"All the same, I think I'll go down and question the troops. Don't leave without me." He clambered out onto the catwalk, leaving the air lock open. The sun was riding higher every minute. In a little over an hour, he'd be a thousand miles away--vertically. The knot in his stomach began to form again. He wasn't scared, exactly; he kept telling himself "excited" was a nicer word. The inspection forms signed, Mac held a short interrogation with the crew chief. The grizzled lieutenant, commissioned because of his long experience and responsibilities, gave _Valier_ a clean bill of health. Each engine of the booster stage had been fired separately, before dawn. A cubic foot of mercury seemed to roll from Mac's shoulders as he saw Logan and Ruiz lounging at the bottom of the lift; there wasn't anything to worry about. He recalled feeling the tension before the other three flights, then chided himself. _Ya, ya, scared-y cat. Well, why not? It's a helluva risk every time you make a shot, in spite of all the propaganda. Hooey; if you didn't know everything's O.K., you wouldn't be getting ready to make the shot. Yeah, but you never can tell_----He stopped his inward battle and forced some spring into his step as he moved toward Logan and Ruiz. "I've tried my best to abort this big bug, but I can't find anything amiss." "That's Granny MacNamara for you," jibed Logan. "Always trying to find fault." He winked at Ruiz and rubbed his hands together. "Well--tennis, anyone?" Mac knew without asking that Logan, for all his apparent indifference, had painstakingly gone over every phase of the flight, checking distribution, radar, final instructions from Operations, weather, _et al_. Ruiz, as usual, watched and took notes as Logan gathered data. * * * * * At minus fifteen minutes, the trio was in the dome, checking personal equipment, while outside, the scaffolding ponderously slid away, section by section. There was little time for soliloquies of _to go, or not to go_; within the quarter-hour, Captain Ruiz and Majors MacNamara and Logan would be in readiness for the final count-down. With the emergency bail-out equipment checked, the men busied themselves on another continuity test of the myriad circuits spread like a human neural system throughout the ship. All relays, servo systems and instrument leads were in perfect condition as expected, and the trio was settled comfortably in acceleration couches with minutes to spare. Logan contacted Ground Control a few seconds after the minus-three minute signal, informing all and sundry that Gridley could fire when ready. MacNamara sighed, thinking that if Logan's humor wasn't exactly original, it was surely tenacious. The ship was brought to dim half-life at minus one minute by Logan's agile fingers, and as the final countdown rasped in his headset, Mac felt his innards wrestle among themselves.