"I'm sorry, senator. The best psychiatrists on Earth worked eight months to condition Kramer for this flight. He must not be emotionally disturbed. You can't talk to him." "You forbid...?" McKelvie exploded, but Morrow intercepted smoothly. "Gordon. I'm sure the senator would like a tour of the station. Will you escort him?" McKelvie's face reddened and Max opened his mouth to object. "Gordon!" Morrow said sharply. Max closed his mouth and guided the grumbling congressman up the tube. * * * * * "Twenty minutes to blastoff," Bert reported. "Right," Kevin acknowledged absently. He studied taped data moving in by radio facsimile from the mammoth electronic computer on Earth. "Our orbit's true," he said with satisfaction and wiped a sweaty palm on his trousers. "Get the time check, Bert." Beeps from the Naval Observatory synchronized with the space station chronometer. "Alert Kramer." "He's leaving the airlock now," Bert said. From the intercom, Morrow listened to periodic reports from crew members as McKelvie and Gordon progressed in their tour. "Mr. Morrow?" "Right." "This is Adams in Section M. The senator and Gordon have been in the line chamber for 10 minutes." "Boot 'em out," Kevin said crisply. "Blastoff in 15 minutes." "That machinery controls the safety lines," Bert said. Kevin looked up with a puzzled frown, but turned back to watch Kramer creeping along a mooring line to the moon ship. A group of tugmen helped the space-suited figure into the rocket, dogged shut the hatch and cleared back to the station rim. "Station to Kramer," on the radio, "are you ready?" "All set," came the steady voice, "give me the word." "All right. Five minutes." Kevin turned to the intercom. "Release safety lines." In the weightlessness of space the cables retained their normal rigid line from the rim of the station to the rocket. They had been under no strain. Their shape would not change until they were reeled in. "Two minutes," Morrow warned. Tension grew as Anderson began the slow second count. The hatch opened. McKelvie and Gordon entered the control room. No one noticed it. "Five ... four ... three ... two ... one ..." A gout of white fire jabbed from the stern of the rocket. Slowly the ship moved forward. Morrow watched tensely, hands gripping a safety rail. Then his face froze in a mask of disbelief and horror. "The lines!" he shouted. "The safety lines fouled!" He fell sprawling as the space station lurched heavily, tipped upward like a giant platter under the inexorable pull of the moon rocket. Kevin scrambled back to the viewport, the shriek of tortured metal in his ears. Horror-stricken, he saw the taut cables that had failed to release. Then a huge section of nylon, aluminum and rubber ripped out of the station wall, was visible a second in the rocket glare, and vanished.