbit was eased, the first report made to Home Plate, and they were at last granted a moment's rest, a moment's respite to look back, to realize.... ”

“ And then the Secretary of Defense himself.
"Major Thorn, Captain Streeter.... There is probably little I can add to all that has been so thoroughly ingrained in you in your five years of training for this experiment, or learned by both of you, the hard way, in war. But there are certain points I feel I ought to emphasize personally ... even though I know you've heard them many, many times before.
"First, this is your country. In the adventure—in the duty, that you are about to undertake, there must be no mistake that your nation comes above all other considerations! ”

“ Second, despite what you may have heard from—from any of various sources in recent months, our cold-war Enemy is hard-pressed; he is desperate, and he is likewise determined. Determined as even you may not guess. Our Intelligence has learned that he has trained women to bear arms as well as children for his armies. ”

“ One thousand feet. No sign of mobile life on this planet, in this valley into which Vanguard-I lowered. But all sign—all sign, indeed, of the rich lushness that would support it, embrace it, hold it close like a long-denied lover....
Thorn sweated again—hot sweat, now—at his scanners, his control panel. Temperature again hovering past 100, but there was no time to notice or to feel. One hundred feet ... ”

“ The ferroelectric brains of the computers considered silently; acted.
The organic brain of the man hazed red, hazed darkly, and trusted, for it was powerless to do more save fight a primal struggle for consciousness. It could not regard the situation. It could not think: I am the first human being to fly Space. ”

“ And he ascertained secondly that he had sufficient "emergency" fuel (and this, he assumed, might be classified as an emergency of sorts?) to blast him out of orbit and into Earth's wake with barely sufficient speed to assure him of not falling back. If the computers weren't lying, there'd even be enough after that to warp him into the gradual, drifting arc that would intercept Venus in her path around the Sun, and then—perhaps enough to effect landing. ”

“ Grundy sees all and heard everything, out."
The whole transmission had taken less than two minutes. Now the UHF was off and there was one break, anyway. If, somehow, the Enemy had succeeded in getting up a satellite of his own, he had at least—according to Knight—sacrificed the ability to directly monitor Thorn's radio for invisibility. Vanguard-I was aloft for geophysical purposes only, according to the propaganda-pitch back home. But as far as Big Red knew, it was loaded to the locks with as much armament as a thing of its comparatively tiny size could carry. ”

“ Click-hum, computers....
Silently.
Wheel your eternal wheeling, stars.
Darkly.
Cold.
The screens showed white, thick white, and the fuel-pumps disgorged the remainder of Vanguard I's life-blood into the roaring combustion chambers. The muted complaining of heavy atmosphere keened up the scale to a banshee's lament and sweat poured from Josh Thorn's half-nude body as his tiny metal cell grew stifling.
Power—how much power to keep from becoming a vagrant meteorite in Venus' milky skies? From flaring, white-hot, and falling ... ”

“ To remember that his stores of fuel were for orbit-correction only, to be used for effecting an Earthside landing only upon explicit and properly-coded order, or upon threat of otherwise unavoidable destruction. To calculate present stores of food concentrate and air to the hour if possible, not forgetting that with Streeter gone the time-lapse between rendezvous with the supply rocket should be at least doubled. To remember a thousand things; things he already knew by rote ... but the tape and card-punch units clicked softly away, recording, recording.... ”

“ And then he saw Johnny Streeter's helmet, and saw that it was no longer transparent. Josh tasted vomit on his lips.
A chance in how many million, how many billion? What was it the statisticians had said? About the same chance as a fatal auto accident, having a meteor hit you....
Equipment converted, recalibrated for Earthside observation. Equipment checked. Emergency reflectors out (power drain still damned heavy) and radar full out; close-down scanners on, recording equipment humming, ready.... Coast coming up in—oh-nine minutes, three-seven seconds. Tapes ready at play-back, UHF set. ”