For a while it lighted up miles of rolling plain with its glare, and sent its thunder out to crash against distant hills. Then it was gone beyond heavy clouds, leaving only a smear of light above and a hollow, boiling rumble, muted by distance. In the thin, cold air above the clouds the rocket pointed its sharp nose eastward. It raced across the sky, a blue streaking and a stuttering scream. It crossed a nation with amazing speed and moved over the Atlantic. In an instant the moon and the stars were gone and the rocket was looking at the sun. Clear morning fled away in fear of this flaming beast and it was noon within minutes after sunrise. In an hour the night returned, the stars and the moon with it. * * * * * "Brother, we're in!" cried Pfc. Walter Jones, in the head of the rocket. "Boy, the babes'll mob us after this. Real big shots, that's us. The men in the moon! Hah!" "If we get back," Pvt. Robert Moore shouted over the roar. "Remember, we gotta get back yet." "Chicken!" shouted Jones. "Chicken's what you are!" "Oh yeah? So what happens to them guys what went before?" "Nuts to that," Jones sneered. "I hear they's a lot of places up in space we don't know nothin' about, where there's maybe a lot of nice babes and buildings made out of gold and stuff like that." "Scientists don't go much for babes," Moore said. Jones kicked back in his seat, roaring laughter. "Hah! Don't kid yourself, son. Anyway, so what? So they get a chance to be kings, or somethin', on account of being from Earth. What do they do? They stay an' be kings, natch'!" "It ain't for me," said Moore, moodily. "I know babes on good ol' Earth. An' who wants to be king?" "That's what I'm tellin' you," Jones shouted. "We ain't got no worry at all. All we gotta do is not let them guys up there sidetrack us." "I hope you're right," said Moore. They fell silent, looking down at the reeling Earth. On the ground, two hundred miles below, at every tracking and control station around the world, men worked without pause, trying to make their tired minds outrace a speeding rocket. Night side and day side, messages flashed through the ether. They reported in: position, time, corrections made, passing the rocket quickly, from one to another like a hot potato. On its last lap around the world before flinging itself moonward, the rocket screamed across the much worn boot of Italy. It climbed swiftly up the sky of the Holy Land and plunged down in the east, drawing a blue pencil line across the heavens that faded slowly. At last it turned upward, and breathing streamers of fire and light, shot into airless space, a silver arrow gone from the bow and dead on its mark. "It sure seems quiet," said Moore. They looked through the glassite port into the great distances. "Quiet, and empty." "Yeah!" "Do you feel different?" Jones asked suddenly. "I don't know. Maybe. In a way." "Like you can think a lot better?" "Something like that," Moore said.