Rick nodded. He felt that way, too. The entire rocket had been checked out by teams of never less than two. Each man checked the other's work and both had to agree that all was in perfect order before the piece was accepted and checked off. Each man had to account to a guard before he could go to work. The system was foolproof. Now only the ultimate steps remained, the final checks, the fueling, and at the very last, the placement of the tiny spacemonk in his specially designed carrier. "Let's go," Gee-Gee said. They mounted the elevator and were whisked upward to the final stage. Gee-Gee picked up his walkie-talkie from the rack. "Do you read me, Dick?" "Go ahead, Gee-Gee." "Tell Jerry to go through checkoff." Rick and Gee-Gee stood on the ramp and looked down at the ridiculously tiny wings and watched the control surfaces move in response to Jerry's gentle touch on the controls within the blockhouse. The drone control was working perfectly. Rick felt a surge of pride. This particular part of Pegasus was his. The two went into the confined space in the nose. It was circular, the structural members rising to a near-peak overhead. A radar unit blocked out the tip of the nose cone. Under the unit a heavy steel channel ran down to the side of the drone control. Fixed to the channel by heavy springs was a tiny chair, complete with straps. The chair was festooned with wires, unconnected for the moment. The wires terminated in instruments that would sense every action, every response of the spacemonk's body. The chair channel was pivoted, so the monk would always be upright. At Gee-Gee's order, Jerry Lipton ran through the check procedures again. This time Rick and Gee-Gee carefully watched the functioning of each servomotor. Finally Gee-Gee announced that he was satisfied. Next step was to check the spacemonk's instruments' circuits. Rick picked up a tiny stethoscope. It would be taped to the monk's body, held tightly to his heart. He traced the circuit to where it disappeared into the oscillator switch, then took the walkie-talkie. "Display on? Checking the stethoscope." "Go ahead," Earle replied. Rick held it to his own heart for a few minutes, then tapped on the bell with his forefinger. "Looks good on the display," Dick's voice came back. "What did you hit it with--a hammer?" "Finger," Rick said. "Let's take a temperature next." He found the thermocouple that would be attached to the marmoset's body, traced the circuit to the oscillator, then called, "Watch my own body heat." He tucked the sensing element under his armpit. "Hotter than a pistol," Dick said. "Why? Do I have a fever?" "Not unless you're a monkey. Next?" "Sphygmomanometer. And don't worry about the pronunciation. The blood-pressure cuff." He traced the circuit, then inflated the rubber and fabric cuff. "You just had heart failure," Dick reported.