The Colonel's lips wrinkled in a curious smile. "No?" He looked at Crag for a long moment. "Good luck." His head disappeared from view and Crag heard his footsteps descending the ladder. Then they were alone, four men alone. Crag turned toward his companions. CHAPTER 3 The great red sun was just breaking over the desert horizon when Crag got his last good look at earth. Its rays slanted upward, shadows fled from the sage; the obsidian sky with its strewn diamonds became slate gray and, in moments, a pale washed blue. Daybreak over the desert became a thunder of light. Tiny ants had removed the last of the metal framework encompassing the rocket. Other ants were visible making last minute cheeks. He returned his attention to the space cabin. Despite long months of training in the cabin simulator--an exact replica of the Aztec quarters--he was appalled at the lack of outside vision. One narrow rectangular quartz window above the control panel, a circular port on each side bulkhead and one on the floor--he had to look between his knees to see through it when seated at the controls--provided the sole visual access to the outside world. A single large radarscope, a radar altimeter and other electronic equipment provided analogs of the outside world; the reconstruction of the exterior environment painted on the scopes by electromagnetic impulses. The cabin was little more than a long flat-floored cylinder with most of the instrumentation in the nose section. With the rocket in launch position, what normally was the rear wall formed the floor. The seats had been swiveled out to operational position. Now they were seated, strapped down, waiting. It was, Crag thought, like sitting in a large automobile which had been balanced on its rear bumper. During launch and climb their backs would be horizontal to the earth's surface. He was thankful they were not required to wear their heavy pressure suits until well into the moon's gravisphere. Normally pressure suits and helmets were the order of the day. He was used to stratospheric flight where heavy pressure suits and helmets were standard equipment; gear to protect the fragile human form until the lower oxygen-rich regions of the air ocean could be reached in event of trouble. But the Aztec was an all-or-nothing affair. There were no escape provisions, no ejection seats, for ejection would be impossible at the rocket's speeds during its critical climb through the atmosphere. Either everything went according to the book or ... or else, he concluded grimly. But it had one good aspect. Aside from the heavy safety harnessing, he would be free of the intolerably clumsy suit until moonfall. If anything went wrong, well ...