Edward MacNamara was as familiar with the Valier as he was with the tip of his nose. He had been on the scene when Dan Burke test-hopped the third stage, had made improvements and re-routing jobs, and had memorized every serial number of every bearing that went into Valier. As Flight Engineer, he was supposed to.
With Johnny Ruiz helping a little and hindering a little, he finished his tour of the cargo sections and grinned his approval to a muscular loading technician. "They can button her up, sergeant. I couldn't do a better job myself." It was a compliment of the highest order, and they both knew it.
Riding the tiny lift down to ground level, MacNamara stopped them every ten feet or so to circle the catwalks. He noticed Ruiz's impatience about halfway down. "No hurry, Johnny. I don't want another Wyld on our hands." He knew he shouldn't have said it, but it slipped out anyway. Everyone tried to forget the Wyld disaster, particularly the flight personnel. The Wyld, one of the first ships to be built, had made only two orbits before being destroyed. Observers stated that a cargo hatch had somehow swung open when the Wyld was only a thousand feet in the air. At any rate, the pilot reported damage to one second-stage fin and tried to brake his way down. The Wyld settled beautifully, tilted, then fell headlong. The resultant explosion caused such destruction that, had there not been a number of men in orbit and waiting for supplies, the project might have been halted, "temporarily." It was generally conceded that a more thorough preflight could have prevented the Wyld's immolation.
Ruiz was noticeably quieter during the remainder of the inspection. The external check completed, MacNamara strapped a small flashlight to his wrist and began the internal inspection, jokingly called the autopsy.
An hour and over a hundred and fifty feet later, MacNamara wheezed as he swung over the bulkhead at the base of Valier's third and top stage. His aching limbs persuaded him to take a breather. After all, his complete inspection of the day before really made a final preflight unnecessary, and passing near the frigid oxygen tanks was a day's work in itself. He listened to the innumerable noises around and below him. The clicks and hums near him meant that Ruiz, having given up following him, was checking out the flight controls, with power on only in the top stage. From below came a vibrational rushing noise, nearly subsonic, which told him of the fueling operation. He thought of the electrical relays governing the fuel input and shuddered. He violently disliked the idea of having hot wires near fuel of any kind, and rocket fuel in particular.
MacNamara swept his light over his wrist watch. Fifteen after. Logan should be along soon, he thought, and hastened to finish checking the conduits, servos, pumps and hydraulic actuators below the cabin level. This done, he crawled up the final ladder to the cabin, or "dome."
"Well," cried a cheerful voice, "if it isn't our grimy Irishman."
MacNamara shook the sweat from his brow and muttered, "Irishman, is it? How about 'Logan'? That's a good Scandinavian name."
"How about Logan? He's great, as usual. Just look at me, Mac. What a specimen!" Logan, the inevitable optimist, bounced out of his acceleration couch and spread his arms wide as if to show the world what a superman he, Carl Logan, was. The gesture and its intimations made MacNamara smile. Logan wasn't much over five feet tall, and his flight suit made him look like a bald pussycat. His small physique covered a fantastic set of reflexes, however, and Logan's sense of humor was a quality of utmost importance. He hadn't an enemy in the world. His enemy was out of this world by definition; Logan wanted to conquer space and, so far, was doing just that.