And now he was going to shoot a rocket--or whatever it was--to the moon. Well, Elshawe thought, if it went off as scheduled, it would at least be worth watching. Elshawe was a rocket buff; he'd watched a dozen or more moon shots in his life--everything from the automatic supply-carriers to the three-man passenger rockets that added to the personnel of Moon Base One--and he never tired of watching the bellowing monsters climb up skywards on their white-hot pillars of flame. And if nothing happened, Elshawe decided, he'd at least get a laugh out of the whole episode. * * * * * After nearly two hours of driving, Bill Rodriguez finally turned off the main road onto an asphalt road that climbed steeply into the pine forest that surrounded it. A sign said: _Double Horseshoe Ranch--Private Road--No Trespassing_. Elshawe had always thought of a ranch as a huge spread of flat prairie land full of cattle and gun-toting cowpokes on horseback; a mountainside full of sheep just didn't fit into that picture. After a half mile or so, the station wagon came to a high metal-mesh fence that blocked the road. On the big gate, another sign proclaimed that the area beyond was private property and that trespassers would be prosecuted. Bill Rodriguez stopped the car, got out, and walked over to the gate. He pressed a button in one of the metal gateposts and said, "Ed? This's Bill. I got Mr. Skinner and that New York reporter with me." After a slight pause, there was a metallic click, and the gate swung open. Rodriguez came back to the car, got in, and drove on through the gate. Elshawe twisted his head to watch the big gate swing shut behind them. After another ten minutes, Rodriguez swung off the road onto another side road, and ten minutes after that the station wagon went over a small rise and headed down into a small valley. In the middle of it, shining like bright aluminum in the sun, was a vessel. _Now I know Porter is nuts_, Elshawe thought wryly. Because the vessel, whatever it was, was parallel to the ground, looking like the fuselage of a stratojet, minus wings and tail, sitting on its landing gear. Nowhere was there any sign of a launching pad, with its gantries and cranes and jet baffles. Nor was there any sign of a rocket motor on the vessel itself. As the station wagon approached the cluster of buildings a hundred yards this side of the machine, Elshawe realized with shock that the thing _was_ a stripped-down stratojet--an old Grumman _Supernova_, _circa_ 1970. "Well, Elijah got there by sitting in an iron chair and throwing a magnet out in front of himself," Elshawe said, "so what the hell." "What?" Rodriguez asked blankly. "Nothing; just thinking out loud. Sorry." Behind Elshawe, Mr. Skinner chuckled softly, but said nothing. When the station wagon pulled up next to one of the cluster of white prefab buildings, Malcom Porter himself stepped out of the wide door and walked toward them.