* * * * * Lieutenant Colonel Melrose looked weatherbeaten. His graying hair was pulled here and there like a rag mop that's dried dirty--stiff. He had a freshly lit cigarette between his lips. He grinned nervously when he saw me, butted the cigarette, said in a thin voice, "This is it, Anders. Ship goes up in twenty minutes." "I know," I said. He poked another cigarette at his lips. He said, "What?" in a startled tone. "Nothing," I said. "All right, I'll get ready." He lit the cigarette, took a puff that made the smoke do a frenetic dance around his nostrils. He jabbed it at an ashtray, bobbed his head in a convulsive movement, said, "Righto!" They strapped me in. Pop came to the open hatch. He stuck his head in, grinned, said, "Hi, guy," softly. There was something in his eyes. The Doll had told him how I hate sour notes. "How's the Doll, Pop?" I forced myself to say it. "Swell, Ed. Just got a call from her. On her way out here to see you take off. Looks like she won't make it now though." I didn't say anything. His eyes went down to the wallet I had propped up on my knees. The wallet was open, celluloid window showing. Inside the window was the Doll's picture. "Tell her that, Pop," I said. "Yeah, guy. Luck." They shut the hatch. There was no doubt about the takeoff. If one thing was perfected in the XXE-1 it was that. The ship rose like the mercury in a thermometer on a hot day in July. I took it slow to fifty thousand feet. "Fifty thousand," I said into the throat mike. "Hear you, Anders." Melrose's voice. "Smooth," I said. "Radar on me?" "On you, Anders." I let the ship have a little head. This job used the clutch of a tax collector's claws for fuel. It just hooked itself on the nothing around us and yanked--and there we were. One hundred thousand. "Double that," I said into the mike. "Yeah, Anders. How is it?" "Haven't yet begun. Radar still on me?" I heard a nervous laugh. _He_ was nervous. "The General--General Hotchkiss just said something, Anders. He--ha, ha--he said you're on plot like stitches in a fat lady's hip. Ha, ha! He's got _us_ all in stitches. Ha, ha!" _Ha, ha!_ This was it. I released my grip on the accelerator control, yet it slide up. They say you can't feel speed in the air unless there's something relative within vision to tip you off. They're going to have to revise that. You can not only feel speed you can reach out and break hunks off it--in the XXE-1, that is. I shook my head, took my eyes off the instruments and looked down at the Doll on my lap. "Melrose?" "Hear you, Anders." "This is it. Reaching me on radar still?" "Naturally." "All right." This was it. This was where the other four ships like the XXE-1--the radio controlled models--had disintegrated. This was where it happened, and they didn't come back anymore. I sucked in oxygen and let the accelerator control go over all the way.