"I've gone a step farther. I felt if he was actually at the center of control, your operation, he might be won over. If he could actually participate, press the activating key or something, if the headlines could show he was working with us, actually sent the test ship on its flight...." "General, you can't," Jennings moaned. He forgot rank, everything. "I've already done it, Jim," the general chose to ignore the outburst. "He's due there now. I'll look to you to handle it. He's got to be won over, Colonel. It's your project." Considering the years that he and the general had worked together, the warm accord and informality between them, the use of Jennings' title made it an order. "Yes, sir," he said. "Over," said the general formally. "Out," whispered Jennings. The two men looked at him questioningly. "It seems," he answered their look, "we are to have an observer. Senator O'Noonan." "Even in Germany," Professor Stein said quietly, "they knew enough to leave us alone at a critical moment." "He can't do it, Jim," Major Eddy looked at Jennings with pleading eyes. "Oh, but he can," Jennings answered bitterly. "Orders. And you know what orders are, don't you, Major?" "Yes, sir," Major Eddy said stiffly. Professor Stein smiled ruefully. Both of them turned back to their instrument boards, their radar screens, to the protective obscurity of subordinates carrying out an assignment. They were no longer three men coming close together, almost understanding one another in this moment of waiting, when the world and all in it had been shut away, and nothing real existed except the silvery spire out there on the desert and the life of it in the controls at their fingertips. "Beep, minus fifteen minutes!" the first time signal sounded. * * * * * "Colonel Jennings, sir!" The senator appeared in the low doorway and extended a fleshy hand. His voice was hearty, but there was no warmth behind his tones. He paused on the threshold, bulky, impressive, as if he were about to deliver an address. But Jennings, while shaking hands, drew him into the bunker, pointedly, causing the senator to raise bushy eyebrows and stare at him speculatively. "At this point everything runs on a split second basis, Senator," he said crisply. "Ceremony comes after the test." His implication was that when the work was done, the senator could have his turn in the limelight, take all the credit, turn it into political fodder to be thrown to the people. But because the man was chairman of the appropriations committee, he softened his abruptness. "If the timing is off even a small fraction, Senator, we would have to scrap the flight and start all over." "At additional expense, no doubt." The senator could also be crisp. "Surprises me that the military should think of that, however."