That was the trick. That was what had never been done before. Men had orbited in missiles and gotten down again. There was a man on the moon--or so it was believed--though he was dead before he arrived there. There were satellites circling Earth in all directions, some of them as much as ten years aloft. But nobody had ever yet sent a ship up under its pilot's control, its pilot achieving an orbit and then bringing the ship down to the surface of the earth again. When that was accomplished, it could be said that a spaceship existed. Until then, there were only missiles. McCauley worked his way thoughtfully around the monster, whistling soundlessly as he looked it over, checking everything he saw with what he knew, and thereby getting more information than was seemingly possible. Presently he went in the cabin and worked the controls. They felt just like the mock-up. He was back in his quarters, thinking somberly, when there was a knock on the door. When he answered, the door was pushed open and the remarkably personable Major Furness appeared. "Hi," he said. "They tell me you got here." "Yes," agreed McCauley. "I did." "They tell me you looked over the ship," said Furness exuberantly. "Good, eh?" "It looks good," agreed McCauley. "Were you surprised when you heard take-off's tomorrow?" McCauley nodded reservedly. "That's my doing," said Furness proudly. "I told the general we'd be ready. He was cussing a blue streak. An intelligence report had come through, saying that--um--there's to be an attempt abroad to lift a rocket up and set it down again on its own tail. Lift and land. No rocket's ever landed unsmashed, you know." "I know," said McCauley. Furness grinned. Engagingly. "So it won't look good if us Americans get our eye wiped by somebody else doing something with a rocket that we can't do. The general made the air blue. So I said, 'General, McCauley's been training for our job for months, off there in Dayton. He's all set to do his stuff. The ship's practically ready to go. We could get it ready to take off the day after McCauley gets here. Why not do it?' And the General said, 'Furness, if we could....' And I said, 'General, we can!' So he began to give orders right and left. And that's it. Tomorrow noon. Twelve hundred. Get it over with, eh?" McCauley opened his mouth. He closed it. Anger swept over him and he opened it a second time. Then he shut up. For him to protest anything short of plain suicide would be considered pomposity and self-importance. But he should have had a chance to look over the ship before take-off. He'd had a glance at it, hardly more. Yet he couldn't afford to stand on his dignity or his rights because too many people envied him. Furness looked at him and flushed a little. The cordiality that should exist between two men who are going to risk their necks together was totally missing. Furness felt it. His expression grew almost defiant. "Look here!" he said. "That was all right, wasn't it?"