Red gouts of flame, as big as a pin-head, as big as a shirt-button, as big as—damn the fogging—up! No, no it was the mushrooms, not the fogging; you could count them, like puffs of gunsmoke along a firing-line stippling the Atlantic seaboard, now branching, riddling westward—others drifting eastward from the Pacific as though groping toward a pre-planned rendezvous.
Buzzzz! Buzzzz!
He would answer. There would be the sound of another man's voice and that would make it all real. If he silenced the buzzer and listened to the voice it would be real and not a final training-film; the films would be over, the lectures over, the flight-tests over, the eliminations over and he and Streeter chosen and Streeter dead and buried at Space and now he was alone up in Vanguard-I....
Vanguard-I was "up" and Earth was "down" and both were real. Beyond the buzzing, both would be real.
The strong young voice was an old voice as it answered the buzzing, as it gave sound to words for the UHF's panel-mike.
"Home Plate, Home Plate, this is Mrs. Grundy, over..."
"Mrs. Grundy this is Home Plate. Are you reading? Are you ready for a circus or is all your money gone? Over..."
"Ready for a circus. Regret delay in acknowledging. I—was in Observation, over."
"Mrs. Grundy, your Daddy-o wants to talk to you so bye bye baby...."
General Knight himself. Knight himself to talk to him ... so it was that bad.