Weight, One Ton
Rick had no time to think. He reacted. He pulled off the jacket he had worn against the chill of the desert night, and rolled it tightly. He dropped to the deck and stretched flat on his back, the jacket tucked under the back of his head and neck.
He put his hands flat on the deck and sensed the increasing shudder of the great rocket. It was building thrust! Fuel poured into the combustion chamber and fantastically hot exhaust gases flared from the motor exhaust. And with each passing second thrust built up inside the motor chamber.
When the thrust exceeded the rocket's weight, Pegasus would take off!
He knew it wouldn't be long. Seconds more.
The entire rocket screamed as vibration ran in torturing waves through its metal skeleton and skin. It passed the point of discomfort and became unbearable. Rick rocked his head from side to side, as though to get rid of the shattering howl, but it tore at his head, at his stomach, at his very skin.
He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again he saw that Prince Machiavelli had moved, downward. The powerful springs that held his little chair were lengthening.
Air-borne!
Rick became conscious of weight. He was being pressed into the metal deck by a mighty hand. It was hard to breathe.
Pegasus was not designed to accommodate humans. No attention had been paid to limits of human endurance. It was all right for the marmoset; his spring chair would take up much of the G forces. But Rick had no padding at all, except for the thin jacket under his head. He had no support but the metal deck, and before this was over his body would be terribly distorted as forces many times gravity rammed him relentlessly into the metal.
In spite of the horrifying scream of the rocket and the increasing pressure, his mind was clear. The rocket was programmed to reach twelve G during first-stage flight—twelve times the force of gravity!
First-stage flight would last slightly over three minutes. By then, Pegasus would be nearly thirty miles up.
The pain began, the pain of tortured muscles and organs pressed slowly, inexorably toward the deck as acceleration built up. Rick wanted to turn over, at least to change the direction of pain, but he couldn't even do that. He was spread-eagled on the deck now, his muscles unable to move his increased weight.
Consciousness began to slip from him, and he fought against it. He had to remain alive! He was going to!
For a brief moment he succeeded, then the grayness moved in like an all-encompassing curtain.
Pegasus climbed into the blue sky, arrow-straight, still accelerating. The seconds ticked away. For an instant, the accelerometer hovered at twelve G, and slipped toward thirteen.
Rick was five feet, ten inches tall, and his weight was a constant hundred and sixty pounds. The rocket reached maximum acceleration, 12.6g, and for that instant Rick weighed 2,016 pounds—slightly over one ton!
Then . . . all burnt, fuel exhausted, the first-stage motor stopped.
The explosive bolts went into action. There was an explosion that made itself felt in the skin of the rocket, and the grinding of metal as the first stage detached.
Rick's battered brains swam back to consciousness. For an instant he couldn't recall what had happened, then he realized he had survived the first-stage acceleration. He was in bad shape, he knew. The salt taste in his mouth was blood, and he was breathing bubbles of blood through internal damage in his nose or lungs. But there wasn't time for inventory. The aching silence was lost as the second stage fired. Acceleration built again. This time Rick slipped into the enveloping grayness almost at once. The acceleration was less, and the time of burning was less. Had he not been put through the torture of first-stage acceleration he could have taken the second stage without more than great discomfort. But now he had little resistance left.
He came back to consciousness again as the second stage cut off. In the welcome silence he found time to be thankful he was still alive, even though it might be a temporary thing. He looked up at Prince Machiavelli through bloodshot eyes and couldn't see the little monk. For a terrible instant he thought he was blind, then he saw a glimmer of light through the port. It was the sun. The rocket was in the wrong position to catch it directly, however, and the atmosphere was far too thin to scatter light.
He heard the second stage explode off and tried to brace himself for the final acceleration. He made himself think. He was in a spot, a very bad spot. The Earthman had sabotaged the flight. But how? The first two stages had worked. Even if the third-stage motor never fired, the rocket was high enough to prove out the project objective.
There was only one answer. Even to his fogged brain it was clear that the drone control had been sabotaged by the Earthman. Otherwise cutting the signal wire would have kept the board from showing green. Somehow, the signal wire had been bypassed, to keep the operators from knowing the drone control was inoperative.
The final stage fired and acceleration began once more. Rick fought it. He tried to ignore the pain of the crushing, distorting weight and tried to keep his mind on the problem. He failed.
Pegasus was no longer traveling straight out from earth now. The gimbaled rocket motor swung slightly to one side and the rocket's trajectory flattened. As it swung on the new course, sunlight glanced in through the open port and into Rick's open, sightless eyes.
It was raw sunlight, unfiltered by the atmosphere. It was sunlight no human had ever seen before. Even in his semiconscious state Rick realized the danger and managed to shut his eyes. The sunlight seemed to burn through the lids, to scorch the insides of his head. Then the rocket moved along its new trajectory slightly and the merciless beam shifted, blazed on the sketch of a knight in armor impaling Pegasus with his lance.
Rick realized dimly that the terrible light was gone. He opened his eyes and saw the spacemonk. It was as though someone had drawn layer after layer of gauze between the boy and the marmoset, but he understood that Prince Machiavelli was still alive, and in far better shape than he was.
The vibrating, paralyzing scream of the rocket suddenly cut off. Silence flooded in.
End of burning for stage three!
Pegasus had altered course slightly, in response to its pre-set mechanisms. Now it was on a course that would take it to the maximum point into space, but at the same time would keep it over Scarlet Lake. For a few minutes more it would coast on its momentum, slowing constantly until it reached maximum altitude. Then, briefly, it would hesitate.
Momentum used up, earth's gravity would again assume control. The rocket would slip back, tail first, slowly, slowly, then faster and faster, beginning the long, final plunge to the ground.